Don't Compare this to your Brother's Hand-me-downs

How our faith, teachings, and practices come to us (CCC 77-79).
By Robinson Olivares - Our Lady of Lourdes Young Adults - Manhattan

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Whatever we know about our dearest and most loving God, we know it because he has revealed it to us. Without His revealing who He is, we would not know that He is our Creator, our Savior and our Sanctifier (which means He helps us to live up to our calling to be His children). Many times though, we don't live up to our calling and that is why the Father, through the great love that He has for us, sent us His only-begotten Son to set us free from sin by the shedding of Jesus' blood and sent us the Holy Spirit that we may be able to know, understand and live by what Jesus said and taught and did.

God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, has revealed to us what we should believe and follow by way of what He taught His chosen people in the Old Testament, which was first transmitted orally to people He chose to reveal His message to, such as Abraham and Moses. When the time came for the fulfillment of His promise to save us from sin and death, He then revealed everything we needed to know through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We then learned what Jesus said, did and taught through the preaching of the apostles (part of Sacred Tradition) and through what was written in the New Testament (CCC 78). This does not mean that we are just left with stories of what Jesus said and did. No, far from it. Today, Jesus is still preaching his message of salvation. He is still forgiving us our sins. He is still healing us spiritually and physically. He is still casting out demons. He is still the one we turn to to receive the Holy Spirit so that we may be renewed in mind, heart and spirit and be his witnesses to the ends of the earth (CCC 79).

Jesus could do all of this directly from Heaven, where he sits at the right-hand of the Father. However, Jesus decided to continue his work through the church he himself established. The 12 men whom Jesus chose as his closest friends, the apostles, received in a unique way the mission to continue Jesus' work of salvation (CCC 77). So what was so unique about the apostles' mission? Well, for example, after Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to the 12 apostles and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive, are forgiven them, whose sins you retain are retained" (John 20:22). To Peter, the leader of the apostles, Jesus said, "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19-20). He said the same thing to the other apostles in Matthew 18:18, but Jesus was even more specific with Peter. He said, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 16:19). This means that Peter has even more authority to decide upon things and to teach with greater authority. Does this sound familiar? It does!!! This is the same authority that today’s' bishops have, through the passing along of this authority by the apostles themselves, and in a very special way, the same authority which the Pope has in light of his being the head of the bishops, just like Peter. Peter, for example, was the only one to whom Jesus said, "You are Peter (which means rock), and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). Peter was also the only one to receive the direct command by Jesus himself to "Feed my lambs...tend my sheep....feed my sheep" (John 21:15-17) and the only one to whom Jesus said (even though Jesus knew that Peter would deny him soon) "I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). In the same way today, the pope is charged with making sure that God's children are strengthened and fed spiritually by the sacraments and guided to know without error, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, what we are to believe as true with regards to faith and morals, such as knowing that in the Mass, we don't receive just bread and wine, but the true body, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ and that abortion is a direct violation of the 5th commandment, "You shall not kill".

To summarize, our faith, teachings and practices come to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Through God's wisdom, this revelation was handed on to the church, from Jesus to the apostles and from the apostles to the bishops and the Popes that followed them. The church, which is "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15) transmits this same unchanging revelation to all God's children as she received it from Jesus and the apostles. With this in mind, we can definitely say that this is more than just some hand-me-down of customs and traditions, but "the full and living Gospel which was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time" (CCC 77).

Let Us Pray

Dear Lord we ask you to help us to know you better that we may love you with all our might, for you are our Father, our Savior, and our Best Friend. Amen!!!