Loving Revelation

All that is said about God presupposes something said by God.

       -St. Edith Stein (1891-1942)

In our last reflection on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we affirmed the possibility of knowing God through natural reason. Movements in creation and in our souls can lead us to a certainty in the existence of God.  

Reason isn’t the only thing He leaves us with, though. Out of love for His creation, God revealed Himself to man by opening Himself and voluntarily speaking to the world. God freely showed Himself to man so that we may know Him: 

Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us out of love (YouCat, 17).

God first made Himself known to Adam and Eve, when “he invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice” (CCC, 54).

God continued to reveal Himself after the Fall, when men were scattered and divided by sin. He first did this in the covenant with Noah and then when He selcted Abraham as patriarch of the chosen people, who were specially called “to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church” (60).

God formed Israel as His people, establishing the covenant of Mount Sinai and giving them the law through Moses. This Law would guide them to serve the one true God while looking forward to the promise of a savior. Through this covenant and the prophets, God formed “his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts” (64).

The Virgin Mary was the purest of the Israelites, and for this she was chosen to be the Mother of Christ Jesus, the final revelation of the Father:

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son (Heb 1:1-2).

In the Incarnation, God humbly revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. “God took on a human face and became our friend and brother,” wrote Pope Benedict XVI. This made His revelation complete and provided definitive answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of man’s life (CCC, 68).

The Christian faith has grasped at these answers for centuries, and still today she searches for glimpses of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ (66).

This is our third Year of Faith reflection on the Catechism of the Catholic Church here on Open Wide the Doors. See our first post here.