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Two Great Revolutions Have Shaken the Earth

Two Great Revolutions Have Shaken the Earth

Moses Receiving the Law on Mount Sinai
from Bible of Patrice Léon, Vatican Biblioteca Apostolica

 

“In the course of the ages two great revolutions have shaken the earth; we call them the two Covenants. The first one caused people to pass from idol worship to the Law, and the second, from the Law to the Gospel. A third upheaval is predicted: that which will transport us from below to above, whereupon there will be no more movement or disturbance. Now these two Covenants both share one same characteristic..: neither of them suddenly caused an instantaneous transformation… They were not to force but to persuade us. For what is imposed by force does not last…

The Old Testament manifested the Father clearly and the Son obscurely. The New Testament has revealed the Son and hinted at the divinity of the Spirit. Today the Spirit is alive in our midst and is making himself know more clearly. It would have been hazardous, so long as the Father’s divinity was not recognized, to preach the Son openly, and so long as the Son’s divinity was not acknowledged, to impose… the Holy Spirit. One might have feared that, like people who are surfeited or like those who stare at the sun with weak eyes, believers would have run the risk of losing what they had strength to bear. So the glory of the Trinity had to shine out in successive steps or, as David says, “from strength to strength” (Ps 84[83],8) and progressively, from one degree of glory to another…

I would like to add one further consideration: our Savior knew certain things that he considered his disciples would be unable to bear in spite of all the teaching they had already received. For the same reasons as I said above, he kept these things hidden. And he emphasized that when the Spirit came, he would teach them all things.”

–Saint Gregory Nazianzen (330-390), Bishop and 5th Doctor of the Church,
excerpt from 5th Theological Discourse.
via Daily Gospel

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