The Word

I felt the need to give a very brief catechesis on the Word of God. I think that this is one of those important, neigh, imperative elements of the faith that somehow is often overlooked or misunderstood. We cannot misunderstand the Word, for He is Christ, and Sacred Scripture is the revelation of God given to man that we might know, love and serve God. Our faith is founded on Christ, the Word, and draws its life from His.

Here are a few quotes to help:

On the UNITY of SCRIPTURE:

"Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely: You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time."

- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 102 

"All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and this 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, they are truly the Word of God" (DV 24).

- CCC, 134-135

"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, 140

What is so necessary for us to understand is that while each and every book in Sacred Scripture has a unique author or authors, and comes from a different historical moment or series of historical moments, above and below all of that is the Spirit of God divinely inspiring each author, and the spiritual sense that must always be read with the literal sense so that Sacred Scripture can properly be revered as the Holy Book that contains the revelation of God for his people in Christ. Therefore, throughout the Old Testament we read the preparatory covenantal history of God and his people leading up to the ultimate revelation, the "definitive Word" of Christ. We read all of Sacred Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, who is God and man. 

 On the AUTHORSHIP of SCRIPTURE:

"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." - CCC, 105

While it is of course true that the human authors were neither possessed nor forced or dictated to in their authorship, but freely worked with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is equally true that God is the author of Scripture just as Christ is the ONE WORD, the Word made flesh. It is for this reason that the Catechism says that we reverence Sacred Scripture as the body of Christ. 

On the DEPOSIT of FAITH:

"Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence." - Dei Verbum, 9

 The unity of Scripture and Tradition, making up this one Deposit of Faith, is the dynamic unveiling of God's loving invitation to participation in his life throughout time beginning at the creation of man and culminating in the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, bringing redemption for mankind and establishing the Church as the means through which we may be saved. It is both the actual, historical handing on of the revelation of God, orally and in written form through the ages, as well as the Sacred Word of Scriptures that together give the Church her foundation. Above all, it is Christ who is the source and summit of the faith.