Each month, Pope Leo XIV offers a “Prayer Intention” reflecting his belief that we can change the world by praying together. For January 2026, he asks us to “nourish” our lives by deepening our appreciation of what it means to pray with the Word of God.
The Pope’s reference to “nourishment” takes us back to the language used in the scriptural text of Ezekiel 3:1-3, where the prophet is being called to proclaim God’s Word amongst the people:
The Lord said to me: “O mortal, eat what is offered to you;
eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.”
”So I opened my mouth”, says Ezekiel, “and God gave me the scroll to eat, saying
‘Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.’”
“Then I ate it”, says the prophet, “and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.”
In similar terms, Jeremiah 15:16 names the profound response he experiences in being open to receive God’s Word:
When your words came I devoured them. Your word was my delight
and the joy of my heart, for I was called by your Name.
To speak of “receiving God’s Word” into one’s life, is equivalent to speaking of “receiving Godself” into one’s life. It is about allowing oneself to be drawn into a relationship with God which creates a new identity and a transforming perspective on what matters in life.
From reading Deuteronomy 11:18ff we see that “eating” God’s Word is a symbolic way of naming God’s invitation to let the word fill our beings and influence all aspects of our lives:
You shall put these words of mine into your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.
God’s “Word” in our lives refers not only to scriptural texts found in Bibles, or on parchment rolled into scrolls. Rather, it is a whole way of life. It is supported, of course, by all that is held within the scriptural library of the biblical texts: the stories of people’s interaction with God, their prayers, their poetry, and their interpretations of how God has acted in their lives.
To claim that we live within a relationship nourished by the Word of God is like saying we live “in God” or “in Christ” as Paul does with the Corinthian Church in 2 Cor: 5:17. It is to live from within a stance of beloved belief, whether as individuals or as a community, that God means everything to them. They live committed to hearing and heeding, trusting and praying from with the hope God’s promised Word has progressively brought into their lives.
I will show you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches.
The unfolding of your word gives light and life to me.
Over one’s life praying with the Word of God has involved listening to the word proclaimed at Mass or in other settings of learning. Of course, it also comes from the kind of prayer one experiences within the sharing of family faith. Sometimes it does involve taking a Bible and selecting a reading from it to assist prayer. But in a broader sense, it is a conscious embracing of a loving relationship with God. This is why Paul’s letter to 2 Titus 1:14 encourages us to allow the Spirit within us to lead us into a partnership with God in prayer:
Guard the good treasure [of the word] entrusted to you,
with the help of God’s Spirit in you.
So too in Romans 10: 8, Paul gives a strong reminder that the treasured Word does not come forth from a distant God, but from within the very fabric of one’s own human being:
The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Then, to get to the heart of what it means to live in the presence of God, nourished by God’s Word, we need to heed the insistence of Peter, the forerunner of Pope Leo XIV, that God’s astounding Word for us as human beings is to be aware of God’s call for us to recognise our true identity as:
Sharers in the divine nature.
Believing that, we can take up Jesus’ invitation to find a permanent home in God.
Abide with me, and my Word will abide in you.
Each week in my ministry, among other Sisters and volunteers in the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel in North Sydney, I am with people who seem to be praying in awareness of their loving relationship with Jesus, who is God’s Word and Son. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition reveal him in those terms. He is the quintessential medium of God’s own Self-Revealing, as Section 4 of Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, a document promulgated on 18 November 1965, 60 years and one month ago states.
I sit with people who come and pray. Some place themselves in an atmosphere to help their prayer by lighting candles. A few pray with the help of a book or rosary beads. Many visit the tomb of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. They kneel or sit around it, touch it, kiss it, and some cry beside it.
Most come directly into the main chapel. They sit in silence and stillness, sometimes for hours. I sense they pray from within a life-embracing trust in a God whose Word they have heard proclaimed and broken open in many ways, and through the witness of many people over their lives. I suspect, too, that they pray from the benefit of having heard and joined in scriptural hymns which that have sustained their faith across the years, with occasional unbidden phrases to hum as a reminder of God’s word in Exodus 3:12 and elsewhere: “I am with you always.”
People seem to come from the need to be present to themselves in God, and to show gratitude to God for God’s Word experienced. As I sit with these people I learn from them. The Word of God seems alive in them. It has kept them alive, giving them a life and a purpose, helping them cope when their life situations are challenging.
I believe I witness here that the more one prays out of love for God, the more one experiences God’s Word revealed in life, largely through imitating Jesus’ life among us. I am learning personally that the more one prays, the better life becomes. I understand why Pope Leo XIV believes that we can change the world by praying together in and with God, who gives us our true identity.
Virginia M. Bourke rsj
Scripture passages: New Revised Standard Version of Holy Bible, Catholic Edition, Catholic Bible Press.