On the feast of St Jerome, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter, Aperuit Illis, instituting the Sunday of the Word of God. It will be marked in January each year on the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
The Holy Father had proposed the idea at the conclusion of the Year of Mercy when he wrote: “a Sunday given over entirely to the word of God, so as to appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people.”
The document provides a summary of the Church’s teaching on Scripture and the place of Scripture within the Liturgy.
The Congregation for Divine Worship later published a note about the Sunday of the Word of God.
For more information, and for resources on Liturgy and Scripture, see the Liturgy Office’s site.
I hereby declare that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 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.
(Pope Francis, Aperuit Illis, 3)
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