1. The three levels of interpretation
The teachings of the Catholic Church have three levels of interpretation; call it simply, the level of the Old Testament, the level of the New Testament and the eschatological level. This is one of the proofs that the Catholic religion is the true religion. Because the Catholic God had been very consistent in teaching us the same lesson from the Old Testament, through the New Testament and up to the present. Blessed John Cardinal Newman referred to this as the continuity of Christian Doctrine; this is the fact that the teachings of God had been identical all through the history of man. There had been changes in one’s ability to understand or comprehend the teachings but there has been absolutely no changes in the essence of the teachings.
2. Man needs graces to understand these three levels; actual graces in understanding the first level, and the higher kinds of graces to understand the second and third level.
God made it such that any man can gradually understand all His teachings if man seriously pursue a life dedicated to knowing Him. In the early times, this way of life was referred to as the ‘monastic life.’ St. John Chrysostom defined monastic life as ‘man seriously seeking his God.’
3. The main activity in learning these three levels of understanding the teachings of God is through prayer; praying the Divine Office, which is the official prayer of the Catholic Church. As the Catholic Church prays the Psalm, she gradually learns the first level meaning of God’s teachings; then as she grows deeper in her spirituality she begins to learn the second level and eventually as she reach the Mystical life, she learns the third level which is the eschatological meaning of the Psalms.
This is the important reason why the Psalms are the obligatory prayer of the Church; she is ‘ecclesia orans’. She learns the entire teachings of God through praying the psalms.
4. The teachings of God is taught exclusively through the Liturgy of the Mass and the Divine Office. During the Mass and through the three readings and the homily, the three levels of knowledge is taught to the Church; i.e. the message of God as found in the Old Testament, as fulfilled in the New Testament and as should be expected in the eschatological future or at the present time. Let us take an example; God’s message in the Second Sunday of Lent. Let us see how God taught us this lesson in the Old Testament, how it was fulfilled in the New Testament and how it will be realized today year 2000 AD. All these three levels are present in the Liturgy of the Mass and in the Divine Office. The priest is just supposed to lay it down clearly to the Faithful for their knowledge and understanding; this is evangelization.
5. The 2nd Sunday of Lent – the Transfiguration.
The Gospel is, first, pre-figured in the days of creation and in the Psalms. Then in today’s Gospel it begins by describing the incident as the 6th day. The 6th day, which is Friday, begins with the following events. First, Christ brings Peter, James and John to a mountain where He was transfigured wherein the three apostles saw His Divinity in His humanity. Then they heard the voice of God affirming that Christ was His beloved Son. And that He was now going to undergo His passion.
All of the above knowledge was prophesied in the Old Testament. These prophecies was the way the New Testament apostles could know that Christ was, indeed, the Messiah. Because they had been told beforehand. So here we see the importance of God insisting on the continuity of the doctrine He taught in the Old Testament, how it would be fulfilled exactly in the New Testament that we may know how to interpret it today.
The second incident. That all the priests, the high priest, the Pharisees, the Sadducees went against Christ. And joining them was one of the first Bishops appointed by Christ, Himself, Judas Iscariot. This was pre-figured in the Old Testament when God stopped sending the Jews His prophets because of their unbelief. As long as there were no prophets the Jews could not learn the way to salvation.
The third incident. The temple veil was cut in half and exposed the Holy of Holies. And everyone saw that the Ark of the Covenant which was God’s presence among His people was gone (in fact the Ark of the Covenant was already missing since the time of the Maccabees, hidden away by a prophet Jeremiah as punishment for the infidelity of the Jews.
6. Now, let us see if this prophetic event is being fulfilled eschatologically today. This is precisely the purpose of a priest’s homily……to explain the eschatological fulfillment of the Gospel narrative.
7. The three levels of meaning of the three historical facts.
The events in Sacred Scriptures are not merely historical events. They are doctrines with three levels of meaning. And these three level of meaning can be learned patiently and through the mercy of God in the Psalmody. If the Church have been praying the Psalms faithfully and meditatively, the Church would know what I am talking about. If the Church is praying the Psalms the way it is prayed after Vatican II where many psalms had been omitted and the few left are truncated, then we have nothing to discuss because our minds will be in two different wavelengths.
The three events in the Gospel occurring in three different times in history and which we should expect to happen today are:
First; pre-figured by Peter, James and John who were the first members of the Catholic Church, the incident on Mt. Tabor will be repeated. There will be a small church, personally chosen by God, who will come to see the Divinity of Christ in His Humanity, not through human efforts, but purely by the grace of God. This small church will suddenly come to know the complete teachings of Christ; as if they were perfectly evangelized according to the Apostolic Commission. But this church will told not to tell anybody what they saw until after the 8th Day. Like in Tabor, preparing the little church (pre-figured by Peter, James and John) is in preparation for the next following events.
Secondly; all the priests, from the Pope down to the cardinals, bishops, priest and most laymen…..just like on the 6th Day (Good Friday) will be completely ignorant of the teachings of Christ as found in Divine Revelation. Caiaphas pre-figured by the top men of the hierarchy represents most bishops and cardinals who will be unbelievers and persecutors of the Mystical Body of Christ. While Judas pre-figures an anti-pope; a bishop who will betray the Church by teaching false doctrines. This state of affairs will literally undress the Mystical Body of Christ of all her teachings, crucify the Church until she bleeds to death. Pope John XXIII saw this happening while studying ‘The five wounds of the Church’ by Antonio Rosmini, a holy priest greatly persecuted by the Vatican, even by the Pope, but recently beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
Rosmini’s exposition of Catholic theology motivated Pope John to speedily call Vatican II in an effort to slow down the death of the Church. But circumstances hasten, instead, the death of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Thirdly; due to the rampant disobedience to the commands of God, due to this lack of Faith, God would punish the infidelity of the priests by withholding their power to absolve sins and consecrate the Eucharist. This third naturally follows from the second. It had been prophesied in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. This prophecy should be fulfilled any time now.
Many other things happened on Good Friday and onward but we are only explaining St. Thomas’ commentary on the Gospel of the Second Sunday of Lent; on the ‘Transfiguration.’ We would like to describe the little Church on Good Friday with the back drop of the chaotic confusion in Jerusalem on that fateful day.
We see the privileged status of the Catholic Church on this 6th Day. How it was organized; who were chosen; what graces they were given. What Christ did to them is what Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI described today as the ‘new’ evangelization. It describes how the Catholic Church will look like on the final 6th Day. Benedict based his study on the work of St. Bonaventure entitled ‘Theology of History,’ where he described the last 6th day but wrongly thought that it was occurring during the time of St. Francis of Assisi because the group of St.Francis looked very much like that; with St. Francis having a similar experience in Mt. Alverno. Though St. Bonaventure, himself, found out that this was not so. The last 6th day was not occurring during St. Francis’ time. It looks more like during Pope Francis’ time.
This was a challenge to the young priest Ratzinger whose thesis was on that work of Bonaventure. Even during his Papacy he was not yet sure when it would be. Until one day in the middle of his Papacy, he became convinced……or as some suspects, he was informed through a mystical experience that it is time for the final 6th day. After that all the three incidents that happened in the Gospel of the 2nd Sunday of Lent begun to unfold within the Catholic Church throughout the world.
During the last ‘ad limina’ visit of the Filipino bishops in the Vatican, Pope Benedict was still asking them if they have seen anywhere in the Philippines the little Church described by St. Bonaventure.
Pope Benedict knows the Gospel. And he knew that he is supposed to be the Pope of this little Church and not the Pope of Chosen People who would crucify Christ. He knew he must join the Mystical Body in the tomb during the Sabbath by his token resignation, to rise with the Church on Easter.
Let us all look around and analyze the signs of the times. Look at such religious activities like the Bishop’s Synod, like ‘The Flame,’ like the Eucharistic Congress. Can you see the signs of the 6th day?