| English | Home Blog FAQ Volunteer Donate Team Forms Contact Us Map |
|
Reflection from Father Emil
THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH To obey in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment. The letter to the Hebrews, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel's ancestors, lays special emphasis on Abraham's faith. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith, he lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land. By faith, Sarah was given to conceive the son of the promise. And by faith Abraham offered his only son in sacrifice. Mar 7, 2010 MAN'S RESPONSE TO GOD By his Revelation "the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them in order to invite and receive them into his own company. The adequate response to this invitation is faith. By faith man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his as- sent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of faith". Feb 28, 2010 DIVINE SCRIPTURE SPEAKS OF CHRIST All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and that one book is Christ, because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ. The Sacred Scriptures contain the Word of God and because they are inspired its human authors, he acts in them and by means of them. He thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving truth. Interpretation of the inspired Scripture must be attentive above all to what God wants to reveal through the sacred authors for our salvation. What comes from the Spirit is not fully understood except by the Spirit's action. The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of The Lord.; both nour- ish and govern the whole Christian life. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path". Ps 119. Feb 21, 2010 SACRED SCRIPTURE IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fond of spiritual life. Hence access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful. Therefore the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the Word, to pastoral preaching, catechists, and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scrip- ture. The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Feb 14, 2010 THE SENSES OF SCRIPTURE According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture; the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church. The literal sense is in the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis following the rules of sound interpretation. All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal. The spiritual sense. Thank to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their signifi- cance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism. Moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St Paul says, they were written for our instruction. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE Jan 24, 2010 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, ac- cepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself. God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more. The inspired books teach the truth. We must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures. Fr. Emil |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| © 2010 Saint Bruno Catholic Church. All Rights Reserved. | Design by Systemsland, Inc. | Tel: 1-773-523-3467 Fax: 1-773-523-4253 |