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Question

Hello Father Angelo,

I’m a 23 years old boy…

I’d like to know what you think about the question of “quest” (old, new…) dealing with Jesus’ historicity, the originality and the transmission of the Gospels and how far they report Jesus’ original message. Then I’d like to know what you think of reductively considering prophets as those who call on Hebrew people to comply with the Law; anyway this aspect is present but there’s a vision that reduce prophet’s to someone who just actualize Torah’s message to contingent situations excluding their ability to predict future events. A professor of Holy Scripture explained that Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin who will conceive a son (which is referred to Jesus) didn’t have this value in the Prophet’s mind.
I get the impression that, according to a certain theology, you’re afraid to open your mind to the power of divine action and you stop at a rightly rational understanding but with little contribution of faith. It seems that man necessarily wants to explain aspects of the Mysterium which are only partially intelligible by man during the earthlife.

What do you think, Father? Sadly this situation is putting me in crisis because it seems to me that I’ve built my path after the encounter with Christ on bases that now seem illusory and upset. I ask you to pray for me and understand deeper and deeper the vocation that the Lord has for me. I promise a heartfelt prayer for you and what’s dear to you.

May God always bless and support you. 

Answer of the priest

Dearest,

1. during the last century some authors, particularly protestants, started to differentiate the historical Jesus (his life and his works) from the Jesus of faith, that is the Jesus the Apostles and the Church have announced.

According to some of them, for example the protestant Bultmann, there’s a substantial gap.

2. The question arises from considering that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John do not unanimously present some events of Jesus’ life. Some of them tell facts – also important facts – which seem to be unknown or missed by the others.

This is the reason why several authors present some criteria in order to check the narrative’s historicity. 

For example, if the event is remembered by all, this is an evidence of its substantial veracity.

Otherwise if the narrated event deals with common sense, there’s agreement on considering that the Church would hardly invent the narrative of an event if this would lead it to be rejected or persecuted.

3. I don’t get into biblical scholar’s issues also cause I’ve not their competence.

However it is worth recalling that if a good theology (in which also the sensus fidei manifests itself) doesn’t support their studies, biblical scholars may reach erroneous conclusions.

I’m going to observe just some things.
4. The first and most important thing is that we welcome the Gospels as Word of the Lord, written thanks to divine inspiration and immune from error.

So we believe that all written in the Gospels coincides with the truth, with what really happened. 

Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within himself (1 John 5,10). If we accept human testimony, the testimony of God is surely greater (1 John 5,9).

5. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:”Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but <<the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives>> (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,171,5,obj.3.). <<Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt>> (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro vita sua (London: Longman, 1878)” (CCC 157).

6. If the Gospels present us the life and the preaching of Jesus as “events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us” (Lc 1,1-2), we have no reason to affirm that they had not taken place, that they are only an expression to convey a message.

7. Concerning the transmission of the message, Christ has something that is unique: all other religion founders present a way towards the afterlife or the heaven, instead only Christ presents himself, his life, his person, his words as the way.

He didn’t say:”I announce to you a way”. But he said:””I am the way” (John 14,6).

This is the reason why St Thomas of Aquinas can say “every Christ’ action is a teaching for us” (STh, III, 40, 1, ad 1; Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 14,23). 


8. Indeed, this is not just copy in us the feelings of Christ, but we are called to be united to Him like the branches are united to the vine (John 15,5), we are called to live not only with Him, but in Him:”Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15,5).

Muhammad never said to his posterity:”I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit” (John 15,5).

He knew very well that he would become a dead man, a man who belongs to the past.

9. Moreover, the figure of the founder disappeared in other religions. All that matters is the message.

Instead in Christ his person, his life and his message are identified.

The word is a function of his person.
10.The founders of other religions  refer to a vision, a particular revelation in order to support their message. So this vision would enlighten their vocation and the start of their mission.

In Christ there is none of this: no vision, no revelation because the Revelation is right Himself, his person and his life.

11. In the Holy Scripture, as also in the other Religions, we can observe that nobody is born a prophet.

Everyone becomes a prophet after a calling, sometimes before birth, as happened in the case of Jeremiah. But all are called.

Jesus doesn’t need a particular calling. He is a prophet, he is the manifestation of God from the beginning of his existence.

During the baptism he is shown in front of everyone through a direct witness of the Father and publically starts his mission.

But he doesn’t start to be something which he wasn’t before this moment.

12. Then so many arguments of many 20th century biblical scholars leave us indifferent.

 They don’t affect the faith. The object of faith is not just Jesus’ message, but also his person, his life of communion with us and ours with Him.

13. So what you hear at school cannot minimally put in crisis what you’ve built since your encounter with Christ.

Let a real, personal and actual relation between you and Christ continue to live in you, indeed, between Christ and you, because the enterprise is always from Him.

Your life is not only the adherence to Christ’ message, but your life is the adherence to Christ. May Christ be all for you soon.

He is your light, yes, but He is also your Spouse, He is your Friend.

He is the Spouse who is not satisfied only with being near to you, but He personally lives inside you, He lives in your heart and in your mind. You hear Him, also now while you’re reading what I’m telling you.

Very willingly I pray for you and that you may deeper understand ever more deeply the vocation which the Lord has for you.

Thank you so much because you promised to pray for me and for what I care about most.

Thank you for your questions, I wish you well and I bless you.

Father Angelo