“Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.”  God’s word gives us life and enables us to lead lives of love as never before.  When we encounter His word, it changes us and transforms us.  As we celebrate Word of God Sunday, I want to share from the life of St. Anthony, who we celebrated on January 17.  The Office of Readings that day featured a passage from the biography of St. Anthony written by St. Athanasius. We see how the word of God changed Anthony’s life forever…

When Anthony was about eighteen or twenty years old, his parents died, leaving him with an only sister. He cared for her as she was very young, and also looked after their home.  Not six months after his parents’ death, as he was on his way to church for his usual visit, he began to think of how the apostles had left everything and followed the Savior, and also of those mentioned in the book of Acts who had sold their possessions and brought the apostles the money for distribution to the needy. He reflected too on the great hope stored up in heaven for such as these. This was all in his mind when, entering the church just as the Gospel was being read, he heard the Lord’s words to the rich man: If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor–you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow Me.

It seemed to Anthony that it was God who had brought the saints to his mind and that the words of the Gospel had been spoken directly to him. Immediately he left the church and gave away to the villagers all the property he had inherited, about 200 acres of very beautiful and fertile land, so that it would cause no distraction to his sister and himself. He sold all his other possessions as well, giving to the poor the considerable sum of money he collected…

Wow!  What an awesome gift it would be if we could have the grace to respond to the word of God like St. Anthony did.  Let’s pray that we can be open to His word and allow it to change the way we live for His kingdom!

Open our minds and hearts Lord,
Fr. Jeremy