Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi
Excerpted from The Priest Magazine

Dei Verbum (God’s Word): The perennial challenge to listen and respond in faith

December 1, 2005

Dei Verbum, (The Word of God) the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, was voted on by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on Nov. 18, 1965 - 40 years ago this year. In the ensuing years, both the new Catechism of the Catholic Church and our late Holy Father John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio, have further expanded and explained the contents of Dei Verbum.

In this article published in this anniversary year, I attempt to show how God’s holy Word and the response of faith rest at the heart of Dei Verbum and are integral to our relationship with the Lord. It is very hard, if not impossible, to overestimate the value of this 40-year-old document ecumenically, theologically and spiritually for the Church and for each one of us. Its promulgation resulted in a renewed emphasis on the study of Scripture and its use in prayer and liturgy, as well as a deeper understanding of Tradition.

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the positive effects of Dei Verbum, stated that ‘‘the fundamental importance of the Word of God has been more profoundly re-evaluated. This has led to renewal in the life of the Church, especially in preaching, catechesis, theology, spirituality, and in the very ecumenical journey itself,’’ all because of the impact of Dei Verbum.1

At its heart, this most significant document of the Second Vatican Council teaches how it is that God communicates himself to us, how He speaks and how He continues to speak to us. There is one source and that source is the Word of God. The prologue of the document states succinctly, ‘‘This Synod wishes to set forth the true (authentic) doctrine on divine Revelation and its transmission.’’

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., has described this document of the Vatican Council as ‘‘unquestionably the most important official statement ever issued by the Catholic Church on the subject of revelation.’’2 From the outset, however, this conciliar document experienced significant conflict. It was one of the first documents proposed for discussion at the Council and ultimately one of the last to be voted upon. By the time of its final, and almost unanimous, approval, Dei Verbum had undergone five drafts from the day it was initially proposed on Nov. 14, 1962.

The Heart of the Dispute

The heart of the dispute was about the very nature of revelation itself, whether it was to be understood primarily and almost exclusively as divine teaching, i.e., doctrine. At the end of the debate, revelation became understood instead as God’s ongoing self-communication to us manifested principally in His actions and words. In effect, Dei Verbum teaches that revelation is God’s personal self-communication in history. Importantly, faith is thus seen as our response to revelation.

The first line of the prologue is a great summary of the document. It states: ‘‘Hearing the Word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith. . . .’’There is a priority to listening to, or hearing, ever anew God’s Word. Only then can we proclaim it with confident faith. In quoting St. John in the prologue - ‘‘we proclaim to you the eternal life’’- it is clear that revelation is not about an ideology or a philosophy but about a Person. That Person is Jesus, His life made visible in His words and deeds.

A Summons to Salvation

In the last line of the prologue, revelation is summarized as ‘‘a summons to salvation, so that through hearing [the whole world] may believe, through belief it may hope, and through hope it may come to love.’’ It is thus about the possession and sharing of God’s very life.

This is not simply an academic exercise. Understanding God’s Word as a living Word brings us into communion with Him and makes our spiritual lives vital and life-giving. In Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the New Millenium), our late Holy Father was quite clear in his call that each of us should try to live a holy life. He repeatedly challenged us to embrace a vocation to holiness. He writes:

There is no doubt that this primacy of holiness and prayer is inconceivable without a renewed listening to the Word of God. . . . It is especially necessary that listening to the Word of God should become a life-giving encounter, in the ancient and ever valid tradition of lectio divina, which draws from the biblical text the living Word which questions, directs and shapes our lives (no. 39).

Hence, when we speak of ‘‘listening’’ to the Word of God, we speak of an encounter with a living Person, the Person of Jesus who fully reveals His Father to us. Hans Urs von Balthasar, the great Swiss theologian, in his wonderful book entitled Prayer went so far as to say: ‘‘Man was created to be a hearer of the Word, and it is in responding to the Word that he attains his true dignity. His innermost constitution has been designed for dialogue.’’3 There is then something about the very structure of the human person that constitutes in us the desire for an encounter with God and His Word, even if we fail to understand that yearning.

There is a desire (a capacity) and a quest for God written in every human heart without exception. That is so precisely because we are created by God and for God. In that famous quote from St. Augustine’s Confessions we read: ‘‘for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you’’ (no. 1,1,1).

Our God, who means so much to us, can leave others unmoved and untouched. At times, we are even distracted and fail to hear His living Word, to encounter Him personally.

In our day, there are many shrines dedicated to an unknown God. There are many who explicitly or implicitly reject the existence of a living God, the Word of God. In our secular age, it is easy, even normative, for many to live without even thinking of God or hearing His Word. There are so many distractions.God never ceases drawing us to himself even where He is not explicitly known to us.

Discovering God’s Word

But how is it that we come to know and discover and love God’s Word? The catechism lists two ways (no. 50).

The first way, an act of reason, is by looking at God’s creation, the physical world and the human person. The second way, an act of religion, is by listening to God’s revelation. The first way is open to all humanity; the second only to believers. What we discover by the first way is called the law of nature or natural law; what we discover by the second way is the law of Christ or the law of the Gospel.

The Church teaches that God can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of reason. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans: ‘‘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’’ (1:20). Each of us has this capacity precisely because we are created in the ‘‘image of God.’’ This doctrine, the so-called ‘‘natural means’’ of coming to know God, is of great importance for it is the presupposition of the Church’s dialogue with all men and women regardless of their religious background. It justifies the confidence that it is possible to speak to all men and women about God.

But our human words always fall short in their ability to speak about the mystery of God. To be able to enter into real intimacy with God, to encounter Him personally, our Creator willed both to reveal himself and to give us the grace that empowers us to accept this revelation in faith. That grace is given to you and me by virtue of our baptism and our life in Christ. As Hans Urs von Balthasar writes:

Harassed by life, exhausted, we look about us for somewhere to be quiet, to be genuine, a place of refreshment. We yearn to restore our spirits in God, to simply let go in Him and gain new strength to go on living. But we fail to look for Him where He is waiting for us, where He is to be found: in His Son, who is His Word.4

His Word is life-giving. His Word is the key to a new way of living, a way of living in Him, a new way of freedom, for He is the truth that sets us free. ‘‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God’’ (Jn 1:1-3).

And from St. Paul: ‘‘And for this reason we give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the Word of God from hearing us, you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the Word of God, which is now at work in you who believe’’ (1Thes 2:13).

Revelation is another word for the Word of God. Dei Verbum is about an understanding of revelation and how it is transmitted to you and me in our day. Revelation combines words and actions of a living God - our God.

‘By Deeds and Words’

It is not simply decrees about God. The divine plan of salvation is realized simultaneously ‘‘by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other’’ and shed light on each other.5 The Exodus, for example, without the words of Moses, is ambiguous as is the Empty Tomb without the Words of the Risen Lord. In the sacramental life, both deeds and words are essential to reveal the mystery at hand and communicate the saving love of our God in each sacrament.

There are various stages of revelation. The Catechism teaches that God’s plan of revelation is ‘‘a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually’’ (no. 53). Revelation is a successive and progressive intervention in history. God communicates, reveals, unpacks, unveils himself gradually and continually, beginning with the created realities, the patriarchs and the Prophets - culminating in the very person and mission of His Son Jesus Christ - and continuing in our day in the power of the Holy Spirit. But note well that ‘‘no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Tm 6:14 and Ti 2:13).’’6 Dei Verburm, moreover, underscores that Christ ‘‘is himself both the mediator and sum total of Revelation’’ (no. 2). He is the Revealer and the Revealed. To see Him is to see the Father. Jesus Christ has ‘‘completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it with divine guarantees’’ (no. 4).

Ultimately, ‘‘in the Incarnation of the Son of God we see forged the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind of itself could not even have imagined: the Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human face.’’7

Furthermore, we learn that ‘‘ ‘only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.’ Seen in any other terms, the mystery of personal existence remains an insoluble riddle. Where might the human being seek the answer to dramatic questions such as pain, the suffering of the innocent and death, if not in the light streaming from the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection?’’8

God continues to reveal himself to us, to invite us to enter into His life, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to make himself present in our lives often when we least expect Him. He invites us to encounter Him. As Hans Urs von Balthasar has written, in Prayer, about this encounter with God:

Here and now, in my inescapable solitude before God, this encounter can take place. At this moment in time God’s revelation is addressed, not to the people in general, but to me. . . . The Word of God, solitary, magnificent, amid the vicissitudes of human history, turns to me, His face shining from His vision of the Father, and speaks to me. As in all human love, only more so, I am exposed; I have no one to hide behind. Each occasion is the first and only time, and love’s Yes is as fresh as the days of creation. How can we forget the words of ‘‘Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,’’ a hymn that bespeaks the continuing presence of the Lord in our lives?

‘‘Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort me and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in the hearts of all that love me, Christ in the mouth of friend and stranger.’’ Or what about His persistence in the sound and movement the poet Francis Thompson calls ‘‘The Hound of Heaven’’? And, oh, how we react in different ways at different times in our lives! Thompson captured Him and our reaction so well:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, from those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat - and a Voice beat more instant than the Feet - ‘‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’’

Our God continues to speak to us. Do we listen? Do we hear Him amidst the din of our daily existence and all the challenges and noise? Do we make time for Him? He so wants to speak and desires that we listen. But how is it that God speaks to us in our busy day? What is the Word of God? How do we know Him? Where do we look for Him? More importantly, what does it mean that God speaks to us? How do we recognize His voice? Does He continue to speak to us? How does He speak? What does all of this tell us about our God?

There is the living and life-giving Word of God, His Word that continues to invite us to listen, His Word revealed in sacred Scripture and the living Tradition of the Church. It is a living Word, a Word that informs, changes and critiques us, strengthens and gives life and forms us more and more into Christ himself!

Scripture and Tradition

Sacred Scripture, both Old and the New Testaments, is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the fundamentalists, ours is not a faith that relies solely on Scripture for revelation.

Ours is a faith which includes Tradition, a living transmission distinct from Scripture but closely related to Scripture. Stated differently, what was handed on by the apostles comprises everything that serves to make the People of God live their lives of holiness and increase their faith. In this way the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes (DV, no. 8).

That is Tradition.

The Church thus hands on her very ‘‘life,’’ not just doctrine. That means that the celebration of Mass, each of our prayers and those works of charity done are all expressions of Tradition. The sayings of the Holy Father are also a witness to the life-giving presence of Tradition.

Each of these, for example, is witness to the living Tradition of the Church and communicates the salvific life of the Church in and through the Church. The Church not only bears Tradition but finds herself born from it, for in it lies her life.

God’s Word thus reveals itself both in Scripture and the living Tradition of the Church.

This sacred Tradition, then, and the sacred Scripture of both Testaments, are like a mirror, in which the Church, during its pilgrim journey here on earth, contemplates God, from whom she receives everything, until such time as she is brought to see him face to face as he really is (DV, no. 7).

This reminds us of the incompleteness of our present knowledge of God. It is thus Tradition and Scripture that provide us with a vision of God, as in a mirror, during our pilgrimage on earth.

We can never forget, as well, that the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church, which is called the Magisterium - the Pope and the bishops in communion with him (DV, no. 10). The Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God but is its servant, the servant of Truth. Its role is to listen, guard and faithfully expound the Word of God. All it proposes for belief comes from the single deposit of faith (DV, no 10).

In summary fashion, Dei Verbum teaches: It is clear, therefore, that, 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 same Holy Spirit, they all contribute to the salvation of souls (no. 10). Dei Verbum speaks of faith, faith as a response to God’s Word (no. 5). It is our response to God who continues to reveal and communicate His love to us. It is our free response to a loving God who communicates himself to us each day, every moment of each day, continually through the living Scripture and the on-going life of the Church that we call Tradition - the prayer life, the sacramental life, the teaching life of the Church as given us by our Pope and the bishops.

Surrender

It is at once a response to a person, to Jesus, and a response to the message that Jesus teaches in and through the Church. Not unlike two sides of the same coin, it is at once ‘‘what’’ I believe, fides quae, the content of what I believe and at the same time it is the ‘‘event of personal surrender’’ to the God encountered now in and through Jesus Christ, fides qua, the Person to whom I submit my life.

Such surrender engages the whole person. ‘‘Men and women accomplish no more important act in their lives than the act of faith; it is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth and chooses to live in that truth’’ (FR, no. 13).

It should, nonetheless, be kept in mind that revelation remains charged with mystery. It is true that Jesus, with His entire life, revealed the countenance of the Father, for He came to teach the secret things of God. But our vision of the face of God is always fragmentary and impaired by the limits of our understanding. Faith alone makes it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to understand it coherently (FR, no. 13).

It is important to remember that ‘‘the truth made known to us by revelation is neither the product nor the consummation of an argument devised by human reason. It appears instead as something gratuitous, which itself stirs thought and seeks acceptance as an expression of love’’ (FR, no. 15).

This acceptance calls us to bear witness by word and deed. The response of faith is not merely academic.

No Faith Without Love

Nor does faith mean anything without love. It often demands sacrifice and ridicule. You and I know that from our experience of trying to live our daily lives at home and in the workplace.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around A.D. 100, was one of many in the history of the Church who let himself be torn to pieces by the jaws of lions in the Roman arena rather than reject his faith.

Cardinal John Henry Newman once wrote: ‘‘No one is a martyr for a conclusion, no one is a martyr for an opinion; it is faith that makes us martyrs.’’ It is faith in a living person, in Jesus Christ. After all, we do not give our lives to a question mark.

The Catechism unpacks this concept of faith even further. It teaches that faith in God is both a grace of God, a grace of God’s love and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, and, at the same time, a free human act (no. 154). If it were not a grace, it could not reach God himself.

If it were not a human act, it would not be a real answer of man. It involves an assent of the intellect and the will to God’s self-revelation, communicated to us in words and deeds.

Faith is necessary for our salvation; and the fullness of the means subsists in the Catholic Church (no. 161). The Lord himself affirms: ‘‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned’’ (Mk 16:16). Faith is a foretaste of the beatific vision that is the goal of our journey on earth.

Faith requires perseverance. It grows in stages. Sometimes we fall and walk away. So often we must crawl before we can walk again. It seems that so often it must stand the test of perils. Each one of us knows that. And we are not in it alone. The Catechism states: To live, grow, and persevere in the faith until the end, we must nourish it with the Word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be ‘‘working in charity,’’ abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church (no. 162).

The Church’s faith, the faith which has perdured for centuries, precedes, engenders, supports and nourishes our faith.

The response of faith does not complete the journey begun by reason with its questions of who I am, where I came from and where I am going, why is there suffering and evil, and whether there is life after death.

It helps us, however, to realize that by the response of faith, the life journey has just begun.

. . . It emerges that men and women are on a journey of discovery which is humanly unstoppable - a search for the truth and a search for a person to whom they might entrust themselves. Christian faith comes to meet them, offering the concrete possibility of reaching the goal which they seek. Moving beyond the stage of simple believing, Christian faith immerses human beings in the order of grace, which in turn offers them a true and coherent knowledge of the Triune God (FR, no. 33).

It is thus God’s living Word, Dei Verbum, transmitted to us each day through Scripture and Tradition, that calls forth from us a response of faith. ‘‘In Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, faith recognizes the ultimate appeal to humanity, an appeal made in order that what we experience as desire and nostalgia may come to fulfillment’’ (FR, no. 33).

His living Word, divine revelation, is thus an essential predicate for our response of faith, a response necessary for our ultimate salvation and life in God now and forever. TP

1. Pope Benedict XVI, to participants in the International Congress for the 40th anniversary of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, Sept. 16, 2005.

2. Avery Dulles, S.J., Revelation Theology: A History (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969) p. 156.

3. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer, tr. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) p. 22.

4. Von Balthasar, p. 16.

5. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum (DV), no. 2.

6. DV, no. 4.

7. Pope John Paul II, encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (FR), Sept. 14, 1998, no. 12.

8. FR, no. 12.

— MSGR. VAGHI is pastor of Little Flower Church in Bethesda, Maryland.

Excerpted from The Priest Magazine. Copyright © 2005 Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. All rights reserved.