‘The New Testament lies hidden in the Old’

We mistakenly published this column prematurely in the Sept. 3 edition. The column that should have appeared, for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, can be found on Page 14. We apologize for any confusion. – Editor 

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B 

First Reading: Is 50:5-9
Second Reading: Jas 2:14-18
Gospel Reading: Mk 8:27-35

In this Sunday’s First Reading, we hear how the “servant of the Lord” submitted to torture and insult. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus announces that he must undergo suffering, rejection, and death. Isaiah portrayed accurately, then, what Christ suffered 750 years later. By assigning the two readings to the same Sunday, the Church invites us to see Isaiah’s words as a prophecy.

The Church has always seen in the Old Testament prefigurations of what God accomplished in the New. She reads the Old, therefore, in the light of the New. At the same time, however, she reads the New in the light of the Old, for the Old Testament retains its intrinsic value as God’s Revelation.

“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

This connection is believable if we remember that God is the Author of all Sacred Scripture, in the sense that it was written under the inspiration, or “breath,” of the Holy Spirit.

However, that is not to say that Scripture did not have human authors. God inspired these authors, but they were not just secretaries taking dictation. In writing what God wanted written, they made full use of their human powers and faculties.

It is difficult to imagine how human authors, even when inspired by God, could write text whose full significance would appear only hundreds of years later. However, C.S. Lewis explains it by comparing three examples of foreshadowing.

First, he tells of a fire in the public baths of a Roman town which was thought to have been set deliberately because when a bather had complained earlier that the water was only lukewarm, an attendant had replied, “It will soon be hot enough.” Probably this fire was accidental; it was only by chance that the attendant said something more significant than he knew.

Second, Lewis quotes from a poem by Virgil, written shortly before the birth of Christ: “The great procession of the ages begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn (the lost age of innocence and peace) returns, and the new child is sent down from high heaven.” This coincidence is much more striking than the previous one, but, once more, the resemblance is probably accidental.

Third, Lewis tells how Plato, to illustrate the true nature of goodness, asks us to imagine a perfectly righteous man who is bound, scourged, and finally impaled (the Persian equivalent of crucifixion). Now here there is something more than mere coincidence. Plato is talking about the fate of goodness in a wicked world, of which Christ’s Passion is the supreme example.

If Plato had learned of Christ, then, he would have been inclined to say not “What a remarkable coincidence!” but rather “There! What did I tell you?”

Lewis concludes that “even pagan utterances can carry a second meaning.” We should not be surprised. According to the Catechism, the Catholic Church recognizes in all other religions “that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near” and considers “all goodness and truth” found in them to be a gift from God and “a preparation for the Gospel.”

And if this is true of “other religions,” we can expect it to be true of the Scriptures “more momentously and more often,” Lewis says. To know Christ, then, we must read not only the New Testament, but also the Old. Indeed, on the road to Emmaus after his Resurrection, Jesus reproached his disciples for not having believed the prophecies that the Messiah would enter his glory only through suffering.

In this Sunday’s Second Reading, St. James warns that faith without good works is dead. However, faith without knowledge is impossible. God made us to know, love, and serve him; but knowledge comes first. “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,” says the Catechism.

Father Hawkswell will teach a free course on the Catholic faith starting Sept. 24. It will run Mondays till Pentecost from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Anthony's Church, 2347 Inglewood Ave., West Vancouver, and again from 7 to 9 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, just off 33rd Avenue between Oak Street and Cambie Street). Everyone is welcome, Catholic or non-Catholic.