By David Whitmarsh
What’s in a word?
Is it really just etymology, meaning, connotation, idiom, colloquialism, jargon, technicality, power dynamic, and personal, regional, cultural significance? Some words feel like a lot more than that to me.
Perhaps a better question is: what makes a word?
That answer is something more like muscles, breath, and thought. Or should we say matter, spirit, and life?
Ah, I’ve got it, Who is The Word?
“In the beginning was the Word” says the brilliant St. John.
King David (or the author of Psalm 33, but I prefer to think/thank David, for obvious reasons) said it this way: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”
Whichever words you choose, we know one thing at least, The Word spoke. What a wonderful reality. What a reality at all. If not for the Word that spoke and life was made, well, there are no words…
Word on the street is that this Jesus, The Word Incarnate, has something to say to us.
How do we hear it?
Pope Saint Gregory the Great knows that answer better than most. By the words of his life he inspired the conversion of Europe. He is called the bridge between the ancient and medieval world. He wrote the foundation that brilliant minds like Thomas Aquinas used to build our Church’s great intellectual tradition.
The first monk to become Pope, his homilies brought Lectio Divina out of the monasteries to the common man. He termed the phrase “servant of the servants of God” and his song its own genre of music. In addition to Gregorian chant, he found time to codify the traditional Latin Mass.
It is said that no Roman emperor did more to bring the average person of Rome up to a higher quality of life than Gregory the Great. He was so great, he earned the very word itself.
So how did Pope Saint Gregory hear The Word? By listening to Him everywhere and in all things. Yes, he was a master of the Scriptures, but he didn’t let the word stay dormant in the book.
In politics, worship, music, scripture, at play or at leisure, in war and in peace, yes, even at work: the Word is among us. Jesus speaks to us at all times. It’s our inheritance to soak in it like it’s a hot tub on our honeymoon. It’s our marinade, and we were made for it like a match in Heaven.
In other words, The Word is not just the book, The Word has a face.
Just like the little old French farmer who visited Jesus in the tabernacle everyday said, when St. John Vianney asked what he was doing there: “I look at Him, and He looks at me.”
Or perhaps, since this is an article on the Word, like St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18;
“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us to be transformed into the image of The Word.
David Whitmarsh is one of Tepeyac Leadership's new Career Progression Advisors. Contact him at david@holyworkmovement.com
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