On Friday, February 22nd, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, who is the preacher of the pontifical household, gave the first in his series of Lenten meditations for the Holy Father and the Roman Curia. The theme for his series of meditations is the Word of God. The first message is entitled "Jesus Began to Preach".

The sacramentality of the word of God is revealed in the fact that sometimes it plainly works beyond the person's understanding, which can be limited and imperfect, it almost works by itself, "ex opera operata," as one says in theology.

When the prophet Elisha told Naaman the Syrian, who had come to him to be cured of leprosy, to wash seven times in the Jordan, Naaman replied indignantly, "Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed" (2 Kings 5:12)? Naaman was right: The rivers of Syria were undoubtedly better, they had more water; and yet, washing in the Jordan he was healed and his flesh became like that of a little child, something that would not have happened if had bathed in the great rivers of his country.

This is how it is with the word of God contained in Scripture. Among the nations and also in the Church there have been and there will be better books than some of the books of the Bible, more refined from a literary standpoint and religiously more edifying (just think of the "Imitation of Christ"), but none of them work as well as the most modest of the inspired books. There is, in the words of Scripture, something that acts beyond every human explanation; there is an evident disproportion between the sign and the reality that it produces, that makes one think, precisely, of the action of the sacraments.

Zenit provides a synopsis of his meditation, and you can read the entire meditation on Fr. Cantalemessa's Web site.

H2ONews also has a video summary of this first message. (Click here, if you are not able to see the video image.)

There is a also a link to Fr. Cantalamessa's First Meditation for Lent in the Resources for Lent section of the Web site.