Happy Wednesday night các em, the quiz is now ready (finally!) and it will continue to open for at least 2 Sundays or more than a week so I hope that will give you ample (enough) time to finish. I might be posting new lessons and quizzes more often from now on so please let me know if you have trouble following. And I do apologize if it feels like this "old man" is taking forever to write a post. I'm a slow writer that you should probably know by now but you can rest assured that every message short or long is still written with lots of thoughts, prayers and love. :)
So a quick recap about our previous chapter is we're on our journey to God's house and on this journey, we will go through the three stages of our faith which are the childhood faith (what we were born and raised with), the adolescent stage (where we must reexamine our faith with constructive questions), and finally the adult stage (when we move on to living our confirmed belief). This week, we're going to touch on who we're believing in and what we ought to (should) believe or listen to which both answers are God and God's Word.
First of all, let's talk about the title of this chapter. We often have a longing (desire) to be with our friends or the people we're close to or love. It's also this kind of longing that it's one's nature to go back and search for his or her own origin so in our spiritual life, we do the same thing when we begin to question our faith or seek to find God. And if you've read the text, there are 3 ways of knowing God which are experiencing God, reasoning to God (or our faith), and/or believing another. In order to be able to find God or understand his word however, we need something called "mạc khải thiêng liêng" or the title of our chapter, Divine Revelation.
Fun fact: Experts say that 90% of our knowledge comes from reading (or believing the word of another).
But what is divine revelation? Let's take a closer look at the words themselves. Divine means godly and revelation means to reveal or to tell something that's not yet known. The word revelation is derived (has its origin) from the Latin word meaning "to unveil." So combining the two, divine revelation is what we're told about who God is and what is God's plan for us in this life. Sometimes, we can easily feel God's presence by looking at the universe as a painting tells us something about the artist who painted it, so creation tells us something about God.
Talk about our universe, a good way to understand its existence is to ask ourselves the classic question: "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" If we say the chicken then we must ask where did the egg from which the chicken was hatched come from; and if we say the egg then we must ask where did the chicken come from that laid it. So clearly, someone had to create one or the other to get the process started and that someone, is God.
Revelation began with creation, reached completion in Jesus, and is passed on by Tradition and Scripture (more on this follows).
In another word, you can safely say that divine revelation is whatever written in the Bible, but that's just the Scripture part so there's more than that. The so called Bible is a list of books that were selected from Scripture or all sacred (holy) writings that we could find. There is another important part of divine revelation which happened before the birth of the Bible or Sacred Scripture called Sacred Tradition. Basically, it's what Jesus did and taught but were not written down (because there will be too many things to write or remember) and/or how Jesus' teaching was passed on orally instead of writings. These and the preaching of the apostles or the priests today are all called Tradition (you don't have to remember the word, just try to understand it).
An oral Tradition that was not recorded in Scripture is that Mary was a virgin all her life. Probably this is why some Christians don't believe in Virgin Mary like we Catholics are because some suggest that Mary was a virgin before Jesus's birth only. Another fact about Tradition and Scripture is that the first community of Christians began with no written gospels. They simply passed on God's Word orally. Only later was it written down.
But then it comes an even trickier question, who created God? Well the answer is hard to understand (hard without faith) but God is uncreated. And that is also the point of the "chicken-egg" example. It illustrates (draw a picture) that at some point we must come to an all-wise, all-powerful being who is uncreated, which is God. From the words of John 1:18, we are very limited in what we can know about God from experience and reason (alone). Only Jesus can give us a clear and certain knowledge of God. Thus, we need divine revelation. Without it, we are very much in the dark about God.
Divine revelation here refers to public revelation (what we all must believe) and it ended with the last apostle's death. What about "private revelations" like those at Fatima? After investigation, the Church may rule that a specific "private revelation" is not in conflict with public revelation and may be believed, but it obliges (makes/requires) no one to believe it. So for revelation we have public revelations which include Tradition (oral form) and Scripture (written form), and private revelations which are personal visions.
In the text, they use an analogy (a comparison in similarity) of seashells to explain the 3 different stages of divine revelation which are life, oral, and written. Life is what Jesus said and did (which completes the divine revelation since creation), oral is what apostles preached (how the divine revelation is passed on orally), and written is what evangelists/Gospel authors wrote (how the divine revelation is passed on in writings). This below is a good summary of the three stages:
What we have seen (life stage) ... we announce to you (oral stage) ... We write this in order (written stage) that our joy may be complete (1 John 1:3-4).
By the way, I failed to mention that when you read the chapters, they use a lot of quotes from CCC which stands for Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is a book that explains our faith in details but using plain or simple words (unlike the Bible which can confuse us sometimes). So once again, divine revelation is the "unveiling" of God and God's plan to the human race (CCC 50-67). This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and earth with Christ as head (Ephesians 1:10).
My definition of divine revelation is think of God as... well, an alien (whom we have never met and thus trying to communicate to us in different forms). So in the ancient time (Old Testament), God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets; but in these last days (New Testament, our time), he has spoken to us through his Son (Hebrews 1:1-2). The word testament comes from the Greek meaning a sacred agreement (or covenant). The Old Testament is God's covenant with Israel mediated by (or through) Moses. The New Testament is God's covenant with all people mediated by Jesus.
This is where we have Judaism as a separate religion because some people still believe that God is of the Jews and only the Jews (or Israelites). But that's only true in the old time. Jesus changed that when he came to the world.
Back to the 3 ways of knowing God, experiencing God is somewhat like experiencing the sun. We experience the sun not directly, but indirectly by its effects in the form of heat, light and/or energy. Then reasoning to God (or our faith) is what we just went through in our first chapter. It is a painful process where we have to let our childhood faith die but it's critical (important) at the same time in order for us to grow into a more mature faith. Lastly, believing another (by reading the Bible or listening to God's Word via masses or homilies/teachings) is the recommended way to know God or to be able to translate those "alien's voices" into our daily lives. :)
In short, we're called to simply follow the longing in our heart. It will lead us to Jesus, just as the star led the Magi (the 3 kings) to Jesus.
Now you may be asking, why do we have to pass on God's Word or his divine revelation in any particular form? Well, before ascending to heaven, Jesus gave this commission to his disciples: Go... to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20). It is this divine revelation that the apostles, guided by the Holy Spirit, passed on to their successors, the bishops of the Church (CCC 74-79). Basically, this is why we have masses every week and we read the Bible or listen to God's Word in every mass.
As you can see, Sacred Scripture (readings) and Sacred Tradition (preach/teachings) are like two rails of a railroad track. They are inseparable, working together at all times to transmit God's Word to all people of all ages (CCC 80-83).
Shortly before ascending to heaven, Jesus also made another remarkable promise to his disciples. He said: When... the Spirit comes, who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth (John 16:13). Jesus' disciples at that time often did not understand something Jesus said or did. It's like when you see an old film rolls out in a cinema (in a movie) but nothing seems to be on the screen until the links strikes on it. The events of Jesus' life were like that. They didn't reveal their correct meaning until the "light of the Holy Spirit" struck them on Pentecost and the disciples started to understand.
So by saying these words, Jesus assured his disciples that the Holy Spirit would also assist them in recording and transmitting divine revelation to future generations. This brings us to the important task of interpreting God's Word. The Church or community of Jesus's followers (or us), "gave birth" to Sacred Scripture, so to speak. Therefore, the awesome responsibility of preserving (keeping/protecting) and interpreting (translating) Scripture falls to the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit (CCC 109-19).
Still, why is it logical that the Church be the interpreter of Scripture? The Church is the "mother" of the New Testament. The New Testament was produced in the Church, by the Church, and for the Church. Therefore, the Church is the logical one to interpret the meaning of what it composed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
When we think of divine inspiration however, there are 2 extremes that we have to avoid. We should not imagine that the Holy Spirit dictated to the biblical writer as an executive might dictate an important letter. Nor should we imagine that the Holy Spirit has acted simply as a kind of "watchdog" keeping the biblical writers from making mistakes as they wrote. Rather, we should envision inspiration as the Holy Spirit working in and through the personal talents of the biblical writers to communicate all and only what God wanted to say through them.
In the text there is a section called Inerrancy of Scripture, meaning that the Bible is free from religious error in matters related to salvation (CCC 107-8). In another word, the Spirit did not protect the biblical writers from scientific or historical error. Although Sacred Scripture contains many accurate historical facts and descriptions that reflect the times and events of the day, this was not its goal. God never intended to compose books on science and history.
People sometimes ask if we have the original biblical manuscripts (documents or books written by hand) and the answer is no.
While searching for a stray (wander off/get lost) goat, a boy came upon a hole in a hillside. It was a cave near the Dead Sea (bordered by the Jordan River and Israel). When he threw a stone through it, he heard something break. It turned out to be a tall jar containing an ancient scroll of the Book of Isaiah. It is believed that a religious group of "monks" hid the scrolls to protect them from invading Roman armies. They were put in large jars and sealed up to protect them from animals and insects. The Dead Sea Scrolls date from long before Jesus' birth so they're nearly 1,000 years older than the oldest biblical manuscripts known to us. It also contains nonbiblical scrolls which help clarify biblical writings.
Other fun facts:
Unlike English or Vietnamese which reads from left to right and front to back, Hebrew reads from right to left and back to front.
The biblical authors did not divide their scrolls into chapters and verses. Thirteenth century scholars divided the Bible into verses and 16th century scholars numbered the verses.
As used in the Bible, the word canon refers to the official list of books inspired by God. Therefore, these books are the "measuring stick" or norm for our Christian faith. Most Christian churches agree on the New Testament canon, but not fully on the Old Testament canon.
Between 300 and 150 BC (Before Christ), the Old Testament was translated into Greek because many Jews living outside Israel no longer spoke Hebrew. The Greek translation was called the Septuagint or seventy after the number of Jewish scholars legend says were involved in the project.
Decades after Jesus' ascension (thăng thiên), the Jews in Israel adopted a new canon, omitting a few books. Modern Jews and modern Protestants (another branch of Christianity) follow the later Palestinian listing. We Catholics follow the original Septuagint listing.
Around 400 AD (anno Domini or in the year of the Lord/Domini), Saint Jerome translated the Septuagint into Latin. This is probably why we often hear these 3 words together in some reading: Do Thái (Hebrew), Hy Lạp (Greek), và Latinh (Latin). It shows us how the Bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin. The first complete English translation of the Bible came in the 14th century (1301-1400).
To sum up, in the Old Testament (covenant with Israel, "mediated" by Moses or through him), God revealed himself through the prophets and in the New Testament (covenant with all people), God speaks to us via Jesus and his life. Though it's been thousands of years since Jesus's time, we're still considered living in the New Testament and so, Bible is the best place where you can find more about who Jesus or God is. This leads us to the reason why readings from the Scriptures have been a big part of our every mass or, giáo lý classes (unfortunately not this year so... yay?) *wink wink* ;)
Anyways, because the Church or we have been doing what the apostles and the first disciples were doing, everyone has been on the exact same journey since like... Day Zero. My point is, always stay "close" together so we can all get there together, especially in this COVID thing. :)
But are there any other ways to experience or realize the presence of God beside reading the Bible? You bet! On top of page 29 if you haven't read, Fr. Francis shares his very interesting find and I quote below:
"One of the ways my students have surprised me is that they find God in failure more than in success or beauty. The death of a parent or relative, the breakup of a love affair, the loss of a game or a job are for them windows of discovery."
I think we can all relate to one of those experiences above (if not most) as we keep walking on our journey so the last thing I can give you as an advice in finding God is that, sometimes we just have to pause and take... lots of breaks from our busy lives to simply, pray and listen. It's because the more peaceful or humble and silent our hearts are, the more chances we could have to be with God and to hear God's words.