On the centrality of the Word of God in the life of the Church

This Sunday celebrates the centrality of the Word of God in the life of the Church. We are also fast approaching the onset of Lent. With that in mind, I would like to urge you to consider embarking upon your Lenten journey with a commitment to delve more deeply into the Sacred Scriptures.

Let these three reflections provide you with a convincing rationale for picking up the practice of praying with Holy Scripture.

One of the most persistent and pernicious images of the Church’s relationship with the Scriptures is that of the Bible chained to a desk in a medieval library. The image is correct, but the interpretation is not. For critics of the Church, this picture says it all: The Church “chains down” the Word of God, both literally and figuratively, placing herself above the Scriptures and at the same time restricting access to the Word. In point of fact, the image admits of another interpretation—the correct one, I would say, and it is this: The Bible chained to a lectern shows forth the Church’s esteem for the Scriptures, as well as her guardianship of them, so that they might be available to the faithful from age to age.

But available for what purpose and in what sense? Just how do Catholics regard the Scriptures?

Part One: A Catholic Understanding of the Bible

Liberal Protestants, Fundamentalists, and Catholics all speak of the Scriptures as the Word of God (CCC 105–108), but each means something quite different both in theory and in practice. Perhaps the best guide for discovering the “Catholic” understanding of the Bible is the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Vatican II, Dei Verbum).

The Constitution opens with a careful explanation of the basic notions undergirding the process of Divine Revelation, grounding it in the life and ministry of Jesus, who “completed and perfected revelation and confirmed it with divine guarantees” (n. 4). Clearly teaching the divine inspiration of the sacred authors and, therefore, the inerrant quality of their writings, the Constitution affirms “that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth that God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to be confided to the sacred Scriptures” (n. 11; CCC 107).

That passage serves as a response to a rationalism that would deny the inerrancy of Scripture. For Fundamentalists or biblical literalists, Dei Verbum notes that the interpreter must “carefully search out the meaning that the sacred writers really had in mind, that meaning which God had thought well to manifest through the medium of words” (n. 12; CCC 109). This determination of meaning will come about through an analysis of “literary forms, for the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression” (n. 12).

In carefully nuanced language, the Council Fathers remind exegetes that correct interpretation involves giving due attention to the historical and cultural milieu in which a particular passage was written (CCC 110). Scripture does not speak for itself, then, but needs both a scientific approach (the work of biblical scholars, along with experts in linguistics, history, archeology, and other allied fields) and a final and authoritative voice.

Thus, we read: “For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (n. 12; CCC 85ff). While few Catholics are ever tempted to fall into the trap of biblical literalism, not a few have fallen victim to a version of rationalism that would seek to deny the historical truth of the Gospels or the possibility of miracles (even the virginal conception and bodily Resurrection of Jesus). The correct response to such an approach is not a reactionary swing to Fundamentalism (which is equally incompatible with nineteen centuries of Catholic exegesis) but the “middle road” sketched out by Dei Verbum, giving appropriate weight to scientific examination of the Scriptures but done from the perspective of faith and from within the context of the Church’s Tradition (CCC 113).

If the Scriptures are inspired by Almighty God and free from error (CCC 105–7), then they should be read. Catholics have always been encouraged to do just that, especially in reference to the Gospels. At the same time, however, the Church has also been concerned that private reading can lead some people to erroneous conclusions. This problem is faced squarely in the Acts of the Apostles when Philip asks the Ethiopian eunuch if he understands the Scriptures he is reading. Unashamed, the man says, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:27–39). In other words, the Bible is not self-explanatory, and the concerns of the Church are not unfounded. The solution is not to avoid private reading but to engage in such reading with prudence and caution, making use of good commentaries and guides, including one’s parish priest. Of course, the most beneficial reading of Scripture ideally occurs in the liturgical assembly (CCC 132) as the Church comes together to hear God’s Word proclaimed and explained.

But in all candor, we must ask: How free are Catholics not only to read the Bible but to interpret it? At the risk of sounding flippant, I would say—as free as any non-Catholic Christian. Martin Luther began as an advocate of private scriptural interpretation, reasoning that if the Pope can interpret the Bible, why not he or any other Christian? Luther’s speeches and letters show that later in life, he backed off from this position after seeing the disastrous results of having unprepared and unqualified people give personal reactions to the Bible, allegedly of equal value to the contributions of scholars.

Furthermore, most Protestant denominations have very defined explanations of critical passages, not allowing much leeway for their members’ private judgment, whether the issues might be the significance of water baptism, faith and works, divorce and remarriage, or the Eucharist. That said, one should note that Catholics are really quite uninhibited in this process. They are instructed to read a given passage according to the manifest intent of the sacred author (CCC 109), which intention usually becomes clear from the context of the entire book. If that fails to yield conclusive results, a Catholic consults the accumulated wisdom of the Church. Vatican II put it this way:

The task of an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith (Dei Verbum, n. 10; CCC 95).

A skeptic may pounce on this as proof that the Church suppresses personal reflection, but history attests to the contrary. Fr. Raymond Brown, writing in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, categorically asserts that “the Church has the power to determine infallibly the meaning of Scripture in matters of faith and morals.” However, he immediately goes on to note that this never involves technicalities such as authorship or dating of a book. In point of fact, the Church exercises great restraint in offering authoritative interpretations of individual pericopes (texts); fewer than a dozen such instances can be pointed to in her two-thousand-year history, most of them at the Council of Trent.

For example, the Church has declared that Calvin was wrong in seeing John 3:5 as a mere metaphor. Equally condemned are those who would deny any link between John 20:23 and the Sacrament of Penance. You will note that both instances do not give definitive, positive interpretations but simply call into question an interpretation that has been advocated. From a positive vantage point, the Church has declared Matthew 16:17f. and John 21:15 as germane to the doctrine of Petrine primacy, and James 5:14 as tied in to the Sacrament of the Sick. Likewise, the Church has indicated that the Gospel accounts of the institution of the Eucharist are to be understood literally. So few examples can hardly be perceived as a heavy-handed attempt to stifle private interpretation. It is also worth noting that whenever a rare, definitive interpretation is given, it is done only after consultation with the best exegetes of the day, as well as allowing for the divine guidance promised by Jesus to His Church (see Jn 14:26; 16:13).

To push for one’s own interpretation counter to twenty centuries of authentic and authoritative understanding of a particular passage would appear to be spiritual pride and arrogance of the worst sort. Just as the books of the Bible were collected into one by the Church, so too ought one to read that Bible as a member of that same Church (CCC 113). To put it in the simplest terms possible, Catholics see the Bible as a work to be read, studied, prayed over and with, using both their heads and their hearts to gain the deepest knowledge of the Lord, who offers His Word as a means of sharing His life.

Part Two: Scripture and Tradition

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? That question can touch off an endless debate because it is largely irresolvable. In the realm of theology, some questions have a similar effect. For many, the question “Which comes first, Scripture or Tradition?” is equally impossible to resolve. A careful analysis of the question, however, yields a very clear and satisfactory answer.

Some definitions are in order at the outset. Sacred Scripture, or the Bible, is that collection of works written under divine inspiration. Sacred Tradition is the unwritten or oral record of God’s Word to His prophets and apostles, received under divine inspiration and faithfully transmitted to the Church under the same guidance. Tradition differs from Scripture in that Tradition is a living reality passed on and preserved in the Church’s doctrine, life, and worship, while Scripture is a tangible reality found in written form (CCC 81–82). Since the Protestant Reformation, a sticking point in ecumenical dialogue has been the perceived rivalry between Scripture and Tradition.

The way Dei Verbum handles the problem, the conflict is more apparent than real, as the Council Fathers declare that “sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church” (n. 10; CCC 80, 84). Thus, the focus of the debate is shifted from one of “Scripture versus Tradition” to a discussion of the Lord’s desire to reveal Himself to His people, a process carried forward by both Scripture and Tradition.

From the temporal point of view, Tradition precedes Scripture (CCC 83), and the Church precedes both, in that the writing of the New Testament did not begin until some fifteen to twenty years after the Pentecostal formation of the Church and was not completed until perhaps as late as A.D. 120. The Gospel message, then, was first imparted through oral tradition, and only later was it committed to written form. The means (whether oral or written), however, is in many ways secondary to the goal (revelation) and to the receiver of the revelation (God’s people, the Church).

An example from American government might be instructive. The law of the land is found in the Constitution of the United States; it is normative for American life. However, it is not a self-interpreting document. On the contrary, it calls for detailed, professional interpretation from an entire branch of government dedicated to that purpose. Furthermore, when conflicting views do emerge, standard procedures of jurisprudence call for a return to the sources, in an effort to discover the mind of those who produced the document.

With appropriate allowances made for the divine workings in the case of Scripture, Tradition, and the Church, one finds many useful parallels. First, the Scriptures did not descend from Heaven in final form but took shape in and through the community of the Church, responding to and working under divine inspiration. Second, the Scriptures are not self-explanatory documents but require “an authentic interpretation,” which task “has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone” (CCC 85), according to the Second Vatican Council. The bishops at Vatican II conclude these considerations by asserting:

. . . in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.(Dei Verbum, n. 10).

Is this explanation mere wishful thinking to justify Catholic theology and practice? Not at all, for the historical record bears out all these points. The canon of the Bible (the officially accepted list of inspired books) is the clearest proof of the validity of this approach (CCC 120). We know with the utmost certitude that no authoritative list of scriptural books existed until the fourth century. And who then produced this canon? None other than the Church meeting in ecumenical council.

Therefore, the value and even, one could say, the validity of the written Word is established only after its inspiration and inerrancy are assured and attested to by the Church. The process of Divine Revelation thus began with the Church, through Tradition, and subsequently passed into Scripture, and not the other way around. Interestingly, Saint Augustine of Hippo–one of the greatest commentators on Holy Scripture, an eminent preacher of the Word, and highly regarded by Protestants as well–made this astonishing comment in “Against the Letter of Mani” (397 A.D.): “I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so.” In other words, the Church serves as the guarantor of the Scriptures.

Can it happen, though, that Scripture and Tradition will at times contradict each other? Impossible, because they are just two sides of the same coin, whose purpose is the same and whose origins are the same. Since God wishes to reveal Himself to us, He has guaranteed the process in both its oral and written expressions (and not one more than the other). Furthermore, God cannot contradict Himself. Saint Paul apparently had this very concept in mind when he urged his readers at Thessalonika to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Th 2:15).

This very passage, however, raises a secondary but related problem. Some Christians tend to confuse “Tradition” with “traditions” (CCC 83). Having already defined Tradition, we need to consider the meaning and place of traditions (customs or practices). Sacred Tradition is divine in origin and, so, unchangeable; traditions are human in origin and therefore changeable. Some examples that come to mind are various devotions to the saints, processions, acts of penance, and the use of incense or holy water. No Church authority has ever held that these practices are divinely mandated; at the same time, no one can demonstrate that they are divinely forbidden (even the Protestant Reformers saw this and referred to certain things as “adiaphora” or theologically neutral). Traditions exist to put people in touch with Almighty God. To the extent that they do, they are good; to the extent that they do not, they are bad and should be modified or abolished.

Certain defined dogmas, on the other hand, cannot be found explicitly in Scripture (for example, Mary’s Assumption or Immaculate Conception), yet the Church binds her members to an acceptance of these teachings. How so?

First of all, because nothing in Scripture contradicts these dogmas. Second, because they have been a part of the Tradition (or oral revelation) from the very beginning. Third, because they can be implicitly located in Scripture, waiting, in a sense, to be uncovered by the Church’s prayerful reflection over the centuries. Scripture comes alive only in the life of the community that gave it birth and has ever since preached and proclaimed it (CCC 94). To remove Scripture from its moorings in the Church is to deny it genuine vitality. Scripture provides Tradition with a written record against which to judge its fidelity and thus serves as a safeguard. In the “balance of powers” (to resort once more to the governmental analogy), Tradition is a defense against an unhealthy individualism that distorts the Bible through a private interpretation at odds with the constant Tradition of the Church.

For Christians, the Bible is not revelation in itself; for us, revelation is a Person, not a book, no matter how holy. To worship a book is bibliolatry. A truly accurate and truly Christian view of revelation takes all these seriously: God, the Church, the Church’s Tradition, and the Church’s Scriptures. The focus of our attention, however, is not the Church, the Scriptures, or Tradition, but God. The other three are means given to us so we arrive at our end: union with God (CCC 95).

Finally, we shall review how pervasive is the presence and influence of Sacred Scripture in the life of the Church.

Part Three: Sacred Scripture in the Life of the Church

“The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord,” begins the sixth chapter of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum (CCC 141), as the Council Fathers endeavored to situate Scripture in the life of the Church. Many non-Catholic Christians would question the accuracy of this Vatican II assertion. The purpose here is to demonstrate that the Catholic Church is not only a “Bible-based” Church but the Bible-based Church. As Alfred E. Smith was fond of putting it, “Let’s look at the record.”

From time immemorial, the Church has served as the guardian and preserver of the Scriptures. And why not? For it was she who mothered the New Testament (CCC 124–27), and it was she who authoritatively determined just which books should be included in the canon of the Bible (CCC 120). The Church has always sought to expose her sons and daughters to God’s Word by the most appropriate means possible. In times of low literacy, that was best accomplished through preaching and teaching that concentrated on the key persons and events of Bible history, especially those that had their origin in the life and ministry of Our Lord, as they are handed on in the Gospels. Salvation history was passed on for centuries through the Church’s liturgical arts in stained-glass windows (known in art history as “The Bible of the Poor”), paintings, sculpture, and hymns.

For most American Catholics over fifty years of age, grammar school religion classes involved not only the Baltimore Catechism but also serious and extensive study of Bible history. Since Vatican II, the methodology has shifted so that young Catholics study the Bible itself and do not merely study about the Bible. This development resulted from the Church’s confidence that a sufficiently educated laity was emerging that could profit immeasurably from direct exposure to the Scriptures through private reading and formal guided study (CCC 133). The Church’s only historical hesitancy has been a fear that private reading of Scripture could lead an untrained reader to erroneous and harmful conclusions, which has happened often enough in the recent past to be a source of genuine concern but not often enough to discourage the practice. To prevent such misfortunes from occurring, the Church encourages believers to engage in Bible study groups (now commonplace in parishes around the country) or in formal classes, so that one’s personal reading of the Bible can be buoyed by the necessary background information in history, archaeology, linguistics, and theology.

Few students today can attend a Catholic high school or college and fail to receive heavy doses of such courses. While seminary education always involved the study and use of Scripture in regular courses in exegesis and preaching, as well as in the areas of dogmatic and moral theology and liturgy, the use of Scripture in contemporary Catholic seminary training might conceivably outstrip its use in most similar Protestant courses of study (CCC 132).

However, it is important to observe that Catholic biblical scholarship is not a twentieth- or twenty-first-century phenomenon, nor did the Church enter this arena as a grudging participant or “Johnny-come-lately.” On the contrary, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church were the very people who began biblical study in earnest. Their letters, lectures, and homilies–beginning in the first century and continuing up to modern times—provide clear historical evidence of the Church’s continuous efforts to make God’s Word intelligible and profitable to God’s People.

Saint Jerome worked with the Sacred Scriptures in the fourth century, having prepared himself for his lifelong task by a careful study of all the ancient languages and by visiting (and living in) the key spots highlighted in the Bible, especially those connected with the life of Christ. Jerome even commissioned a rabbi not only to teach him Hebrew but to school him in the methods of Jewish biblical interpretation. Saint Augustine, no mean scholar in his own right, praised Jerome’s erudition by remarking that “what Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known.” Jerome’s commentaries on Scripture still provide valuable and valid insights into the meaning of debated, controversial, or confusing texts. His real claim to fame, however, rests in his monumental achievement of translating the entire Bible into Latin, a translation known as the Latin Vulgate. At times, critics of the Church hold the Latin Vulgate up as proof that the Church was intent on keeping the Scriptures away from the average believer. This is to miss the very point of the Vulgate, which was designed to take the Scriptures out of the obscure and scholarly languages of Hebrew and Greek and to render them in a tongue understandable to the common people, hence Jerome’s choice of “vulgar” Latin, the Latin universally known and used at that time.

In the Middle Ages, the Bible was preserved through the painstaking efforts of the monks, who not only copied by hand the biblical texts but also the commentaries of the early Church Fathers. It is no exaggeration to suggest that if it were not for the medieval Church, there would have been no Scriptures around which Martin Luther could rally with his slogan of “sola Scriptura” (“Scripture alone”).

At the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, the bishops called for improvements to be made to Jerome’s Vulgate, as did Pope Pius XII in the twentieth century. With the gradual emergence of modern languages, vernacular translations began to appear and to be accepted by the Church. The three English translations most frequently used by Catholics in the United States are the Jerusalem Bible, the New American Bible, and the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version—all approved by competent ecclesiastical authority. In addition to scholarly biblical journals, Catholic publishers make available periodicals of a more popular nature, as well as concordances, commentaries, and biblical dictionaries and encyclopedias, all to enable Catholics to read the Scriptures in a way that does justice to the texts and brings life and holiness to the reader. Before Jerome and since, the Church has profited from the learning of people who have committed their whole lives to the advancement of biblical study. To this day, the most difficult and prestigious ecclesiastical degree is the doctorate in Sacred Scripture obtained from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome or the École Biblique in Jerusalem.

All the foregoing information might be interesting, but it could all apply to less than a sizable portion of the whole Church. What kind of an impact does this scholarly biblical activity have on the average person in the pew? Well, it is precisely that Catholic in that very spot who does receive the benefits of the Catholic devotion to the Bible. If a Catholic were to read no Scripture beyond the passages used for Sunday Mass over the three-year cycle, that person would have been exposed to more than seven thousand verses of the Bible—no mean accomplishment. Of course, Bible reading has always formed the first half of the Mass (CCC 1154f, 1190, 1349) from apostolic times (as the New Testament attests), but the lectionary revised in response to the liturgical renewal of Vatican II opened up even more of the Bible to the Sunday-Mass Catholic. The current lectionary is so extensive in its coverage of nearly the entire New Testament and the most significant portions of the Old Testament over a three-year period that most mainline Protestant denominations have adopted it. If a Catholic attends daily Mass, the percentage of Scripture taken in over a two-year span is more than double that for the Sunday readings.

Catholics have often been intimidated into thinking that Fundamentalists read more of the Bible than Catholics, but this is not necessarily true—either quantitatively or qualitatively, especially qualitatively. Most Fundamentalist ministers select biblical passages according to the topic they wish to handle for a particular day; it is not unusual for them to have “pet” themes and “pet” passages, to which their congregations are treated on a recurring basis. This kind of eclectic or selective Bible reading is not possible in Catholic liturgy, because the readings are assigned to a given day. Thus, the sermon or homily should flow from the Word of God; the cleric’s biases or interests do not determine the sections of the Word of God to be proclaimed. This is not an insignificant point to understand and appreciate.

Aside from the obvious Scripture readings that form the backbone of the Liturgy of the Word, the Mass itself is a thoroughly biblical prayer: in the direct scriptural citations, in the paraphrases, and in the biblical allusions. The Mass begins and ends with quotations from Scripture: “The Lord be with you” (said several times in the course of the Mass) comes from the Book of Ruth, as the alternate greetings come from the writings of Saint Paul. The dismissal rite, “Go in peace,” adopts the words commonly used by Our Lord after performing His miracles. Everything else sandwiched in between can be found to originate in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself.

The Roman Canon or Eucharistic Prayer I abounds in biblical allusions to Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek. Eucharistic Prayer IV is nothing more or less than a complete summation of salvation history. At the heart of every Mass are repeated the texts of Our Lord’s words of institution of the Eucharist, found in all three Synoptic Gospels (CCC 1352f.). The Communion Rite begins with the Lord’s Prayer, as recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (CCC 2759– 865). The Rite of Peace quotes Saint John’s Gospel and is followed by “the Breaking of the Bread,” the expression used for the Mass in the Acts of the Apostles; the invitation to Holy Communion is a direct quotation of John the Baptist’s witness to Jesus. Christ is acknowledged as truly present by the response of the congregation in the words of the Roman centurion, who asserted his own unworthiness to have Christ come under his roof. The reception of Holy Communion is as old as Christianity itself, beginning at the Lord’s Last Supper; Christians have always understood Our Lord to be really and substantially present in the Eucharist, since Christ challenged those who did not do so to leave Him, as the first skeptics did (see Jn 6:67; CCC 1384).

The vestments, vessels, gestures, preaching, and sacrificial offering of the Mass today are so thoroughly biblical that it would not be rash to assert that if one of the Twelve were to enter a Catholic church during Mass on any given day, he would understand completely what was underway. If it were possible to have too much of a good thing, this brief survey of the average Catholic’s involvement with the Scriptures might suggest that he is supersaturated with the Bible, for it truly permeates a Catholic’s life both in private and public worship. The Fathers of Vatican II, then, did not engage in hyperbole by declaring that Catholics venerate the Scriptures just as they venerate the Lord’s Body, for the Word must always take on flesh—one logically leading to the other (CCC 103).

With this trilogy, I hope to have stimulated you sufficiently to have resolved to undertake some serious prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture this coming Lent: perhaps a book of the Bible you have never read; perhaps a chapter of the Gospels each day; or maybe one or more of the epistles. Doing so will ensure that you do not fall under the condemnation of Saint Jerome, who asserted: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” After all, the whole purpose of Lent is precisely to come to a deeper knowledge and following of Christ.

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