Notes from the Hours: Light and Humility

In today's Office of Readings, we encounter the following antiphon between the psalms and the readings:

When we listen to Your word, our minds are filled with light.

It is the lowly heart that understands.

God's word does indeed fill our minds with light. In the Scriptures, God reveals Himself to us. He shows us Who He is (at least as much as we can understand) and what He has planned for our salvation. He explains how He prepared a people for Himself through the centuries, and then He tells us how He Himself came as a human being like us both to show us how to live in this world and then to die that we might live with Him eternally in Heaven. We learn how much God loves us and the lengths He is willing to go so that we might be all His for all time.

But to truly understand the Scriptures, we must humble ourselves. We must be open to God's word, allowing it to speak to us rather than imposing our preconceived notions upon it. What's more, we should ask God to guide us as we interact with His word that He may send the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit by which the Scriptures were inspired, to teach us what we need to know.

If we allow ourselves to be led, we will discover that we understand God's word more deeply than we ever thought we could, and even more importantly, we will meet God in it as He speaks to our hearts and fills our minds with His brilliant light.