The Gospel is the book of the Lord’s life. It is meant to become the book of our life too.
It is meant to be grappled with rather than grasped – as we grapple with something that is on the brink of mystery.
It is meant to be received within us rather than simply read by us. Each of its words is spirit and life. In their freedom and nobility they are just waiting for our soul’s hunger for them to become part of us.
Living as they are, they are like that initial yeast which attacks our dough, ferments it and makes ‘it alive with a new kind of life.
The words in a human book are understood and pondered.
The words of the Gospel are experienced and endured.
We absorb the words of other books. The words of Gospel knead us change us and so to speak absorb us into their own being.
The words of the Gospel are miraculous. If they don’t transform us, it’s because we don’t ask them to. ‘But in each of Jesus’ phrases, in each example that he gives there is a staggering power that would awe, purify, and raise us from the dead, if only we acted with that immediate and complete obedience toward him that was shown by the paralytic or the centurion.
Venerable Madeleine Delbrel
Madeleine Delbrel (1964) was a French laywoman, writer and mystic devoted to caring for the poor and to evangelising culture.