In 2019, Pope Francis declared that, beginning in 2020, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time each year was to be observed as the Sunday of the Word of God. In instituting this celebration, the Holy Father noted the importance of the Word of God to our identity as Christians:
The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and sacred Scripture is essential to our identity as Christians. Without the Lord who opens our minds to them, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures in depth. Yet the contrary is equally true: without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible. Hence, Saint Jerome could rightly claim: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, Prologue: PL 24,17B). (Aperuit illis, 1)
As we continue our reflections on the various aspects of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we acknowledge that what we can say about His heart has been revealed to us through the written Word of God, which enables us to be united more closely with the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. It is therefore fitting that we focus our reflection this week on the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart:
Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, have mercy on us.
The use of the word substantial is key. One of the definitions for substantial is to convey that something has a considerable importance, size, or worth. A person who wins the lottery can be considered to have a substantial amount of money. But this is not the definition that is being used here. Rather, substantial in this case coneys that something belongs to the same substance of something, not just its accidents. Those are philosophical terms, and we understand them best when we speak about the Eucharist. After the consecration at Mass, the bread and wine undergo a change of substance. They may look like bread and wine (accidents), but what they really are is the body and blood of Jesus. The substance of the Eucharist, what it is, is Jesus. So too with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The heart He had as a human being, while being fully human, was also fully divine, so it shares in the very same substance of the heart of the Word of God who has existed from all eternity in a communion of love with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
By extension, the words that Jesus spoke, which are given to us in the Gospels, are not merely human words. Rather, they come forth from that humanity being substantially united with His divinity. According to our Trinitatian theology, every action of God involved all three persons of the Trinity, so every word that we encounter in the Scriptures are not mere human words. Sure, they have been communicated through the instruments of human authors, but God Himself is the source of all. As such, the Word of God that we encounter when reading and listening to the Scriptures is substantially united to God Himself, so that we believe that when we hear His Word, He is truly speaking to us. Since the image of the heart connotes the love of God for us, every word that He speaks to us is from that love, and it is in an invitation to receive it with love, so as to be more fully united to the One who is love.