Sunday, March 29, 2009

Heb 10, 15-18 The holy Spirit also testifies to us

(Heb 10, 15-18) The holy Spirit also testifies to us
[15] The holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying: [16] "This is the covenant I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord: 'I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them upon their minds,'" [17] he also says: "Their sins and their evildoing I will remember no more." [18] Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin.
(CCC 64) Through the prophets, God forms 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 (Cf Isa 2:2-4; Jer 31:31-34; Heb 10:16). The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations (Cf. Ezek 36; Isa 49:5-6; 53:11). Above all, the poor and humble of the Lord will bear this hope. Such holy women as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Judith and Esther kept alive the hope of Israel's salvation. The purest figure among them is Mary (Cf. Zeph 2:3; Lk 1:38). (CCC 750) To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo… Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church (Roman Catechism I, 10, 22). (CCC 749) The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit, which immediately precedes it. "Indeed, having shown that the Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness" (Roman Catechism I, 10, 1). The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place "where the Spirit flourishes" (St. Hippolytus, Trad. Ap. 35: SCh 11, 118). (CCC 758) We begin our investigation of the Church's mystery by meditating on her origin in the Holy Trinity's plan and her progressive realization in history.

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