RCIA - Class 3 Divine Revelation

1. RCIA - Class 3Divine Revelation What does the Catholic Church teach about: Sacred Scriptures Sacred Traditions Inspiration The Canon of Scriptures Let’s shed some light on these topics… GRAB YOUR NAME TAG

2. Before we begin… • Let’s begin with prayer • Prayer intentions… • Prayer closed with “Glory Be” which we learned last week

3. Glory Be… • Glory be to the Father,and to the Son,and to the Holy Spirit.As it was in the beginning,is now,and ever shall be,world without end.Amen.

4. Discussion • After last weeks lecture • If someone were to come up to you on Monday at work, and ask you one of two questions how would you answer? • “You mean to tell me that God exists? Can you prove that to me?” • How would I defend the existence of God? • “You tell me the Trinity is one, yet 3 what is that all about?”

5. House Keeping details… • Contact information • Ashlie Dill – DRE – 520 N 6th St. Grand Forks, ND 58203 – stmichaelsdre@gmail.com • office number – 701-772-2624 • Fr. Pfeifer – 520 N 6th St. Grand Forks, ND 58203 – neil.pfeifer@fargodiocese.org • Office number – 701-772-2624 • Cell number – 701-208-1124

6. Start attending weekly Mass • At Holy Communion, come up and cross your arms for a blessing. • Look at the handouts after class each week and read them. More insights • Paper on the middle of each table for questions you can put them by the computer at break or toward the end of class • Prayers in the middle of the tables weekly – try to memorize them and pray them • NAME TAGS – just leave them here after class and they will be here for you next week. We are meant to journey together. If you do not have a name tag, please make a note on a paper in the middle of your table.

7. A few other details… • CCC index as a reference to SS • What is a sponsor? Sponsor information is due by Oct. 26 • A sponsor in the RCIA process is a companion for someone walking the journey to initiation who you can stay in touch with on a weekly basis

8. The role of the sponsor? • Their role is to help the catechumen or candidate: • Be a bridge between them and the parish community • They share with the them the practices, prayers, beliefs of our Tradition • They assist and aid the parish initiation team if needed • They present the inquirer to the parish community at various Rites • They participate with them at all the liturgical rites • They offer support, encouragement and explanations, when needed • They witness /testify to them on moral character, faith and intention; • They assist in the discernment process. • They are active, supportive, and help in any way possible

9. Sponsor requirements? • Be a Catholic - baptized, received the Eucharist, and been confirmed • Be at least sixteen years of age • Not be in an irregular marriage - marriage is blessed in the church • Lead a life in harmony with the nature of the Church - Practicing Catholic • Be available to attend weekly sessions and liturgical rites • Someone you admire because of their unquestionable faith, someone who walks closely with God, and lives their life as closely to the Gospel teachings as possible. • According to the Catholic Catechism of the Church (#1255) “this person must also be able and ready to help the newly baptized adult on the road to Christian life – cannot be a parent

10. Cannot find a sponsor? • St. Michael’s is eager to help you find a sponsor • This is someone from the parish who is willing to walk the journey with you. • If you want the parish to find you a sponsor contact Ashlie or myself within the next couple of weeks or talk to us on one of our breaks. • We want this to be a smooth journey for you!

11. Divine Revelation • Divine Revelation is how God reveals Himself to us. • The ultimate revelation of God to us is with His Son, Jesus Christ, who is really the incarnation of God’s revelation. • But there is quite a bit of Pre-Christian revelation that God gives us in humanity. • First of all, last week, we looked at 8 ways we can come to know God. • Through the use of natural reason, • Looking at the beauty of the created universe, • Seeing order of things in nature, • Noting through this that there must be an Intelligent Creator.

12. Divine Revelation… • Divine Revelation is God Himself breaking into this world and revealing Himself to us. • Either naturally or supernaturally, • Either way, we can come to know God through our conscience, and the light of natural reason;

13. Today’s focus… • Our topic today is about how God reveals Himself to us supernaturally, • There are many truths of our Faith that could not be known from the light of natural reason. • One of them we talked about was the Trinity. • We could have never figured out on our own that God is actually three Divine Persons, • Father, • Son, • Holy Spirit, • Yet, there’s only One God. • We could not have come to that knowledge - God had to reveal that to us. • What about Angels? • God had to reveal that to us. – we could not figure this OUT!

14. It all starts with Creation • God began revealing truths to the human race all the way back at the time of our first parents, Adam and Eve. • This is something that we call public revelation. • Public revelation is the official revealing of God to us, beginning with Adam and Eve, and ending at the death of the last Apostle, who was St. John the Evangelist, who died about the year 100 AD. • All public revelation occurred during that time period from the existence of our first parents, and ended with the death of John the Apostle, John the Evangelist.

15. Public vs. Private Rev. • Public revelation is different from private revelation. • You might have heard of private revelations where sometimes the Blessed Mother appears to the children of Fatima, • Or when Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary, and manifested the Sacred Heart. • Many of the saints have appeared over the years to people. – private appearances • These are all private revelations.

16. Private Revelation is… • Not necessary for our salvation. • Public revelation which ended with the death of the last Apostle helps us to attain salvation. • The Church is not inventing any new doctrines or any new teachings. • It was all revealed by God and ended during the Apostolic Age • public vs. private • revelation

17. What is the difference?

19. Pre-Christian Revelation • The Pre-Christian (before Christ) revelation can be divided up into three sections • 1. The first is called Primitive. • Primitive revelation is the revelation God made to Adam and Eve. • 2. The second is Patriarchal. • Patriarchal revelation is how God revealed Himself to the patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob figures of the OT. • 3. Finally, the Mosaic revelation, • This is when God revealed Himself to Moses and the prophets. • God began by speaking to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. He continued to speak to Abraham, to know him, and then He sent Moses to the Israelites. All of this was what we call Pre-Christian or Old Testament revelation.

20. Then along comes Jesus… • With Jesus, we come to the fullness of God’s revelation, which is Christian revelation. • This came because God sent His Son into the world, and Jesus is the revelation of God the Father. – John 3:16 • The Lord taught the Apostles, and He said, “Go out and preach the Gospel until the end of time.” –Matt. 28:20 • He said, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.” Matt 28:19

21. Who is the author? • Divine Revelation has God • As its author, • As its origin. • Why? • God can neither deceive nor be deceived. • We know that what He reveals • Either is through the Old Testament, • or through Christ in the New Testament, • Both are true.

22. Pillars of Revelation… • There are two legs of Divine Revelation, • 1. Sacred Scripture, • 2. Sacred Tradition. • Scripture comes from the Latin word which means “the writings.” • The bible is a collection of books or writings. • And Tradition comes from the Latin word which means “what is passed down” or “what is handed on.” • Tradition is something that’s handed on.

23. Tradition – “handed on” • You might have Christmas traditions, Easter traditions, Thanksgiving traditions, and Halloween traditions in your family; • Something that is handed down. • Scripture refers to the written Word of God; • Sacred Tradition, refers to the spoken Word of God. • Combined these are what’s called the two channels or two legs of Divine Revelation in this world.

24. Tradition - capital “T” • Sacred Tradition is with a capital T. • It’s not traditions of men that Jesus condemned in the New Testament. • Sacred Tradition is the teachings (the verbal, the oral teachings) that have come down to us from the time of the Apostles.

26. Passages in Scripture • Some passages that talk about Scripture and Tradition • 2 Thess. 2:15 – “To hold fast to the teachings that you have learned, whether by word, or by letter.” • This is a very important teaching, because it is something that would show the difference between Catholic teaching and Protestant teaching; • One of the basis for the Protestant Reformation was their Doctrine called Sola Scriptura. • Do you know what that means?

27. Sola Scriptura… • Have all of you heard of that? • Sola, meaning alone, • Scriptura– Scripture alone. • This is one of the cries of Martin Luther, saying that we don’t need the Church anymore; • With his idea: • All that we have is the Bible, • All we need is the Bible.

28. No, we need SS and Tradition • 2 Thess. 2:15 - the teaching of St. Paul on this is very important. • Why? • He shows us why we believe in both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. • Sola Scriptura was Martin Luther’s position that you don’t need the Church, you don’t need anything. All you need is the Bible. • His claim was that if you have the Bible, then you have everything. • We’ll see later how there is actually more than just the Bible, • Remember, Jesus didn’t come to give us the Bible. • He came to establish His Church. The Church is more than the Bible • The Church is what gives us the seven sacraments, and the Bible, and the teachings of Christ.

29. 2 Thess. 2:15 refutes ML • One of the passages that actually refutes Sola Scriptura in the Bible (and nowhere in the Bible does the Bible itself teach that Scripture alone has all that is truly necessary for salvation) is this quote, St. Paul told the Thessalonians, • “Hold to the teachings you have learned, whether by word” (which is Sacred Tradition), “or by letter” (which is Scripture). – 2 Thess. 2:15

30. Other passages… • John, 21:25. “There are, however, many other things that Jesus did. If every one of these should be written down, not even the world itself, I think, could hold the books that would have to be written.” • In other words, John is saying that what Jesus said and did is a whole lot more than what’s written in the Bible. • St. John says that he doesn’t think the world could contain all the books it would take to write down everything that Jesus did and said. • So not everything Jesus did and said is written down in Scripture -- Did he go to the bathroom?

31. Look a bit closer… • In fact, even before the Scriptures were written, there was the Sacred Tradition • These Traditions were the passing on of the truths that Jesus taught the Apostles. • Jesus died roughly about the year 33, and then rose, and then ascended to Heaven; but the first books of the New Testament weren’t written until the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and some as late as the 90’s. • You have this whole period between the life of Christ and the times that the Bible was written down, and during this time we refer to the Sacred Tradition, the passing on of the faith through the spoken word, and oral tradition.

32. Sacred Scripture first… • Let’s focus on the Sacred Scriptures first, then we will talk about Sacred Tradition!

33. The Number of Books… • The Scriptures are a composite of books. • We will spend some time talking about the differences between the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible. • The New Testament is identical. Both the Catholic and the Protestant New Testament have 27 books. • The difference is that in the Old Testament, we have the 46 books of the Old Testament, whereas, the Protestants have 39. • That means we have books in the Old Testament that the Protestant Bibles will not have.

34. Important to remember • With Sacred Scripture, • It is important to remember that the Bible is the Word of God. • We treat it with great reverence and respect as Catholics. • We know that it is inspired by God, • The primary author of Scripture is God Himself - even though He used human beings to write it down.

35. God is the Author! • If you were asked the question, “Who is the primary author of Sacred Scripture?” • The answer is God – • God inspired the Old Testament and the New Testament writers to write down these works. • The Holy Spirit inspired Sacred Scripture. • The writers were the instruments that God chose.

36. Bible = NT + OT • All together, we have the books of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament that combine into one book, which we call the Bible. • This comes from the Latin word biblia, which means a collection of books, or a library. The Bible is whole library of books.

37. More on the bible? • The books of the Bible were written over the course of 1300 years, • This is from the time of Moses, (~1200 BC), tothe time of St. John the Evangelist (~100 AD). • The Bible was written mostly in three different languages over the course of this time: • Hebrew, • Aramaic, • Greek

38. Inspired by God • The writers were inspired by God, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. • Their mind was enlightened • Their will was moved to write what He wished. • It is sort of mysterious how the writers of Scripture remained as free instruments. • Their will was not forced in any way. • They still had their free will. • The writers still used their own styles. • They were God’s instruments. God directed them and preserved them from writing error

39. God, the primary author • God is the primary author of Sacred Scripture. • The Bible is the Word of God, we owe it the greatest reverence and respect. • In courtrooms, they ask you to place your hand upon the Bible (upon the Word of God). • Solemn oaths are taken by placing your hand on the Bible. • At Mass, when the Gospel is read, we all stand out of respect for the Word of God. • The Bible has been read in every Catholic Mass for the last 2000 years (passages of Sacred Scripture). • During processions at Mass, the deacon (if you have a deacon) will carry in the Gospel or the Bible. • All of these show our reverence.

40. Reverence for God’s Word • At Christmas and Easter, and other times we incense the Word of God to show our respect and reverence for the Holy Word of God. • We’ve had many Catholics over the years that were martyred, because they were safeguarding and defending Sacred Scripture. • This is prevalent in the early Church where the Roman government was trying to burn and destroy copies of Sacred Scripture, and many Christians gave their lives to preserve the Word of God.

41. Bible – a historical record • The Bible give us reliable historical records. • Over the years, science has come, in their excavations, to reaffirm things that are present in Scripture. • One event would be the fall of Jericho. • They’ve done excavations in that part of the world (archeological digs), and they’ve found ruins of the walls of Jericho, which confirms what was mentioned in the Bible. • The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has been shown through archeology. • Evidence of the Great Flood.

42. Ancient writings • What’s interesting is that even in some other ancient writings, like the ancient Babylonian writings; it also talks about a flood. • These things like the flood are even mentioned in other Assyrian and Babylonian writings, and not just found in Scripture. These things are very interesting when you read the history of the Bible. The Bible shows that these things did happen.

43. St. Jerome • One of the greatest events in the history of the Bible was about St. Jerome. • St. Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus. • St. Jerome was the one who translated the Scriptures into the Latin, to get it into the language of the people. • At the time, the Old Testament was in Hebrew, and the New Testament was in Greek. • It’s important to remember that the Old Testament was largely written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was largely written in Greek. • But then, about the year 400, the pope wanted the Bible to be brought into the language of the people.

44. More on St. Jerome • St. Jerome was commissionedto translate the entire bible into the Latin language. • It took about 35 years to translate the entire Bible into Latin. • This translation into Latin is called the Vulgate.

45. What is the Vulgate? • The Vulgate comes from the Latin word meaning the language of the people, or the common language. • We get the word “vulgar” from this word. • It doesn’t mean bad, it just means common language. • Unfortunately, it has different connotations today, if somebody speaks in a vulgar way. • But originally it meant the common tongue, the language of the people.

46. More on St. Jerome • St. Jerome moved from Rome to the Holy Land. • He lived in a cave at Bethlehem. • While in the cave, he spent this time in prayer, and penance, and fasting. • You may be asking yourself why did he move to Bethlehem? • He moved to Bethlehem so he could work with the rabbis (the ancient rabbis) that knew the original languages. • There he made his translation of the Vulgate, which is the official translation of the Church.

47. A good time for handouts • Take a look at the handout called “The Making of the New Testament – The Catholic Church, Mother of the Bible.” – Page 9 • See here, we have the life of Christ, from basically one AD to 33 AD, even though Jesus was actually born between four and six BC, most likely, according to most modern scholarship. • So, when the Lord died and rose from the dead, He ascended into Heaven, but he left on earth a Church. Remember, Jesus came to establish His Church. Then the Church is what wrote the New Testament, and then approved the books of the Old Testament.

48. The making of the NT • Let’s say Jesus died around the year 33, rose, and ascended into Heaven. • The first books of the New Testament weren’t written until between the year 42 and 97. • You have several decades that the Church was preaching the Gospel and teaching, before even a word of the New Testament was written down. • The Epistles and the Gospels were written, again between the years 42 to about the year 100. And then, between the year 100 and 393, there were several Gospels that were out there sort of floating around.

49. Other Gospels??? • There were about 50 Gospels that people could have been reading at the time. • The unfortunate thing was that only four of them were authentically the inspired Word of God • Matthew, • Mark, • Luke, • John.

50. What other gospels? • The Church had to examine all these other writings, things like: • The Didichae, • The Shepherd of Hermas, • The letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, • The letters of St. Clement of Alexandria. • The Church had to determine which of these were truly the inspired Word of God. • How did they do this?