By Fr. Marco Benini, June 26, 2026
In this weekly series, Fr. Benini invites the reader to join him in a prayerful exploration of Eucharistic celebration as a daily encounter with Christ. Used with permission of Paulist Press, www.paulistpress.com.
CHRIST SPEAKS
“Glory to you, O Lord”—”Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” These phrases before and after the Gospel reading have often become routine. But they are actually confessions. They acknowledge that Christ is present in the Gospel proclamation. Otherwise it would make no sense to address him directly. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy emphasizes that Christ “is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.” His presence lies in the act of proclamation. St. Augustine put this conviction into vivid words: “The Gospel is the mouth of Christ. He is seated in heaven yet does not cease to speak on earth” (Sermon 85).
In the proclamation a process of communication and revelation takes place. “The more God reveals himself the more deeply does he conceal himself in men,”2 wrote the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. God has not only spoken in a human way but has also expressed himself as a human being: “And the Word became flesh” (John 1:14).
The evangelists wrote down the message of salvation and the good news of a fulfilled life that Christ proclaimed. The spoken word became a book. Origen therefore compared the development of scripture to the incarnation: just as the word of God was once veiled in the veil of flesh, so now it is veiled in the letter, yet its divinity is hidden therein. In the proclamation, this process is reversed. The written word is spoken to us anew. The word of God has a “sacramentality” and becomes audible again through the sign of human words and gestures.
It is not primarily a question of what the historical “original sound” of Jesus was and what was compiled by the evangelists. More important is that in the proclamation we hear Christ speaking to us—to me! A student once expressed this in very practical terms: “Every time I hear the Gospel at Mass, I close my eyes and imagine Jesus standing in front of me and reciting the words.” Maybe it is worth trying.
From: Marco Benini, Were Not Our Hearts Burning? Understanding the Mass – Living the Eucharist, Paulist Press: New York / Mahwah, NJ, 2026, p. 39 f.
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