‘Your word is a light to my path’ |
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Written by MOST REVEREND LEONARD P. BLAIR, Bishop of Toledo
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Friday, 07 November 2008 01:00 |
As I write, the Synod of Bishops in Rome is completing its reflections on the theme The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church. Eventually, Pope Benedict will author an "exhortation" for the whole church based on the synod’s work.
What is meant by the "Word of God?"
Most Christians, including Catholics, immediately think of the Bible. However, the reality goes much deeper, and a fuller understanding of the Word of God is essential for knowing our faith and applying it to our own life and to the questions of our day.
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| Bishop Leonard P. Blair |
The starting point is not a book but a living person, Jesus Christ. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth." (Jn 1)
This should be obvious to a believer, yet how often people read the Bible as if it were just an ancient book of history, ethics or even religion. For Christianity, "all Sacred Scripture is but one book, and this book is Christ, because all Sacred Scripture speaks of Christ, and all Sacred Scripture is fulfilled in Christ." (Hugh of St. Victor)
So, for example, in our catechetical language we do not use the terms "Hebrew Scriptures" and "Christian Scriptures" for the Old and New Testaments, as if the one pertained to the Jewish people and the other to Christians. Certainly we honor and respect the faith of the Jewish people contained in the Old Testament, which can be an object of study in its own right. However, when it comes to our formation in the faith, the Old Testament too is about Jesus Christ, Who from the beginning was destined to be its fulfillment.
In order to understand the full meaning of the Word of God we also need to consider how the mystery of Jesus Christ is "transmitted," that is to say, ìhanded downî through time.
The Second Vatican Council summarized a great deal in one paragraph when it said: "Christ the Lord, in whom the entire revelation of the most high God is summed up, commanded the Apostles to preach the Gospel, which had been promised beforehand by the prophets, and which He fulfilled in His own person and promulgated with His own lips. In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline." (Dei Verbum, 7; also 8, 9)
The living Gospel or "Good News" of the Eternal Word, Jesus Christ, was transmitted by the Apostles in two ways:
First, the Gospel was transmitted "orally by the Apostles, who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received — whether from the lips of Christ, from His way of life and His works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit."
Then, the Gospel was transmitted "in writing by those Apostles and other men associated with the Apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing."
It is important to remember that the Word of God was proclaimed, and the church was alive and well, before the books of the New Testament were written!
The early church lived and grew by the authority of the Apostles’ witness and preaching, and by their discernment of what was in keeping with the Gospel and what was not. Since the church is here to stay, an authoritative witness, preaching and discernment were not meant for apostolic times only. These responsibilities continue with their successors, that is, the College of Bishops with the pope at their head, just as St. Peter was visible head of the Twelve.
So when it comes to handing on the Word of God, two closely interrelated "modes of transmission" are at work: Sacred Scripture and Tradition (not any and all traditions, but what pertains to the so-called "deposit of faith" from the Apostles).
The U.S. Adult Catechism states: "Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This is particularly important to understand and believe when one is faced with the postmodern attitude that Tradition cannot be trusted, and that what the Church teaches as Tradition is really just a reflection of particular judgments and biases. Knowing that what Tradition teaches has its ultimate foundation in Jesus Christ helps a person of faith to respond with trust" (page 25f).
Consider the following examples of contemporary prejudice against Tradition.
Many of today’s media stories on the Bible treat it as an object separated from the Tradition exercised by the authority of the apostles and their successors, the bishops. For example, when ancient heretical texts are "rediscovered," they are often reported as authentic voices of ancient Christianity that were suppressed by church authorities for self-serving motives.
However, one can readily see what the New Testament says about false teaching, and the need to discern and reject it. The authority of Tradition has been exercised in these matters from the beginning. That is why not everything in circulation in New Testament times made its way into the Bible.
Also, when I was a seminarian, a weekly Bible Vigil service was introduced in order to celebrate the call of the Second Vatican Council for a renewed appreciation of Sacred Scripture in Catholic life. As the Word of God, the Bible was enthroned, revered and incensed in the chapel.
Now almost a half century later, it is not uncommon to find Bibles marked with hand-written "corrections" by people who think they know what God really meant to say, or would have said had He lived to see enlightened times like ours! God’s Word certainly admits of interpretation, cultural context and the insights of scientific biblical scholarship, but there is often something else at work in modern "Bible wars."
The eminent American theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles, writing about the reservation of priestly ordination to men, says this: "Radical theology adopts a sharply critical attitude toward all the supposedly sacred sources. It criticizes popes and bishops in the light of tradition, but then criticizes tradition in the light of Scripture, and Scripture in the light of the ‘historical’ Jesus. If the historical reconstruction of Jesus does not yield the desired result, Jesus Himself is criticized in the light of whatever seems good and proper to the contemporary critic."
These are just a few limited examples of the issues and questions we face when it comes to The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church. I am confident that the work of the Synod will prove fruitful and will provide us with much food for thought and prayer in the months and years to come.
May God bless you and your loved ones with a Happy Thanksgiving.
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Last Updated on Friday, 23 January 2009 09:47 |
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