A Word from Your Pastor - July 7

Dear Parishioners:

The Festival is coming!  As you may recall, the very first weekend after my arrival as Pastor at St. Timothy Church five years ago was the Festival weekend.  So the 2013 Festival is my sixth with you (and I have pictures to prove it!).   I am amazed at how quickly the years have flown.  I am also in awe of how everything comes together.  We have a general chair and team leaders (thanks Joe Lorenz and company!) to oversee what happens, but it would not be possible without the response of everyone.  Parishioners and friends of St. Timothy come out of the woodwork to tend to the many details.  Everyone I speak to from outside the parish who comes to our Festival sings it praises.  The spirit of welcome shown in many other ways is also mentioned by many.  We can be thankful for the gift of our parish community.

It has been said that once you are part of St. Timothy’s family, you always have a home here.  At the Festival we will welcome home many alumni and friends from years past.  (The School’s Golden Jubilee will be observed 2013-2014.)  At the Saturday evening Mass at 5 p.m., we will welcome Deacon Vince Nguyen, who has been invited back by the Knights of Columbus Council #14345 as they inaugurate a new Seminarian Fund.  Deacon Vince was with us the summer of 2011.  We look forward to his ordination to the priesthood in 2014.

As another year begins with us bonded as Pastor and People, I see great things in store for us.  We are at a wonderful moment of grace.  God is calling us to growth in understanding of discipleship and a greater commitment to live as a witness to the Truth of the Gospel.  Responding to the call of the Church, we are putting out into the deep for a catch, entering with full zeal into the New Evangelization.  Are you ready to throw in your lot with us?  Come to the Festival.  Bring your friends and enemies, your neighbors and co-workers.  And then, invite them back to worship with us and to learn more about our Faith.

 

Year of Faith October 11, 2012 – November 24, 2013

We continue our journey through the Year of Faith.  As one way of observing this year, each week a small section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is read before the start of Mass.  This is a small way of offering some food for growth in Faith throughout this year.

ARTICLE 3    SACRED SCRIPTURE  III. The Holy Spirit, Interpreter of Scripture

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.” (St. Thomas Aquinas )

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.  (Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:2.)

1. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction.”  (1 Corinthians 10:11; cf. Heb 3-4:11.)
2. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.  (Cf. Revelation 21:1-22:5.)

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.

[Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.
(Augustine of Dacia, Rotulus pugillaris.)]

119 “It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, toward a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgment. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.”  (Dei Verbum 12 § 3.)

But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.  (St. Augustine)
 

Comment: It has been common in our time to focus on the literal sense of Scripture and then to argue about its truth or error.  Many Christians and others who read the Bible stop with that sense alone.  The Catholic Church – and, in fact, the Jewish interpreters who preceded Christianity – have always looked for a deeper sense, the spiritual meaning of the Bible.  Have you come to an understanding of Scripture that incorporates its deeper meaning?  How do you continue to grow in your understanding?