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The latest (11 November) Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI can be described as a clarion call to Christians to know about, study, and regularly apply the Sacred Scriptures in their lives. Entitled Verbum Domini (literally, "The Word of the Lord"), it constitutes a dramatic reminder of Christianity’s distinguishing feature; namely, (in the words of one writer) "the proclamation that the Eternal Word was made flesh." It also reaffirms the Church’s doctrine that the Bible is not simply a document of the past, but a dynamic word for the present age, to be interpreted in accordance with Tradition (upper case T) within the Church. Moreover, it reasserts the Church’s perennial view that the Bible represents a mysterious bond between Christianity and Judaism. (A rabbi was invited to address the 12th Ordinary General Synod of Bishops, held at the Vatican in October 2008, from which Verbum Domini arose, to explain this bond from his perspective.)
The title, Verbum Domini, is taken directly from the Book of Isaiah (40:8), in the context of St. Peter’s inspired recollection of the phrase in his First Letter. In Isaiah we read, "The word of our God will stand forever." The Epistle of Peter declares "the word of the Lord abides forever." (1 Pt 1:24-25)
Verbum Domini is structured in three major sections, reflecting the three key phases of the Synod: the Word of God in itself, the Word of God in the Church, and the Word of God in the World.
One of the more fascinating sections of Verbum Domini, over and beyond the profound analysis of Scripture and the Liturgy ("… the privileged place for the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture is the liturgy, and particularly the Eucharist…") is the relationship of the Bible to world culture. The Bible, it strongly asserts, "contains anthropological and philosophical values that have had a positive influence on humanity as a whole." Hence, a "sense of the Bible as a great code for cultures needs to be fully recovered."
This "recovery" can, and should, begin in part with schools and universities. Surely the beginnings of the process are now evident in some institutions of learning. For example, some colleges are offering courses in the prophet Amos, specifically in the context of authentic social justice. Another instance is occurring more and more in the way in which literature is taught (Dante’s Divine Comedy, Milton’s works, Shakespeare’s dramas, Melville’s Moby Dick, Dostoevsky’s classics).
Moreover, Biblical influence should be returned to the arts themselves – including the figurative arts and architecture. Verbum Domini cites the mysterious world of iconography. But what about Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the astonishingly magnificent church in Barcelona, recently blessed by Pope Benedict? We must "recover" through the Bible the sense and the faith which inspired some of the enduring masterpieces of the past: the holy genius that created the Pietà and St. Peter’s Basilica and Chartres Cathedral, a genius that arose from Sacred Scripture as read by and within the Church.
Like Pope John Paul II, Benedict also places considerable emphasis on inculturation of the Gospel. "The Church," Verbum Domini states, "is firmly convinced that the word of God is inherently capable of speaking to all human persons in the context of their own culture." This conviction, it explains, "springs from the Bible itself, which, right from the Book of Genesis, adopts a universalist stance, …maintains it subsequently in the blessing promised to all people through Abraham and his offspring… and confirms it definitively in extending to ‘all nations’ the proclamation of the Gospel."
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