Year of the Scripture
The Year 2020 marks the 1600th anniversary of the death of St. Jerome and marks the 10th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales have declared this year 2020 (beginning from the feast of St. Jerome on 30th September 2019) as the “The God Who Speaks: A Year of the Word” and deliberately chosen the theme The God who speaks in line with the spirit of the document, Verbum Domini.
The God who Speaks: A Year of the Word, accentuates the centrality of the word of God in the Church and our lives and highlights three aspects of celebrating, living and sharing the word. The word of God we celebrate in the liturgy, especially during the Mass, invites us to live it out and share it with others. In other words, we are invited to become ambassadors for the word through our words, lives and actions. Evangelisation is the result of a lived experience of the Word of God.
Our Diocese intends to celebrate this year at various levels, namely, diocesan, deanery, parish and personal. At the Diocesan level, there will be a Diocesan Scripture Day, Art exhibition and opportunity to visually take a tour through the scriptures. There will also be a day of celebration of the Word in our Catholic schools where students would have an opportunity to showcase their talents through debates, art works and music based on the bible. Dates of these events and initiatives will be communicated in due course.
At the Deanery level, there will be talks and reflections which will expose some biblical themes and some documents of the Church. The Documents include
Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Vatican II) and
Verbum Domini (Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI). Both documents can be downloaded from the Vatican website. During this year Catholics are invited to register for the
Course on Scripture, Spirituality and Evangelisation organized by
The Diocese of Menevia School of Evangelisation and Catechetics (DOMSEC) in the deaneries.
Parishes are encouraged to practice
Lectio Divina (reading and meditating/praying with the bible) and organize scripture-based talks during the year.
On a personal level, every Catholic is invited to have a copy of the bible, study it daily using the Readings of the Liturgical Calendar or by taking different books in turns. The practice of
Lectio Divina in homes, especially as families, is also recommended.
At the end of the “Year of the Word” in December 2020 it is hoped that each Catholic in the diocese would have developed a renewed interest in the bible and continue to study and pray with it.
Activities to mark the Year will be advertised on this website.
