Hungry for the Word of God (Amos 8:11)

One day, my cousin wrote to me saying: ‘Please, I’d like you to help me with my spiritual life. I used to think that just having a job was enough to make me feel at peace. But the emptiness inside me just keeps on lingering. 

I need God; I need your help.’ That letter weighed heavily on my mind. I thought about it and decided I would reply by telling her that in our hearts there is a place that no one else can occupy – not even a spouse, let alone a job. That ‘seat’ belongs to God and to God alone. If He is not sitting there, no one else can take His place, and His absence will be felt. I could see how many people need God, despite appearances to the contrary. Many are spiritually sick, thirsting for the truth, hungry for the Word of God (Amos 8:11). They are prisoners of sin, which enslaves them. They are not clothed in the armour of God (Ephesians 6:11). Many people are suffering. The tragedy is that some do not recognise it. It is as if they had an illness gnawing away at them but were unaware of it. Many are in a state of spiritual misery and do not realise it. They merely feel, as a consequence, a profound lack of happiness. Still others know that their lives are a disaster, but do not know how to escape it. It is as if they were drug addicts who can no longer do without drugs. On the one hand they want to break free from sin; on the other, those very sins draw them in and bind them. There are also people who want to follow God, who want to get involved in the Church, but do not know how to go about it. Will there be anyone to guide and help them?

When we organise couples’ days – usually once a quarter in the ‘Word of God’ groups – at the end of the retreat, the married couples are so happy that they would like these gatherings to take place every month; because they feel their married life has been renewed. Partners who have come alone regret that their spouse is not with them to savour the beauty of placing God at the centre of their marriage. Some people decide to invite couples they are friends with to the next day. Jesus tells us: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was in prison and you visited me, naked and you clothed me… Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom’ (Mt 25:31–46). Whilst it is true that this refers to the material things we give to our brothers and sisters, it is also true that this passage applies to the spiritual life. Indeed, spiritual hunger is the most excruciating, for spiritual death leads to hell and eternal suffering. Are you ready to help Jesus, who suffers spiritually in these people? ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me’ (Mt 25:40). As Pope Benedict XVI says, ‘the greatest work of charity is precisely evangelisation, that is to say, the “service of the Word”.’ There is no action more beneficial – and therefore more charitable – towards one’s neighbour than breaking the bread of God’s Word, sharing the Good News of the Gospel with them, and bringing them into a relationship with God: evangelisation is the highest and most complete promotion of the human person’. Isaiah had heard the Lord’s message asking him: ‘Whom shall I send?’ Who, then, will go for us? He replied: ‘Here am I, Lord; send me’ (Isaiah 6:8).

I used to believe that the task of evangelisation fell solely to priests, religious or catechists. I looked down on anyone who tended to speak to others about God. I told myself that it was enough simply to live a good life, even if in secret. But Pope Paul VI, in his letter on evangelisation, *Evangeli nuntiandi*, says that however beautiful one’s witness of life may be (which is essential), it is not enough. The Good News of Christ must be proclaimed with words. Many people have often believed that it was enough simply to seek personal holiness. It is true that the witness of one’s life leads others to God, but it is not enough. The proclamation of the Good News is the other side of the coin when it comes to evangelisation. Pope Paul VI himself says that the Church exists to evangelise. I am a member of the Church and my life of faith is inconceivable without evangelisation. Moreover, Pope John Paul II, in *Redemptoris missio*, says that faith grows when it is shared. How many Christians today are suffering from a decline in faith! To rekindle it, we must share what little we have left, the Pope tells us. This also means that if I do not share it, my faith becomes stunted. We are disciples of Christ and we must live like our Master, who came to give us divine life. We have this life through our Baptism, which makes us priests, prophets and kings. A prophet, in the Church’s sense, is not primarily one who foretells the future, but one who speaks in God’s name, who proclaims the Word of God. Now, through our Baptism, we are all prophets.

Glory to God, for there are many people I know—mostly young people—who have a renewed zeal for evangelisation within them. For several years now, I have witnessed the zeal for evangelisation shown by young people in the ‘Word of God’ groups. But we must not let this flame die down; we must keep it alive. We must not grow weary. Spiritual dryness can also affect evangelisation. We must even make further progress in evangelisation (1 Thessalonians 4:1). Our evangelism, however small it may be, if done according to God’s will, will strengthen our faith, and Jesus will be pleased: ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom’. Let us prepare ourselves wholeheartedly for this year’s major ‘Word of God’ retreats.

Henri Bayemi