Surgeon, U.N.A.M., 1970
Doctor in Church History, Navarra University, Spain, 1975
Numerary member of the Mexican Society of Ecclesiastical History
Lent Season is always a special time of divine grace that leads us to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ: God made flesh in order to redeem humanity as a whole and each man in particular. This is the right time to remember how important the Holy Bible is for every human being, because Jesus Christ is the central theme of the 73 books of the Bible.
The Catholic Church has reminded us this along its 20 centuries of existence. The last time She solemnly did it was in the twentieth and most recent Ecumenical Council, the Second Vatican Council, which promulgated on November 18, 1965 the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, DEI VERBUM (Gospel). This important document exposes along its 25 issues, in a very simple and easy way, a brilliant doctrine that helps us to love more the Church, the Bible and of course, Jesus Christ.
I here copy some paragraphs, because I am convinced that the words of the teaching staff of the Church are better than any others. I emphasize the main ideas in black.
1.- THE BIBLE IN CHURCH’S LIFE (n. 21)
The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she has always venerated the body of the Lord, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from both God's word and Christ's body table. Church has always considered the Holy Writings together with Tradition as the supreme regulation of Her faith, because they were inspired by God and written for the eternity, transmitting us God’s immutable Word and making the voice of the Holy Spirit resound in the words of the prophets and Apostles. Therefore, like the Christian religion itself, all the preaching of the Church must be nourished and regulated by Sacred Scripture.
“For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power of the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her children, the food of the soul and the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life.”
2. - THE OLD TESTAMENT (n. 14-16)
“In carefully planning and preparing the salvation of the whole human race the God of infinite love, by a special dispensation, chose for Himself a people to whom He would entrust His promises. First He entered into a covenant with Abraham and, through Moses, with the people of Israel. To this people which He had acquired for Himself, He so manifested Himself through words and deeds as the one true and living God that Israel came to know by experience the ways of God with men. Then too, when God Himself spoke to them through the mouth of the prophets, Israel daily gained a deeper and clearer understanding of His ways and made them more widely known among the nations.
“The plan of salvation foretold by the sacred authors, recounted and explained by them, is found as the true word of God in the books of the Old Testament: these books, therefore, written under divine inspiration, remain permanently valuable.”
“The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy, and to indicate its meaning through various types. Now the books of the Old Testament (…), though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy. 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.
“God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New. (…) still the books of the Old Testament with all their parts, caught up into the proclamation of the Gospel, acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament and in turn shed light on it and explain it.”
3. THE NEW TESTAMENT (n. 17-20)
“The word God, which is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe, is set forth and shows its power in a most excellent way in the writings of the New Testament. For when the fullness of time arrived the Word (Jesus) was made flesh and dwelt among us in His fullness of graces and truth (see John 1:14). Christ established the kingdom of God on earth, manifested His Father and Himself by deeds and words, and completed His work by His death, resurrection and glorious Ascension and by the sending of the Holy Spirit. Having been lifted up from the earth, He draws all men to Himself. He who alone has the words of eternal life.
“This mystery had not been manifested to other generations as it was now revealed to His holy Apostles and prophets in the Holy Spirit, so that they might preach the Gospel, stir up faith in Jesus, Christ and Lord, and gather together the Church. Now the writings of the New Testament stand as a perpetual and divine witness to these realities.
“Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven.
“The sacred authors wrote the four 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.
“Besides the four Gospels, the canon of the New Testament also contains the epistles of St. Paul and other apostolic writings, composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by which, according to the wise plan of God, those matters which concern Christ the Lord are confirmed, His true teaching is more and more fully stated, the saving power of the divine work of Christ is preached, the story is told of the beginnings of the Church and its marvelous growth, and its glorious fulfillment is foretold.
4. JESUS CHRIST, THE CENTER OF THE BIBLE AND FULLNESS OF DIVINE REVELATION (n.4)
“Then, after speaking in many and varied ways through the prophets, "now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal Word, who enlightens all men, so that He might dwell among men and tell them of the innermost being of God .
“Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh, was sent as "a man to men." (3) He "speaks the words of God", and completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do. To see Jesus is to see His Father. For this reason 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. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.
“The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
5. THE SAINTS, PEOPLE IN LOVE WITH THE BIBLE
The ultimate objective of Christian life is the total identification with Jesus Christ. The Church has taught us that in all times and places there have been men and women that have reached that identification with Jesus, and only for that reason, She declares them beatified persons or Saints. All of them have deeply loved the Bible, as the following texts that have been selected among thousands show:
St. Jerome (340- 420): Priest and Doctor of the Church who translated into Latin the biblical texts that were originally written in Hebrew and Greek: “not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ” (Comment on Isaiah, prologue).
St. Ambrose (340 -397: Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church):“we talk to God when we pray, we listen to God when we read his words” (On the Duties, I, 20, 25).
St. Augustine of Hippo (354 -430: Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church): “The Israeli people were given the manna at the dessert, as we were given the Scriptures so that we kept courageous in this wasteland of human life” (Sermon 4).
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274: Priest and Doctor of the Church, also known as the Angelic Doctor): “He who reads the Scriptures becomes strong to face adversities (Catena Aurea, vol. I, p. 52).
St. Francis de Sales (1567 – 1662: Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church): “The Scripture is clear in its words, but human spirit is dark and just like the owl,it cannot see clarity (…) The Spirit of God has given us the Scriptures, and reveals its true spirit but only to its Church, mainstay and support of the truth” (Epistolary, fragm. 118, 1. c., p. 752).
St. Josemaria Escriva (1902-1975: Priest, Opus Dei’s Founder) “How I wish your bearing and conversation were such, that on seeing or hearing you, people would say: this man reads The Life of Jesus Christ” (The Way, n.2).
