1st September 2013 - 22nd Sunday in Ordinary time (Year C) - Year of Faith: Exploring Our Church's understanding of Divine Revelation (Part 3 of 4)

On this week's programme we continue our Year of Faith reflection on the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, as well as our usual reflection on the Gospel and outlining our celestial guides for the week ahead.  This week's full programme is available HERE.

The book we are using as the basis for our programmes on Dei Verbum is a wonderfully accessible and insightful book by Canon John Redford called Treasures of Dei Verbum.  It has the text of Dei Verbum on the left hand side of the page and an explanation of the text on the right hand side of the page.  It is available from Alive Publishing (www.alivepublishing.co.uk)
On our first programme we outlined what Dei Verbum was all about i.e. the bishops of the Second Vatican Council saw the need to place more emphasis on the goal of divine revelation.  The whole point of divine revelation is to give us all a share in the divine life, fellowship, communion with God the Father through Jesus the Son in the Holy Spirit.  This is the good news we have to give to the world.

In our second programme we looked at how Divine Revelation was handed on by the bishops as successors of the Apostles.  The teaching office of the Church (Magisterium) is the authentic interpreter of the Word of God in Scripture and Tradition.  The Holy Spirit gives special assistance to the Bishops of the Church united with the Pope to serve, teach, listen to, guard and explain the Word of God.  We also looked at Sacred Scripture, its inspiration and divine interpretation.  This week we continue looking at Dei Verbum’s treatment of Scripture in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 on the Old and New Testaments.

You can listen to the Dei Verbum section of the programme HERE.

Resources which may be of use to you on reading and understanding Dei Verbum:

• Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) - Second Vatican Council 
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church - Pontifical Biblical Commission
• SS102fm page on Lectio Divina
• The website of the 2005 Dei Verbum international conference organized jointly by the Catholic Biblical Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. The website is in various languages and has links and many articles for reference and further reading.
• One of the highly regarded series of commentaries written about the documents of Vatican II was a 1967 series written by a young German theologian named Joseph Ratzinger.  The link to an extract from the commentary on Dei Verbum is here.
• Short summary of Dei Verbum here

Gospel - Luke 14:1, 7-14

Reflections on this weeks gospel:
HumblepietyWord on Fire
English Dominicans
Sunday Reflections
Centre for Liturgy

Liturgical odds and ends

Liturgy of Hours - Psalter Week 2, 22nd week in ordinary time

Saints of the Week

2nd September - The Martyrs of September (aka the Martyrs of Paris)
3rd September - St Gregory the Great (Pope)
4th September - St Mac Nissi (Bishop)
5th September - Bl Mother Teresa of Calcutta
6th September - Bl Thomas Tsuji SJ (Martyr) (First Friday)
7th September - St Regina

Popes Intentions for month of September

General – Silence: That the men and women of our time, often overwhelmed by noise, may rediscover the value of silence and learn to listen to the voice of God and their brothers and sisters.

Mission – Persecuted Christians: That Christians who suffer persecution in many parts of the world may be prophets of the love of Christ by their testimony