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The Holy Bible Our
Family History: Part 1
What it is:
What we
as Catholics term ‘the Bible’ is actually a collection of 73
separate writings (or ‘books’) gathered into one volume. Each of these
writings, without exception, is believed to be the actual Word
of God in human language; this means that, over
many years and through a special
work of the Holy Spirit, human authors wrote what God wanted all of
humanity to know about Him, about us, and about His loving plan for our
salvation and joy.
This description helps us form
the basic understanding we need for what we believe about the Bible: it is
not a rulebook, but rather a ’love letter’ written to all people
of all times; it is not intended just for priests and religious
instructors, but in fact for every human person! So, the Bible is
properly understood only as part of God’s special Revelation— that is, what He wants to reveal
about Himself, about each of us, and about His loving plan for all people.
Where
we got it: Since it
is a collection of many
writings, we know that the entire Bible was not written at one time, but
over many centuries. The Bible is divided into two main sections: the 46 books of the Old
Testament (writings
from before the time of Christ) and the 27 books of the New
Testament (centered
on Jesus, written after His ascension into heaven).
The word canon
(or ‘list’) is the word which refers to the
‘official’ list of books in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, the Jews
had a generally-used canon of these books, and these Scriptures were
obviously a central part of Jesus’ ministry. The Church based its Old Testament canon on that used by Jesus and the
Apostles, which they then handed on to the bishops and popes who succeeded
them. This is the same Old Testament canon the Church uses
today.
Jesus and the Apostles didn’t hand on a New Testament canon, though, and that’s because one
hadn’t been completed yet! None of the New Testament writings appeared
until after Jesus had completed His mission and ascended into
heaven. But as the four Gospels and other apostolic writings appeared in
the first century, they began to be read at Mass along with the Old
Testament, just as we still do in our Eucharistic worship today. For the
next few hundred years, there had only been a few variations in these
books read at Mass when several Church Councils then set forth a
definitive list of 27 New
Testament books to be considered Sacred Scripture. This definitive canon of the New Testament is the same one we read from today. The least you should know:
— The Bible is a collection of writings written by human
beings but inspired by the Holy Spirit, and so truly considered to be God’s
Word. —The
Bible is therefore understood as a main instrument by which God reveals
the full truth about Himself, about us, and about His love. —It
is the main source for all Catholic theology and is vital to our worship
and prayer life, above all in the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. —As
a result of all these points, we are to treat the Bible with the same care
and respect that we would the Body of Christ !! Are
We Doing This Right?
Part
2 of our catechetical series on the Holy Bible: ‘How the Catholic Church reads God’s Word’
Last week we looked at some
basic Catholic beliefs about Sacred Scripture: that all books of the
Bible are truly God’s Word, and so the Bible should always be understood
as God’s work of Revelation (fully
revealing the truth about Himself and about us in an act of love). It is
the written record of God’s gift of His Word to all people, centered on
Jesus Christ— in short, it is God’s “love-letter” to us. But when
you write a letter, three things are needed if it is to succeed: 1)
someone to write the letter; 2) someone to read the letter; and 3) a common understanding of the language that it’s written in!
In the case of the Bible, the
author of the ‘love-letter’ is God Himself, working through and with
human writers. And the intended audience of this letter— the people who
will read it— is us! So the last element needed is the common understanding
of what God is saying to us. Since it has
been almost 2,000 years since the latest books of the Bible were written,
how can we be sure that we’re interpreting it correctly? Do we really
have this ‘common understanding’?
At the Last Supper, Jesus told
the Apostles: “...the
Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name— He will teach you
everything and remind you of all that [I] told you… He will guide you to
all truth” (Jn
14:26; 16:13). Then, after He had risen, we find that, “...beginning
with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to Him
in all the scriptures… Then he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures” (Lk
24:27,45). In other words, Jesus had a precise
method of interpreting the Bible, and He taught the Apostles how to do
it— then sent the Holy Spirit to seal the deal! Throughout the New
Testament, we see this unique
teaching pattern of how to interpret and apply the many passages of the
Bible as the one Word of God, both in the words of Jesus and those of the
Apostles.
After the time of the Apostles,
the men whom they had chosen to succeed them as bishops continued to
interpret the Bible using these same methods. These men are called
‘Church Fathers’ because of their foundational status in the early
Church, since they taught the Catholic Faith in the way they had learned
it directly from the Apostles and their first successors.
Down to this day, the
Catholic Church has always used this same method (first used by Jesus and
the Twelve!) to properly interpret and understand the writings of the
Bible. It
established the ‘common language’ needed for this ‘love-letter’:
since the Son of God Himself had shown us how to do it, we can always know
that we are reading God’s Word correctly! (You can find this basic
method broken down in articles 109-119 of the Catechism—
take a look!). The least you should know:
—
The Bible is like a ’love-letter’, meaning that it needs 1) a writer,
2) a reader, and 3) a common understanding of the language —
As we can show from the Bible itself (especially the New Testament), Jesus
had a special, precise method for the interpretation and the application
of the Bible as the one Word of God.
— Jesus taught the Apostles this method and they taught their
sucessors. This method is still used by the Church today! Many
Books, One Story
Part
3 of our
catechetical series on the Holy Bible:
‘How the Bible is Organized’ How
the Bible is organized: In speaking
of Scripture, the Church uses the special term of inspiration
to describe that, in the writing of each book of the Bible, the human authors had full use
of their freedom but still wrote only what God wanted them to: no more, no
less. In Catholic faith, this inspiration
is a
unique work of the Holy Spirit by which God delivers His Word to us. It applies only to the books of the Bible, not the
writings of saints, popes, or anyone else. So, by definition, the 73 books
of our Bible form the complete, inspired list of
Sacred Scripture.
Now, the
Bible tells only one single story— that
of God’s loving plan for us and for our salvation; but it tells this one
story over the course of these 73 different books! This is because, though the Holy
Spirit was inspiring them,
many of the human authors were writing in different styles and historical
circumstances— sometimes
entire centuries apart from each other. This is why the writings of the
Bible can actually vary quite a bit in length, subject matter, style, etc.
But don’t let that throw you! Much like ice cream, although you can have
a lot of different flavors and preferences, it’s all still ice cream: in
the same way, God’s Word
manages to still tell only one story of love in the midst of much
diversity!
But as a result of this diversity,
a special system of organization was applied in putting these many books
into the one volume of the Bible. Since it is actually a collection of
books, try to approach the Bible as a library:
-In this library there are 73 books divided into two floors: the Old
Testament and the New Testament.
-Each floor (or Testament) is then
divided into four sections, arranged according to subject
(gospels, prophets, historical, wisdom books, etc).
-The ’librarian’ is the teaching
office of the Church, who uses the same interpretive methods taught by
Jesus and the Apostles (discussed last week in part 2) to ensure that they
are always read and placed correctly. Many Catholics are often intimidated by the number & diversity of the books of the Bible; but a simple outline like the one above can be a BIG help. Knowing your way around this ‘library’ is an invaluable tool for every Catholic; take the time to learn how your Bible was ‘built’, and you’ll be surprised to find out how much easier it reads as a result! The
least you should know:
— God used the special gift of inspiration,
a work of the Holy Spirit, to make sure the
Bible contained only what He wanted: no more, no less! —
The 73 books of the Bible are many and diverse, but they still come
together perfectly to tell the one story of our salvation
— The books of the Bible are
grouped in a specific order, much like the organization of a library. It
is of great benefit to every
Catholic to learn the basics of this system of organization!
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Part 4 of
our catechetical series on the Holy Bible: ‘The Scriptures and the Mass’ So
far we have looked briefly at some ’Bible basics’— namely:
-the Bible is a
collection of writings inspired by the Holy Spirit,
and truly God’s Word;
-it is a main part of God’s Revelation (fully revealing Himself and His love for us);
-it is interpreted by the Church with
the same methods used by Jesus & the Apostles;
-the books of the Bible are many, but they tell one complete story of God’s love for us
The ‘one story’ that God speaks to us in His Word, the
story of His love for us, is also the family
history of the entire human race: God
created all of humanity out of the fullness of His love, and even when we
have turned from Him, He has sought to find us and to bring us back to
Him. His ultimate act of love was to send His only Son to save us from sin
and fill us with His life (cf. Jn 3:16); for His part, Jesus established
His Mystical Body on earth (the Church) to continue this work of salvation
via the Holy Spirit until He comes again.
This is the ‘one story’ of the Bible in a nutshell. The Church
has continued to read from Scriptures as a vital part of our worship,
above all at Mass— from the Last Supper
onwards, the recounting of the ‘family story’ recorded in God’s Word
has been central to the Eucharist.
Today, the two main parts of the Mass remain the Liturgy
of the Word (wherein
we recount parts of our ‘family story’ from the Bible) and the Liturgy
of the Eucharist (our ‘family meal’, wherein we
receive the Body of Christ and strengthen our love). Much like a family
gathering, where family members tell and
re-tell their stories and share their memories, the Liturgy of the Word helps
us to recognize the ‘one story’ of love that we all share.
The Liturgy of the Word at Sunday Mass is
structured with all the parts of this story in mind:
1.
The First Reading, from the Old Testament (or New, in Easter season), relates our
‘family story’ from the Creation/Fall to the forming of a people for
the Messiah.
2. The Psalm Response sings to
us from the Old Testament wisdom books, relating the prayer of God’s
people fulfilled with the coming of His Kingdom in the Church
3. The Second Reading,
from the New Testament after the time of
Jesus, speaks of our family story in terms of Jesus’ words and deeds—
and our new life in Him
4.
The Gospel reading, the center of the Liturgy of the Word,
directly relates the heart of our ‘family story’- the person, mission,
words and deeds of Jesus Christ The least you should know:
— The ’one story’ told together by the books of the
Bible is that of God’s love in creating and then saving all of humanity,
most importantly in the sending of His only Son for us
— From the time of Jesus,
reading our ‘family story’ in the Bible has been inseparable from our
‘family meal’ in the Eucharist; the Liturgy of the Word at Mass
remains a vital part of Catholic worship ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Purgatory: what is it?
The annual celebration of All Souls Day (Nov 2) is closely connected with the doctrine of purgatory, a word many of us know but few can explain.. Just what is ‘purgatory’, anyway?
What it is: The term ‘purgatory’ literally means ‘place of purgation’ (purgation= cleansing, purifying). For Catholics, it refers specifically to the state