The document, “The Priest, Teacher of the Word…” The Preached Gospel in the Church is not just a message but a salvific Action.

(Prof. Jose Vidamor Yu, Manila)

The priest as the teacher of the Word has the vocation and ministry primarily to proclaim the Word of God. The mandate does not come from him but by God who desires to speak to His people. Thus, the document highlights that “the Gospel preached by the Church is not just a message but a divine and life-giving experience for those who believe, hear, receive and obey the message.” It is not the priest who addresses the people and invites them to come to faith but God who touches the heart of every individual through the preached Word. The ministers of the Word of God are instruments of God’s saving action.

Preached Word as Power

The preached Word of God is divinely inspired. It is God who comes to intervene in human history and talks to man in an intimate manner. It is through preaching and proclamation of this Word that God meets his people and invites them to believe. Believing in the Word is power for man’s salvation. Thus, all preaching should be strengthened by the Word of God because it is salvific and the outpouring of God’s grace. Dei Verbum mentions that “such is the power and force of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor.” (DV 21) The Church continues to exist through the power of the Word of God proclaimed and lived. The continuous preaching as a primary missionary vocation of the priest strengthens the faith of those who listen. Such preaching will be “able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32)

The power of the preached Word is connected with the ministry the priest received from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The priest, in the course of his ministry, realizes that gift and the gift of faith that is elicited through the preached Word of God. Faith comes from hearing, and it is hearing the Word of God. (cf Rom 10:17) The authority received by the priest and his prophetic task of explaining, proclaiming the Word of God comes from power of the Holy Spirit that builds faith among the listeners. The Word of God brings about the power to transform the minds and hearts of the hearers.

By the preached Word of God, the faithful realizes that God constantly communicates with His people through the Church. The Word is full of authority and power to make the desiring listeners fill their hearts with wonder and awe. Scriptures provide us the accounts of how the disciples of Christ were astonished on the manner of taught about the Kingdom of God. Paul VI describes Christ accomplishing this proclamation of the kingdom of God through the untiring preaching of a word which, it will be said, has no equal elsewhere: Here is a teaching that is new, and with authority behind it. Christ won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips. There has never been anybody who has spoken like him. His words reveal the secret of God, His plan and His promise, and thereby change the heart of man and his destiny. (cf EN 11)

Preached Word as God’s Presence

In every celebration of the Liturgy, the priest is united with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit manifests His abiding presence in the minister who is always in communion with Christ’s saving act especially in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Every time that the Word of God is preached, the priest who acts in persona Christi, allows God to be felt and present among the midst of the Church that gathers to celebrate Him. It is in the name of the ordained minister that God speaks to his people. It is the will of God that men should have access to the mystery of the Trinity and become sharers in the divine nature. God speaks through human words his divine plan of salvation as He spoke through the prophets many times. Man realizes God’s presence in the Church through its ministers and the spoken word.

As the priest acts in persona Christi, the power to make God present among the people flows from the identity of the priest. This identity is a participation in the priesthood of Christ. When the priest preaches the Word of God, he becomes a sacramental image of Christ present among His people. It is believed that Christ speaks in the Church and for the Church because the Church is always the sacrament of God’s presence in the world. The sacramental actions of the priest are the continuation of the mission of Christ in this world because the life and the ministry of the priest are connected with the saving presence and identity of Christ in this world. The priests become authentic ministers of the Word of God by virtue of their consecration of their mission to make evident the presence of Christ in the world especially through the sacraments.

The Eucharistic celebration is the summit of the Christian life. Christ is present in every gathering the faithful do in His name. (cf Mt 18:20) He is also present in the person of the minister in “nomine Christi et nomine Ecclesiae.” He is also present in the Word because it is God Himself who speaks whenever the Word of God is proclaimed. Christ is also present in the species under the sacramental forms of bread and wine in a unique and real manner. The Word of God gathers the community of faith and enabling them to express in their lives and to others the mystery of Christ as well as the real nature of the true Church. (cf 2)

Preached Word as Life

The Word of God is life. The priest the duty to preach so that the people of God may be guided towards holiness of life. The Word of God that is preached encourages the Christian to be committed to Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

In the Sacred Scriptures, God is seen as a God who desired man to live. God spoke through chosen men and spoke in human fashion in order to effectively communicate to them everything that He desired in His divine plan. In the New Testament, we know that it was Christ’s intention to build the Kingdom of His Father here on earth and He spoke to them in synagogues, in personal encounter and in parables. John Paul II exhorts the priests to convey God’s Will to the faithful the way Christ did to his disciples in His time. He says that “priests exist and act in order to proclaim the Gospel to the world and to build up the Church in the name and in the person of Christ as the head and shepherd.” (PDV 15) The priest however has to build a fundamental relationship with Jesus Christ in order to be an effective preacher of the Good News.

Each time that the Word of God is preached, the believers of Christ recall the life of the Savior who, in the form of man and in the flesh had humbly took upon a human nature liable to sufferings and death so that He might consecrate all people through His own Blood. The preached Word of God powerfully allows the Christian to remember Christ’s promise to give life to those who believe in Him. Those who sincerely accept the Word of God finds life and gathers in the name of Christ also seeks for the coming of the Kingdom that will be realized in the community of believers. Believers gather to build the kingdom of God here on earth and live it. They continuously gather in Jesus’ name to be witnesses to the life-giving Word of God. They become sharers of the values of the Kingdom, being evangelized and becoming evangelizers in turn.

The Church holds in high esteem those missionaries who courageously preached the Word of God in mission lands and died during the exercise of their sacred duties. The life giving power of the Word made them witnesses to Christ and bore abundant fruit. Listening to the Word of God allows the believer to open himself in the life of the Spirit. Anchored in the preached Word of God, the Spirit leads us as it were a firsthand experience with Jesus, the Word of life: they saw him with their eyes, heard him with their ears, touched him with their hands (cf. 1 Jn 1:1).

Preached Word as Community Building

The Word of God that is preached builds the Christian Community-the Church. It is through the preached Word of God that man learns about God’s plan of salvation and His intention of forming the Christian community. It is the first task of the priests as co-workers of the bishops to preach the Good News and allow them to realize that God’s task of salvation transpires within the context of community life. No one can be saved who has not yet first believed. Through the proclamation of the Word, the whole community of the faithful receives a special anointing from God which secures them from error in matters of belief. Therefore, it is by faith that the community of the faithful emerges and grows. (cf PO 12) The formation of the Christian faith community is the fruit of the participation of the priest in the prophetic office of Christ. The preached Word of God generates a community of witnesses of God’s unconditional love. The community of witnesses gather themselves offering to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips praising his name. (cf PO 12)

As preaching the Word of God becomes the first missionary task of the priest, the sense of communion among priests with their bishops which is an essential element of the Church’s communion should not be neglected. The priest who preaches the Word of God is attached to their bishops in the spirit of cooperation. The union or brotherhood of priests with their bishops should be an effective starting point towards effective preaching of the Word of God with the intention of community building among the faithful. Vatican II says that “no priest is sufficiently equipped to carry out his own mission alone and as it were single-handed.” (PO 7)

The community gathered before the preached Word of God is a community of hope. Every liturgical celebration hopefully builds up those who are in the Church to make them a holy temple of the Lord, a dwelling-place for God in the spirit. The liturgy marvelously increases the ability of the community to preach Christ and show forth the Church as a sign up among the nations. (cf SC 2) It is through the gathered community listening to the Word of God and celebrating the sacraments that the faithful becomes united with Christ in His passion and glorification in a real and authentic way. It makes a difference when a community gathers before the preached Word of God because in it there is a real sharing in the body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread which fosters communion with Christ and communion with one another. (cf LG 7)

Preached Word as Hope

The Word of God that is preached is the source of man’s hope. Man hopes in God’s promises and trusts in His word. The psalmist provides this attitude that, “the word of the Lord is faithful and all his works to be trusted.” (Psalm 32:4) The listeners of the Word finds hope in the preached Word of God in the liturgy as well as the preacher of the Word perceives the power in the Word he preaches. The document rightly says that “the proclamation of the Gospel by the sacred ministers of the Church is, in a certain sense, a participation in the salvific character of the Word itself, not only because they speak of Christ, but because they proclaim the Gospel to their hearers with that power to call which comes from their participation in the consecration and mission of the incarnate Word of God.”

Preaching the Word of God gives hope to the Church. The participation of the ministerial priesthood in the priesthood of Christ becomes the basis and opportunity to bear witness to the Word they proclaim. Vatican II reminds us that priests should always bear witness to Christ and give an answer to everyone who asks a reason for the hope of an eternal life which is theirs. The ministerial priest forms and rules the priestly people and effects the sacraments of hope especially the Eucharistic sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of the people. (cf LG 10)

Hope is God’s gift to the Church through the “preached word.” The Church has the vocation to read the signs of the times. She has also the responsibility to provide the answer of the ever recurring questions which men ask about the meaning of life here on earth and the life that is to come. (GS 4) Through God’s spoken word, man understands and relates his yearnings, aspirations and hopes with what God desires in his life. The confusions brought about by the crisis of technology, secularism, and other forms of uncertainties demand assurance in man when he dreams of true human and social transformation. Constant listening of the Word of God brings about the sense of hope and renewal which is both God’s gift and man’s response to God’s benevolent grace.

The Word of God demands hopeful evangelizers. Evangelizers should not only be proclaimers but also witnesses of the Word. Effective evangelization demands heralds who are experts of humanity which means that they should journey with men and women in their joys and sorrows, fears and anxieties, despairs and hopes in their lives. New evangelization needs new evangelizers. (cf PDV 2) The thrust of the new evangelization is demanding and it also requires hope shown through a developed personal prayer. Through personal encounter with the Lord can an evangelizer draw his zeal to proclaim the Word of God. Authentic prayer implies personal conversion, participation in the sacraments and pastoral service on the part of the new evangelizer.