We wanted to continue the explanation and go to the Mass of the Catechumens, which is really the service of the Word. Later on, it distinguishes from the sacred action, sacramental action, which begins with the offertory and which really is reserved to the faithful and therefore is called the Mass of the Faithful. There's a word in Isaiah, in the last chapter of the prophet Isaiah, that I want to read to you because it seems to give us, to allow us to look a little into the reasons why God revered himself to us by speaking to us in a special way.

[01:02]

The Word of God has, if you look at the history of Revelation, has three ways in which it is expressed. It has the God spoke to us, as it were, in his creation. He created this world through the Word. and therefore certainly this creation is a manifestation of God. It is, as one says usually, a letter that God has written to us, but that is kind of a dangerous comparison. Certainly it is true that This visible creation is a means through which our mind is able to ascend to God as the first cause and as the creator of heaven and earth.

[02:06]

Certainly in this visible creation, the wisdom, the goodness, and the power of the creator are set forth. As St. Paul says, says in the first chapter to the Romans, for the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity. But then there's a second way in which God revealed himself to his people, and that is through his word, by speaking to his chosen ones, to the patriarchs, revealing his will to Moses, and later on to the prophets.

[03:12]

Hence then, all this, the history of this revelation is then written down in the book, the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. Hence then, in the end of times, in this messianic time, the Word of God revealed Himself by becoming man. The Word of God made man. dwelt among us and told us of the one whom nobody has seen, as St. John says. But the Son who was in the Father's bosom, he has revealed him to us. He has proclaimed him to us. So in these three ways God revealed himself to us, and we ask ourselves why it was necessary that after God had revealed himself in this creation, he should then in a special way speak to us through his word.

[04:39]

Now, maybe this word of Isaiah as the prophet would give us a hint in what direction to look for a reason. The prophet says in the 66th chapter, in the second verse, Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. Where is the house that you could build to? And where is this place that could be my rest? This whole universe, my hand made it. It all belongs to me. Words of the Lord. but I turn my eyes to the one who is poor and is of a contrite heart and who trembles at my word.

[05:50]

I think there we find the reason why God addresses himself in a special word to man. He does so after the fall. The fall of man has thrown this creation again into a chaos, and this chaos demands a new creative world so that out of this chaos a new world and a greater manifestation of God's love should arise. So God speaks to fallen man. For what reason? To open to fallen man a new word, a new dimension, and that word is the word of mercy and of forgiveness.

[06:58]

And while this visible world may be well suited to praise the wisdom and glory of its maker. No star and no mountain, no beast, no tree, no sunshine, no rain will ever be able to announce to man that his heavenly Father has forgiven him his sin. The natural law with which nature is endowed from the beginning of creation, will impose the death sentence upon those who rebel against the Creator. An absolution can only come to man as a personal word issuing from the very heart of the Father

[08:03]

and erected to the heart of man as the prodigal son. Therefore people who think that it is below the dignity of God to speak to man besides and beyond the word which he has uttered in creating the world they do not realize that the fall of man has opened a new chaos out of which the word of divine forgiveness creates a new world which in an infinitely higher sense is a manifestation of the Father's glory. But God has not spoken his word of forgiveness only to an individual, human being.

[09:08]

If he had done so, then the word would not have become scripture, a written word. But God's word of reconciliation took the form of a book. because it was given to the chosen people, to God's people. Not an individual, as we said before, is the recipient only of repentance, but it is a people that is called to repentance and that is called into a new happiness. The spoken word, merely spoken word, never has the official character which is necessary in order to address a people, a community, because the spoken word passes with the sound.

[10:17]

Only the letter gives to the words that eternal public and authoritative character which it needs to become the firm basis for the life and the faith and the hope of a community. The letter saves events of the past from oblivion and gives to laws their binding authority. And the book therefore fulfils in the life of a community the two functions of memory and of conscience, assuring continuity of history and unity of action. Therefore, the two basic forms of books are annals and codes. And Holy Scripture has exactly this twofold function in relation to the people of God.

[11:20]

It appears for the first time as the Book of the Covenant, containing the laws for God's people to keep, as in Exodus 24, 7. But before this, God had already ordered Moses to write a book for a memorial, Exodus 17, 14. The Old Testament had to become a book of history because God's word of reconciliation was first given to man as a promise of a redeemer who at the end of time would crush the dragon's head, Genesis 3.50. God is a faithful God and his promise is a sure promise. And the fact that God ordered his promise to be put down in writing and to be repeated again and again in every generation gives to his promise that rock-like quality which alone is able to reflect the eternal charity of God upon which it is based.

[12:38]

we can distinguish in the Word of God of the Old Testament having three main categories. One, the five books of Moses, which constitute, as it were, basic manifestation of God's saving plan and of God's saving will for his people. They are the Magna Carta, the constitution which orders, regulates the life of the chosen people. And then we have another group of books which show This letter, this Constitution, has to say in the action of conquest how it is translated into life.

[13:42]

That is the second group of books in Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. We call them the historical and the prophetical books. These historical and prophetical books are introduced with the book of Joshua. Joshua Jesus was the one who leads the people which, through the manifestation of the law on Mount Sinai, had received its constitution and its form. and was therefore now a united public factor. Before the law was received, the people were not really constituted as a community. They were what Holy Scripture of the Old Testament calls the rabble, the tuba,

[14:49]

But through the legislation of Mount Sinai, the people had received a form. And now this united people, under the leadership of Joshua, Jesus, which means the Lord makes room or the Lord saves, this Joshua then enters the Promised Land, to conquer it, passing through the Jordan. So that is that history of the chosen people which starts with the passing through the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua. The name Joshua is the same as the name Jesus. Yahweh makes room or Yahweh saves. This conquest of the Promised Land under the guidance of the law, that is the topic of what we call the historical and the prophetical books of the Old Testament.

[16:11]

Joshua, Judges, Ruth. then the four books of Kings, and down to the Maccabees, and including the prophetical books. Prophets only have a special mission in this conquest to say they are in some way beyond the conquest. They appear at the moment in which the promised land is being lost and the exile starts, and then later on this exile ends in the return. That is really the main topic of the prophets. But in the Jewish usage, no distinction is really made between what we call the historical and the prophetical books. They all are in that way historical and they all are prophetical.

[17:18]

They all are a prophecy really of that conquest which the Messiah Jesus once will achieve when he passes through his own passion into the Promised Land, which is reached when the Holy Spirit fills the house. It's the land of the Church. And in the New Testament, of course, not only one geographical corner, but really the whole world. Then we have in the Old Testament a third category of books and they contain or they are expressions of the wisdom which those who dwell in the land or dwell in the house develop and through which they fill their life with the divine spirit.

[18:27]

That are the wisdom books. and to there also belong the Psalms, because the Psalms are really those songs with which the holy nation, the chosen people, fills the land and makes that land a place of worship. It really is the last means and purpose of the promised land. And then after the... Old Testament, then we enter into the New Testament. Now, the New Testament, of course, is essentially the manifestation of the Word of God, the Son of God himself, who was made man, who appeared therefore in human form, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this, his saving work, has then been put down by the evangelists.

[19:36]

But the purpose of the evangelist is, in some way, to continue in the memory of the church the presence of the Word of God made flesh. and the four Gospels, which are in some, let us say, parallel, or in some, I wouldn't say, correspond in some way to the five books of Moses. We must always think that the five books of Moses are really in some way only four. We have four books, and the fifth is Deuteronomy, which is a summary of the four books. Now, these four Gospels that we have in the New Testament correspond in some way to the five books of Moses. They also give, to say, the basic constitution of the new people. Why? Because they open up and they show us the life and especially the death and the resurrection of our head.

[20:43]

the head of the mystical body, our Lord Jesus Christ. And his life, the life of the head, is also the form through which and in which all the members of the church are compacted together, knitted together, as it were. Then, outside of the four Gospels, then we have the epistles, We have first the Acts of the Apostles, I wanted to say, and these Acts of the Apostles describe the conquest. The conquest, the chosen people that has been formed through Pentecost, now goes and fills the entire world. The conquest of the world. Therefore, the Acts of the Apostles end in St. Paul reaching the capital of the world, reaching Rome. And then we have a third group of books also in the New Testament, and that are the Epistles, and including still the Apocalypse.

[21:52]

And the Epistles and the Apocalypse are testimony of the fullness of the Spirit. They develop the wisdom of life for us Christians, especially apostolic writings. And then the apocalypse gives that beautiful view of the church of the future in the great hymn of praise, for the Lamb and ends in the wedding feast of the Lamb and in the new canticle of the Lamb. So these three groups can be distinguished in the Old as well as in the New Testament.

[22:35]

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