18. “Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.”

“Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.”

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 18

Ave Maria Series

18.  What significance does the New Testament have for Christians?

In the New Testament God’s revelation is completed.  The four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the centerpiece of Sacred Scripture and the most precious treasure of the Church.  In them the Son of God shows himself as he is and encounters us.  In the Acts of the Apostles we learn about the beginnings of the Church and the working of the Holy Spirit.  In the letters written by the apostles, all facets of human life are set in the light of Christ.  In the Book of Revelation we foresee the end of the ages [124-127, 128-130, 140]

Saint Jerome is best known for his translation of most of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate).  Painting by Antonio da Fabriano II.  ….. 18

Jesus is everything that God would like to tell us. The entire Old Testament prepares for the Incarnation of God’s Son.  All of God’s promises find their fulfillment in Jesus.  To be a Christian means to unite oneself ever more deeply with the life of Christ.  To do that, one must read and live the Gospels.  Madeleine Delbrel says, “Through his Word God tells us what he is and what he wants; he says it definitively and says it for each individual day.  When we hold our Gospel book in our hands, we should reflect that in it dwells the Word that wants to become flesh in us, desires to take hold of us so that we might begin his life anew in a new place, at a new time in a new human setting.”

“Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. … There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.”  Pope Benedict XVI, April 24, 2005

“The Bible is God’s love letter to us.”  Soren Kierkegaard

“Sacred Scripture is not something of the past.  The Lord does not speak in the past but speaks in the present, he speaks to us today, he enlightens us, he shows us the way through life, he gives us communion and thus he prepares us and opens us to peace.”  Pope Benedict XVI, March 29, 2006

[124-127, 128-130, 140]

The New Testament

124  "The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the writings of the New Testament”(Dei Verbum 17; compare Rom 1:16.)⁹⁶ which hand on the ultimate truth of God's Revelation. Their central object is Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church's beginnings under the Spirit's guidance (Compare Dei Verbum 20.)⁹⁷ --Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

125 The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures "because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior" (Dei Verbum 18).⁹⁸ --CCC

126 We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:   
1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up.”(Dei Verbum 19, compare Acts of the Apostles 1:1-2.)⁹⁹ --CCC   

2. The oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed.” (Dei Verbum 19)¹⁰⁰ --CCC   

3. The written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus.”(Dei Verbum 19)¹⁰¹ --CCC

127 The fourfold Gospel holds a unique place in the Church, as is evident both in the veneration which the liturgy accords it and in the surpassing attraction it has exercised on the saints at all times: --CCC

There is no doctrine which could be better, more precious and more splendid than the text of the Gospel. Behold and retain what our Lord and Master, Christ, has taught by his words and accomplished by his deeds.(St. Caesaria the Younger to St. Richildis and St. Radegunde, Soures Chrẻtiennes 345, 480.)¹⁰² --CCC

But above all it's the gospels that occupy my mind when I'm at prayer; my poor soul has so many needs, and yet this is the one thing needful. I'm always finding fresh lights there; hidden meanings which had meant nothing to me hitherto.(St. Thérèse of Lisieux, ms. autob. A 83v.)¹⁰³ --CCC

The unity of the Old and New Testaments

128 The Church, as early as apostolic times, (Compare 1 Corinthians 10:6,11; Hebrews 10:l; l Peter 3:21.)¹⁰⁴ and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God's works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son. --CCC

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.(Compare Mk 12:29-31.)¹⁰⁵  Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.(Compare 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; 1 Cor 10:1-11.)¹⁰⁶   As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.(Compare St. Augustine, Quaest. in Hept. 2,73:Patrologia Latina 34,623; compare Dei Verbum 16.)¹⁰⁷ --CCC

130  Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone."(1 Corinthians 15:28.)¹⁰⁸   Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God's plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages. --CCC

IN BRIEF

140 The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God's plan and his Revelation. The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God. --CCC