March 2, 2025 - Pastor Message
March 14, 2025JUBILEE 2025
JUBILEE 2025
DEI VERBUM (cont.)
“The pattern of revelation unfolds through deeds and words which are intrinsically connected: the works performed by God in the history of salvation show forth and confirm the doctrine and realities signified by the words; the words, for their part, proclaim the works, and bring to light the mystery they contain” (Dei Verbum 2, Vatican Council II, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils II [1990], trans. Norman Tanner).
Picking up again our reflection on Vatican Council II’s Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, the document makes clear that God reveals himself and his saving plan to us in many different ways through an inseparable interplay of works and words. The works reveal God and confirm the words, and the words proclaim and expound on God’s mysterious action in the works. A great example of this is God’s work of creation, through which we first come to know him in the awe and beauty of what he has made. The stories of creation in Scripture (Genesis 1-2) as well as other Bible passages (e.g. Psalm 19) poetically explore this mystery and deepen our awareness of God, the creator.
God not only reveals himself to us in creation but also through the events of history, particularly through the history of the first People of God, the Hebrew people. In increasingly clear and fuller ways over the course of centuries and even millenia, God took an active part in their story: calling them to their unique vocation among all peoples, forming them for their mission through a series of covenants, and ultimately preparing them for the day when he would reveal himself completely to the whole world and forge a new covenant in his Son, Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of their entire saving history. The story of God’s mighty works among the Israelites is told through the words of the Old Testament. Because Christ fulfills God’s revelation throughout history, the story of which is told by those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection in the New Testament, Dei Verbum teaches us that we can expect no new public revelation beyond the New Testament.
All of this of course depends on our ability to know God as he reveals himself to us, which Dei Verbum unequivocally affirms: “God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason” (DV 6). The operative word here is “CAN” be known, not necessarily that he IS known. As St. Paul says: “For what can be known about God is evident to people, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Romans 1:19-20). But, due to the darkness of sin, human beings have closed our minds off to this natural revelation: “For although they knew God, they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened” (Romans 1:21). This is why his supernatural, divine revelation is so important, particularly the words of revelation, by which he enlightens our darkened minds and enables us to see him as he is “with ease, with firm certainty, and without the contamination of error” (DV 6), prompting us by his Holy Spirit and grace to give the words of revelation “the obedience of faith…the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals” himself in his words (DV 5).
Fr. Marc Stockton
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