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In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son [Heb 1:1-2]. Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. St. John of the Cross, among others, commented strikingly on Hebrews 1:1-2: In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word - and he has no more to say... because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty (CCC65).
The Christian economy, the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries (CCC66). Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church. Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfilment, as is the case in certain nonChristian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations" (CCC67).
By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life (CCC68). God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words (CCC69). Beyond the witness to himself that God gives in created things, he manifested himself to our first parents, spoke to them and, after the fall, promised them salvation (Gen 3:15) and offered them his covenant (CCC70). God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (Gen 9:16). It will remain in force as long as the world lasts (CCC71). God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and his descendants. By the covenant God formed his people and revealed his law to them through Moses. Through the prophets, he prepared them to accept the salvation destined for all humanity (CCC72). God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him (CCC73).
The Church, "the pillar and bulwark of the truth", faithfully guards "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints". She guards the memory of Christ's words; it is she who from generation to generation hands on the apostles' confession of faith [1 Tim 3:15; Jude 3] (CCC171). Aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (Magisterium),... receives... the faith, once for all delivered to the saints... . [Jude 3] (CCC93). The apostles entrusted the "Sacred deposit" of the faith (the depositum fidei), [I Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:12-14] contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church. "By adhering to [this heritage] the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So, in maintaining, practising and professing the faith that has been handed on, there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful" [Acts 2:42] (CCC84). It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) and 27 for the New (CCC120).
John the Baptist is "more than a prophet" [Lk 7:26]. In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah [Mt 11:13-14]. He proclaims the imminence of the consolation of Israel; he is the "voice" of the Consoler who is coming [Jn 1:23; Isa 40:1-3]. As the Spirit of truth will also do, John "came to bear witness to the light" [Jn 1:7; Jn 15:26; 5:35]. In John's sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfills the longing of the angels [1 Pet 1:10-12] (CCC719). St. John the Baptist is the Lord's immediate precursor or forerunner, sent to prepare his way [Acts 13:24; Mt 3:3]. "Prophet of the Most High", John surpasses all the prophets, of whom he is the last [Lk 1:76; 7:26; Mt 11:13]. Going before Jesus "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (CCC523). Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth" [Gen 1:2; Jn 14:17, 26; 16:13]. The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father (CCC243).
The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel. "The Law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come." It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ: it provides the New Testament with images, "types," and symbols for expressing the life according to the Spirit. Finally, the Law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential books and the prophets which set its course toward the New Covenant and the Kingdom of heaven (CCC1964). All the Scriptures - the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms - are fulfilled in Christ [Lk 24:44]. The Gospel is this "Good News." Its first proclamation is summarized by St. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount; [Mt 5-7] the prayer to our Father is at the center of this proclamation (CCC2763). When we say "our" Father, we recognize first that all his promises of love announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal covenant in his Christ: we have become "his" people and he is henceforth "our" God. This new relationship is the purely gratuitous gift of belonging to each other: we are to respond to "grace and truth" given us in Jesus Christ with love and faithfulness. [Jn 1:17; Hos 2:21-22; 6:1-6] (CCC2787). 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 [Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:15] (CCC75).
The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him (CCC100). The Magisterium of the Church exercises an essential part of its prophetic office of proclaiming to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God (CCC2036). The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms (CCC890). This Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith (CCC86).
In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a supernatural sense of faith the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, unfailingly adheres to this faith (CCC889). The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful - who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.... The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine for belief as being divinely revealed, and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions must be adhered to with the obedience of faith. This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself (CCC891). The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed (CCC2035).
The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice. The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for (CCC2034). Divine assistance is given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a definitive manner, they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals (CCC892). The Church's Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes in a definitive way truths having a necessary connection with them (CCC88). The dogma of the Trinity (CCC251). The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ (CCC85).
In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority. Indeed, the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time (CCC77). This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, "the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes." "The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer" (CCC78).
Only the light of divine Revelation clarifies the reality of sin and particularly of the sin committed at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another (CCC387). Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents (CCC390). We believe all that which is contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church proposes for belief as divinely revealed (CCC182).
Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise (CCC384). The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original state of holiness and justice. This grace of original holiness was to share in...divine life (CCC375).
The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office, above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it unfailingly adheres to this faith... once for all delivered to the saints, and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ's witness in the midst of this world (CCC785). By virtue of their prophetic mission, lay people are called... to be witnesses to Christ in all circumstances and at the very heart of the community of mankind (CCC942). All the faithful share in understanding and handing on revealed truth. They have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs them [1 Jn 2:20, 27] and guides them into all truth [Jn 16:13] (CCC91). Christians must make every effort to proclaim the good news to the poor. There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD" [Am 8:11] (CCC2835).
In the Church there is diversity of ministry but unity of mission. To the apostles and their successors Christ has entrusted the office of teaching, sanctifying and governing in his name and by his power. But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly office of Christ; they have therefore, in the Church and in the world, their own assignment in the mission of the whole People of God (CCC873). Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization, "that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life" (CCC905). The laity can also feel called, or be in fact called, to cooperate with their pastors in the service of the ecclesial community, for the sake of its growth and life. This can be done through the exercise of different kinds of ministries according to the grace and charisms which the Lord has been pleased to bestow on them (CCC910).
The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness (CCC79). God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"; [1 Tim 2:4] that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation (CCC851). The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies [Jn 8:32; 17:17]. To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth" [Jn 16:13] (CCC2466). Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God. But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? [Ps 130:1]. He who humbles himself will be exalted; [Lk 18:9-14] humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," [Rom 8:26] are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer (CCC2559).