Verbum Domini-Pope Benedict XVI has been released! :)

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Such a great document!

One more wonderful work from such a great Pope and disciple of Jesus of Nazareth!!

Whoooohooo!
 
Brendan said:
That is really what an “Exhoration” is at it’s core. It’s a restatment of what the Church teaches, but it is being restated because the previous statements really are not being followed as well as they should be.

It doesn’t teach anything new, it is rather a call for a recommitment on our part to the teachings presented.
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Thank you for the nice, short, and simple description (especially for us non-Catholics) 👍
 
Calling this a “rehash” is very judgmental.

I’m just up to paragraph 26 and I’ve skimmed the rest. It appears to be exactly what the title says that it is, a summary of the role of scripture in the everyday life of the Church.

I don’t think it’s trite for the Holy Father to urge that everybody get more familiar with scripture. That really says a lot.

Early on (so far) I saw a direct quote from the Catechism, that Catholics are not “people of the Book.”

I read that in the Catechism and it took me years to find out who the “people of the Book” are (hint: Jews). The Jews, or perhaps I should qualify that and say rabbinic Jews, focus on Torah study as the prime activity in life (even more than doing good works, however you may want to construe that).

SO! IF we are NOT people of the book, then, what are we? We should be the people of something. What is it? I read Benedict to say that we are focused on Jesus Christ, which of course puts us intimately in contact with the scriptures.
 
Crumpy said:
Early on (so far) I saw a direct quote from the Catechism, that Catholics are not “people of the Book.”

I read that in the Catechism and it took me years to find out who the “people of the Book” are (hint: Jews). The Jews, or perhaps I should qualify that and say rabbinic Jews, focus on Torah study as the prime activity in life (even more than doing good works, however you may want to construe that).

SO! IF we are NOT people of the book, then, what are we? We should be the people of something. What is it? I read Benedict to say that we are focused on Jesus Christ, which of course puts us intimately in contact with the scriptures.
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One way I’ve heard it phrased is that Catholic Christians, rather than being “People of the Book,” are (since we have the fulness of revealed truth in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition) more properly called “People of the Word.”
 
With the release earlier this week of the Holy Father’s post-synodal exhortation on Sacred Scripture, “Verbum Domini,” Professor Michael Barber of St. John Paul the Great University laments that Catholic teachers, pastors and bloggers still are just not getting the “supreme and fundamental priority” of this Pope’s pontificate. And what might that be?..

Find out here.

 
There have been many “wow!” moments as I’ve been reading through this document. Here’s the latest:

Sacred Scripture and the sacraments
  1. In discussing the importance of the liturgy for understanding the word of God, the Synod of Bishops highlighted the relationship between sacred Scripture and the working of the sacraments. There is great need for a deeper investigation of the relationship between word and sacrament in the Church’s pastoral activity and in theological reflection. Certainly “the liturgy of the word is a decisive element in the celebration of each one of the sacraments of the Church”; in pastoral practice, however, the faithful are not always conscious of this connection, nor do they appreciate the unity between gesture and word. It is “the task of priests and deacons, above all when they administer the sacraments, to explain the unity between word and sacrament in the ministry of the Church”. The relationship between word and sacramental gesture is the liturgical expression of God’s activity in the history of salvation through the performative character of the word itself. In salvation history there is no separation between what God says and what he does. His word appears as alive and active (cf. Heb 4:12), as the Hebrew term dabar itself makes clear. In the liturgical action too, we encounter his word which accomplishes what it says. By educating the People of God to discover the performative character of God’s word in the liturgy, we will help them to recognize his activity in salvation history and in their individual lives.
What a beautiful explanation of the relationship between the Sacraments and the Word of God!
 
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