"The priest was near death, his body surrendering to a long struggle with cancer. He had spent his entire life immersed in the Word of God. He loved to tell others how he had caught his love for the Bible from his parents, who had read him favorite stories at bedtime...
"What greater desire could any parents have for their children than to form a friendship with Christ that would grow and deepen throughout a lifetime—to live and die as this holy priest, rapt in God’s love to the end, a friendship discovered early in the home through the sharing of God’s Word. This is the wish the Church has for all God’s people, young and old.
Christ is the Word of God, in Scripture and Sacrament. As Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, teaches: "The church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as it has venerated the Body of the Lord, in that it never ceases, above all in the sacred liturgy, to partake of the bread of life and offer it to the faithful from the one table of the Word of God and the Body of Christ." (Dei Verbum, No. 21).
Dei Verbum (the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965, following approval by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,344 to 6. National Bible Week celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of this document. A Dogmatic Constitution is the most solemn form of teaching in the life of the church.
*Quoted from "Making the Word of God a Part of Your Home," a free downloadable resource courtesy of the USCCB. To read more or to download, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/national-bible-week/upload/word-at-home.pdf)
