Sunday of the Word of God

Next Sunday 21st January, the Third Sunday of the Year, is ‘Bible Sunday,’ the Sunday of the Word of God. There are a welter of materials available on The God Who Speaks website to help keep this day special. Pope Francis instituted this day in 2019 saying that it “is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God.” This “Sunday of the Word of God will thus be a fitting part of that time of the year when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to pray for Christian unity. This is more than a temporal coincidence: the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity. … The various communities will find their own ways to mark this Sunday with a certain solemnity. It is important, however, that in the Eucharistic celebration the sacred text be enthroned, in order to focus the attention of the assembly on the normative value of God’s Word” (Aperuit Illis 3).