Thought for the Day- 4 May – God’s Plan of Salvation

Thought for the Day- 4 May – Saturday of the Second Week of Easter

God’s Plan of Salvation Second Vatican Council An excerpt from Sacrosanctum Concilium, #7-8

In His desire that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, God spoke in former times to our forefathers through the prophets, on many occasions and in different ways.   Then, in the fullness of time He sent His Son,…

One Minute Reflection – 4 February – Monday of the Fourth week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Mark 5:1–20 and the Memorial of St John de Britto SJ (1647-1693) Martyr

“Go home to your friends and tell them, how much the Lord has done for you and how he has, had mercy on you.”…Mark 5:19

REFLECTION – “As the Son was sent by the Father, so He too sent the Apostles (Jn 20:21), saying:  “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.   And behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world”.(Mt 28:19)   The Church has received this solemn mandate of Christ to proclaim the saving truth from the apostles and must carry it out to the very ends of the earth.(Acts 1:8)   Wherefore, she makes the words of the Apostle her own: “Woe to me, if I do not preach the Gospel” (1Cor 9:16) and continues unceasingly to send heralds of the Gospel until such time as the infant churches are fully established and can themselves continue the work of evangelising. For the Church is compelled by the Holy Spirit to do her part, that God’s plan may be fully realised, whereby He has constituted Christ as the source of salvation for the whole world.   By the proclamation of the Gospel she prepares her hearers to receive and profess the faith.   She gives them the dispositions necessary for baptism, snatches them from the slavery of error and of idols and incorporates them in Christ, so that through charity, they may grow up into full maturity in Christ.   Through her work, whatever good is in the minds and hearts of men, whatever good lies latent in the religious practices and cultures of diverse peoples, is not only saved from destruction but is also cleansed, raised up and perfected unto the glory of God, the confusion of the devil and the happiness of man. The obligation of spreading the faith is imposed on every disciple of Christ, according to his state.   However, although all the faithful can baptise, the priest alone can complete the building up of the Body in the eucharistic sacrifice.   Thus are fulfilled the words of God, spoken through His prophet:  “From the rising of the sun until the going down thereof my name is great among the gentiles and in every place a clean oblation is sacrificed and offered up in my name”.(Mal 1:11)   In this way the Church both prays and labours in order that the entire world may become the People of God, the Body of the Lord and the Temple of the Holy Spirit.”… Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “Lumen Gentium”, #17 – Vatican Council II

PRAYER – Lord God and Father, who entrusted the earth to men, to till and care for it and made the sun to serve their needs, give us grace this day, to work faithfully for Your Glord and for our neighbours’ good.   As we follow the Way of Your Son, fill us with the Holy Spirit of faith, hope and love.   Almighty God, You made Saint John of Britto, an illustrious preacher of the gospel.   Through his prayers inflame us with love and with his zeal for souls that we may serve You alone.   St John of Britto, pray for us!   Through Jesus, our Lord in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.

The aim of this document is to “set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.” (DV 1)

God chose to reveal himself as a friend by living among human beings and inviting them “into fellowship with Himself” (DV 2). God revealed Himself through Words and Deeds: the deeds refer to the things He did through history that have added credibility to the spoken Words. Since God chose to reveal Himself most powerfully through Jesus, Jesus becomes “both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation” (DV 2).

God the creator, offers human beings a glimpse of Himself in the created realities around them (cf. Rom 1:19-20). Knowing that nature itself wasn’t revealing enough, He chose to reveal Himself personally to humankind. The first chapters of Genesis record this initial revelation. The Great Fall gave humankind hope that God’s promise of salvation would be fulfilled. God carefully guided the human race and offered ‘eternal life to those who persevered in doing good.’ Through the patriarchs like Abraham the prophets from Moses onwards, “He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Saviour promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries” (DV 3).

Finally, God chose to speak to human beings as one among them and therefore “He sent His Son, the eternal Word” who came as ‘a man to men’ speaking the words of God and completing the work of salvation (DV 4). “Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth” (DV 4). Jesus through all of these actions confirmed what God had been revealing all along, namely that He is with us and wishes to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to give us eternal life. Since God revealed Himself fully through Jesus, we ought to expect no further new public revelation until Jesus manifests Himself fully and finally at the end of time.

God’s revelation requires “the obedience of faith” (Rom 16:26) by which human beings commit themselves wholly and freely to God. This act of faith cannot be exercised without Divine Grace and the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in the understanding of revelation by strengthening faith through His gifts. (DV 5)

“Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men” (DV 6). This simply means that God wanted human beings to know and love Him that is why He revealed Himself to them. God can be known by human reason and reflection on created reality but through revelation we are able to grasp “those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason…with solid certitude and with no trace of error” (DV 6).

God wanted that His revelation reach all people and all nations “in its full integrity.” Therefore, Jesus commissioned the Apostles to preach the Gospel “which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching and to impart to them heavenly gifts” (DV 7). The Gospel was foretold by the prophets and was fulfilled by Jesus. The Apostles faithfully carried out the Divine mandate by their preaching and some of them, along with other inspired persons “committed the message of salvation to writing” (DV 7). The Apostles appointed Bishops as their successors and charged them with the authority to preserve the Gospel and its tradition and teach in their own settings. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are like the two lenses with which the Church looks at God.

In order to ensure faithfulness to the tradition, the Apostles would offer exhortations and teachings either through their preaching or through letters. “What was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes” (DV 8). This tradition is guided by the Holy Spirit evidenced by the fact that there is a growth in understanding revelation. The teachings of the Fathers of the Church and the successors of the Apostles (bishops) are drawn from and influence the life of the Church. Tradition has given us the canon of sacred books and also provides the background for understanding and interpreting them. God continues to reveal Himself to the Church through the Scriptures.

Scripture and Tradition are closely connected since they spring up from the same Divine source and culminate in the same end. Scripture is the Word of God since it is written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit while Tradition takes the Word of God and hands it down from generation to generation faithfully and purely. Thus, both of them have “to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence” (DV 9).

Both of them together form “one sacred deposit of the word of God.” (DV 10). Both the clergy and the laity participate in faithfully observing and practicing the heritage of the faith. The task of authentically interpreting the word of God is entrusted exclusively to the ‘teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ (Bishops). This teaching office is not above the Scriptures but serves it by teaching only what has been handed down and what is inspired by the Holy Spirit. This widens the deposit of the word of God to also include the teaching authority of the Church which is also called the Magisterium or teachings of the Bishops.

The Church holds that scripture in its entirety (Old and New Testaments) was written under Divine inspiration by human authors who used their own abilities to write down everything that God wanted them to. Thus, the Church considers the scriptures to be without error with regard to those things pertaining to God. (DV 11).

However, since God chose to communicate through human authors, those who desire to understand and interpret Scripture must pay careful attention to “what God wanted to communicate… (and) should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended” (DV 12). In order to better grasp the intention of the writers, it would help to pay attention to ‘literary forms’ among other tools. In order to get a better idea, “due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of felling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another” (DV 12). In doing this, one must not neglect looking at a particular passage within the context of the whole of scripture. The tradition of the Church must also be taken into consideration.

Scripture reveals to us the humility of God who chose to convey His truth and identity through human language; in a similar fashion, he chose to share human nature (DV 13).

In order to initiate His plan of salvation for the whole human race, the Lord of infinite wisdom chose a people for Himself to whom He entrusted His promises. Through Abraham and Moses, He entered into a covenant with the people of Israel. He manifested Himself to them through words and deeds. This history is recorded in the Old Testament and therefore remains “permanently valuable” (DV 14).

The principal aim of the Old Testament was to prepare for the coming of Christ. The Old Testament reveals “the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men” (DV 15). The Old Testament with its limitations shows us “true divine pedagogy” (DV 15). “These same books, then, give expression to a lively sense of God, contain a store of sublime teachings about God, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers, and in them the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way” (DV 15).

God, the divine author, wisely chose that the New Testament be hidden in the Old. The Old Testament is fulfilled by the New and help by shedding light on the New Testament and explaining it. (DV 16). The New Testament is a witness to the revelation of God in the person of Jesus. Jesus’ words and deeds and the fulfilment of His work by His death, resurrection and ascension are all contained in the New Testament. (DV 17). The Gospels hold a central place among all of the Scriptures even among the New Testament because “they are the principal witness for the life and teaching of the incarnate Word, our saviour” (DV 18). The Gospel is the ‘foundation of faith’ and is ONE though fourfold, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The four gospels faithfully hand on the story of Jesus which was enriched by their witness of Christ’s life and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They wrote the Gospels, “selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explaining some things in view of the situation of their churches and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus” (DV 19). Besides the Gospels, the New Testament contains the epistles of Paul and other apostolic writings which deal with matters concerning the Church and Christ the Lord (DV 20).

The Church venerates the Scriptures as she venerates the body of the Lord. Through the liturgy she offers the faithful both ‘God’s word and Christ’s body.’ The scriptures offer the word of God Himself and make the voice of the Holy Spirit heard in the words of the prophets and Apostles. Therefore, all preaching must be founded on Scripture. Through the Scriptures, “the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life” (DV 21).

The Church desired that the Scriptures be easily accessible to all the faithful. For this reason, she accepted the very ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint while also giving due honour to the Eastern Latin translation known as Vulgate. Keeping in mind her responsibility for providing correct translations into other languages, the Church is careful in approving translations and recommends certain translations (DV 22). The Church desires to arrive at a deeper understanding of the Scriptures so that she can offer her children more solid food to use a Pauline expression. To this end, she encourages the study of the writings of the Church Fathers both Eastern and Western. She directs Catholic exegetes and students of sacred theology to “devote their energies, under the watchful care of the sacred teaching office of the Church, to an exploration and exposition of the divine writings” (DV 23). The aim of this should be to equip people to be ‘ministers of the divine word’ who are able to effectively enlighten people’s minds, strengthen their wills and set their hearts on fire with the love of God.

“Sacred theology rests on the written word of God, together with sacred tradition, as its primary and perpetual foundation” (DV 24). Theology should scrutinize the truth contained in them with the light of faith and in turn be rejuvenated by them. Since the scriptures contain the word of God, their study forms the soul of theology. “By the same word of Scripture the ministry of the word also, that is, pastoral preaching, catechetics and all Christian instruction, in which the liturgical homily must hold the foremost place, is nourished in a healthy way and flourishes in a holy way” (DV 24).

All clergy must engage in ‘diligent sacred reading and careful study’ of Scripture especially priests, deacons and catechists who are active in the ministry of the word. This is important so as to avoid becoming empty preachers who preach without practicing. The Church encourages all its faithful but especially the religious to “learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures” the knowledge of Jesus (DV 25). It is important that every Christian keep in touch with the word either proclaimed in the liturgy or read personally. Prayer should always accompany the reading of scripture “so that God and man may talk together” (DV 25). It is the responsibility of the Bishops to give to the faithful instructions regarding the use of divine books especially the New Testament and the Gospels in particular. Editions of the scriptures with suitable footnotes could help the faithful and other Christians to “become conversant with the Sacred Scriptures and be penetrated with their spirit” (DV 25).