“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.” This simple admonition from the letter of St. James presents a challenge to all of us.
“Be doers of the word.” We hear the Word of God in the scriptures and church teaching. What do we hear? We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. To do this word means that you have a life of prayer. To do this word means that you attend Mass regularly. To do this word means that you receive the sacraments with reverence and care. To do this word means that you form your thinking, speaking and acting by the values of the Gospel and not the values of this world. Do we do the Word that we hear?
What do we hear? We hear that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. To do this word means that we recognize the dignity of all human persons and see every person as a brother or sister to us because we are all created by the same God. To do this word means that we repudiate all racism and prejudice. To do this word means that we not accept public discourse that dehumanizes immigrants and that promotes policies intended to inflict harm on them. To do this word means that we are persons of forgiveness – forgiving others as God has forgiven us. To do this word means that we reject violence, vengeance and retribution, and seek to be persons of reconciliation and peace in our world. To do this word means to serve our brothers and sisters in need in both charity and justice. We serve their needs in charity when we offer help to alleviate their immediate need. We serve their needs in justice when we change public policies that perpetuate poverty. Do we do the Word that we hear?
For many of us, it is a struggle to be faithful to the word that we hear and to live that word in our daily lives. This is why we need the help of prayer and of the sacraments (particularly reconciliation/confession and the Eucharist/communion). Through prayer and the sacraments, we become attuned to the Word of God so that we can hear it and do it.