 What a joy this evening we lay the foundation and the rest of our time together we built upon it So as Paul enjoins the Corinthians be careful how you lay the foundation for there is no other Foundation that anyone can lay and that which is laid that is Christ So I'd like to begin by addressing our Lord and Savior the eternal Son of God Jesus Christ in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Most high and glorious God our Father in heaven in the name of Jesus We dare to approach you even as you have created us to be your own and Called us and filled us with your Holy Spirit. I thank you for these my brothers and sisters your beloved sons and daughters and And how it is that we share the gift of this word from you The word inspirated in sacred scripture and the word incarnated in Jesus and how the Bible is all about him and all about you Our father so lead us and guide us teach us and hear us as we pray once again Our father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and Lead us not at a temptation But deliver us from evil. Amen, St. Paul and St. James Holy Mary our hope seat of wisdom in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen as We approach the subject of prophecy. We're reminded of what St. Peter writes to us in second Peter So let's listen briefly to the words of our very first pope the vicar of Christ in second Peter chapter 1 verse 19. We have the prophetic word made more sure And you will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts First of all, you must understand this that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation Because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God So we do well to pay attention close attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place For we've lost our way and the light of Christ is what will lead us home I'm going to present the foundation of prophecy by looking at it in the old Arriving at it in the new and so I think all of you by now received a handout when you walked in We're not going to be referring to that until a little later because that's my insurance Because if you've ever heard me, you know, it's sometimes a little like taking a sip from a fire hydrant and As I'm running out of time. I'm not running out of things to say so I turn the fire hydrant up high and In anticipation of that and to prevent anybody from getting injured I have this material provided for you so that even if we don't get through it all you can take it home and work through it yourselves because I think you will find a lot of enrichment and You do well to pay attention to this lamp shining in a dark place I'm reminded of a vacation we spent down in Hilton head at the time my daughter Hannah My one and only daughter. We've got five sons and one daughter as I like to say one rose and five thorns and She had biked out about three miles with her older brother Gabriel to an ice cream parlor and then came back and then basically Broke down in tears because she realized that she had lost her cell phone I mean, it's hard for my generation to understand what that represents. It's more than a lifeline I mean to lose your cell phone is to lose touch with reality and This was our last night. We were heading back home tomorrow And she knew what that meant because there's no way we could find it in three miles of biking distance And I just said well, we can go look for it and she said it's hopeless and I agreed But I had this strange impulse a strange sense that occurs more to Kimberley because she's so positive Than it ever does to her spouse and I'm like, you know what Hannah? Let's go look for it because I think we're gonna find it and she's like seriously And I said yeah, seriously, and she looked at me like Mom, are you hiding behind his face? You know so he got in the car and we drove slowly down all these streets that she had biked on with her brother All the way to the ice cream parlor and we found nothing and of course it was dark at night How could we and as we're beginning to turn around to drive back home? I get this thought and I didn't I can't take any credit for it And I just said I have a feeling that we're close Let me call your cell phone Dad we're not gonna hear it. I said that's not the point and as I dialed it all of a sudden in the thick grass We saw a light Shining and I said I think it's there No way and she ran out. She got the cell phone She came back and that night she fell in love with her father in a way that she never had before I mean Who to thunk it what were the chances and yet? I felt like her guardian angel and mine were conspiring and teaming up to go find this Well, it wasn't a lamp shining in a dark place, but it was a cell phone that was glowing in the dark We often lose our way Prophecy is how we are guided back to God as a father to fall in love with him and to discover how much he loves us But I want to take a giant step back because I first began to study prophecy Not as a husband or a father, but as the new convert that Kimberly described in my early teens I was on fire with the spirit and I was in love with the scriptures And I read a book back then that was pretty new Entitled evidence that demands a verdict anybody ever hear of Josh McDowell's classic work What really took me by surprise was how he mounted an argument from predictive Prophecy by examining more than 100 Old Testament prophecies and by connecting those oracles to Jesus and Showing the astronomical odds against any other person in history fulfilling so many prophecies that he even had a wager at the end and He just connected the dots with Micah and Matthew between Bethlehem and Jesus birthplace between the Virgin of Isaiah 7 between the line of Judah the house of David and all of these other Amazing predictions and so I was introduced to prophecy as what Vatican one calls a motive of credibility Because at the time I was growing in my understanding I was growing in my zeal, but I needed that to be short up at the ripe old age of 14 and a half And here was the book to do it and I shared it with my friends as well This element of prediction is so fundamental to prophecy. The temptation is to kind of reduce prophecy to prediction Like at the end of each year, you know, we always have Various tabloids publish the predictions of popular clairvoyance that next year there'll be a number of Hollywood celebrities who get divorced And when it happens you're thinking wow, what an oracle from heaven well, what I want to illustrate is this that Prophecy does necessarily involve this element of prediction But prophecy is never to be reduced to predicting the future What I would like to propose is somewhat of a balance between prediction on the one hand and prescription on the other People always want to know the future especially when they're in dire straits or they're Sick with some disease. Am I going to get better? Well, you ask the doctor that not because he's a clairvoyant Who can predict the future But you ask him that so he'll write a prescription that you can fill because the fact is You might get better, but you might not it just depends what you do with the prescription And so that's what the prophets are They really are sent by God filled with the spirit of God to bear the word of God Not just to tell us the future to connect the dots between the old and the new between the past and the present and the future Although there is an important element of that But really it is to help us to return to the Lord so on the one hand there is prediction and this is according to Vatican 1 in Deophilius chapter 3 on faith This gives us one of the motives of credibility in other words You could approach somebody who has not yet been given the supernaturally infused virtue of faith and show them On the one hand look at the miracles that were performed down through the ages by the patriarchs by Moses by the prophets and then by our Lord Jesus himself and these miracles are Historically reliable, but they're sure signs that point to These humans are bearers of divine revelation these miracles Authenticate them as bears of divine revelation and Vatican 1 goes on to go so far as to say that these are sure proofs That these are bears of divine revelation. No wonder because they manifest divine power. You can't just perform miracles I mean the magicians of Pharaoh in Egypt could for two or three or four of Moses miracles They could kind of mime or ape those But then when the Lord unleashed his real power the magicians under Pharaoh were saying, okay There there is no God in Egypt who can do what the God of Israel is doing So the omnipotence of God is manifested through miracles so that even Nicodemus could say we know that you're a teacher from God Because no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with them So miracle is the first category of the motive of credibility and then in Vatican 1 Prophecy is the second because if miracles manifest God's omnipotence through a human representative Prophecy represents God's omniscience because nobody knows the future Except God and he doesn't just run the film ahead of time. He occupies time like he occupies space So the past present and future are one eternal present to him God is omnipresent He can't move from here to there not because he's so static or so ancient that he just can't get around the universe The only way you can move from here to there is when you're here. You're not there God is everywhere and as he occupies space so he occupies time And so he reveals a purpose and a plan through prophecy as he reveals his power through miracles So these are the two primary motives of credibility Miracles and prophecy and then Vatican 1 adds a third one and that is the Catholic Church It's a very interesting proposal at the Catholic Church because of its universal extension because of its amazing Holiness because of its good works because of the way it endures all sorts of hostility It becomes also a motive of credibility So anybody who has an open mind anybody whose reason is really open to the truth is Going to be led with the help of God's grace To see that miracles and prophecy in the Catholic Church after 2,000 years run not by a Dynastic succession where the baton is handed down from father to son on a genealogical line But from celibate to celibate What are the chances of success for an institution run by celibate males? Nails Nail and yet there it is and So Dei Philius in Vatican 1 and then there's a complementarity with Dei Verbum in Vatican 2 How many of you were taking Genesis to Jesus this week or have taken it in the past for the journey through scripture program? You know Dei Verbum because we that permeates the whole program and not only Genesis to Jesus But all of them I remember one of the first times we ran Genesis to Jesus and we were quoting Dei Verbum Finally somebody said who is this Dave Verbum? No, it's not Dave or David. It's Dave. It's the word of God It was one of the last documents to come out from the 16 there that came out in Vatican 2 and in some ways I think it's the most profound Because it shows us not only what Vatican 1 showed us there really is a hermetic of continuity When you move from Vatican 1 to Vatican 2 Dei Philius to Dei Verbum But Dei Verbum moves from the natural to supernatural to what human reason can know to what divine grace must reveal And it does so through words and deeds that reveal the love of the Father That is embodied in the Son who becomes incarnate to give us the Holy Spirit And so it's not enough for God to say I love you just like it wasn't enough for your boyfriend to say I love you even if he was whispering in the back seat of a car a driving You want deeds to back up the words as well as the words to Reinforce the deeds because the deeds of love show that I don't just love the way you make me feel I love you even if I have to sacrifice myself And that's what God shows us through the words and the deeds of the old that are fulfilled by his word made flesh in the new We can stand back and say He loves us and greater love had no man than this than to lay down his life for his beloved as the Lord God did and So what we can see now are that more than motives of credibility These prophecies lead us into mystery So on the one hand through natural reason we can understand human history The miracles that occur as well as the future events that are predicted but the real point of History is the divine mystery of God's saving words and deeds that reveal a love to us that exceeds our highest hopes and our wildest dreams And so it's this element of mystery, but it's not just something that happens in the new It was already happening in the old the very first person to ever be called a prophet wasn't Isaiah It was Abraham back in Genesis 20 verse 7 We don't have the time to look at it tonight But if you have any time go back to Genesis 20 and back up and read Genesis 18 and 19 and then get to 20 Because in Genesis 18 and 19 Sodom and Gomorrah where his nephew lot lives is destroyed for its impurity for its immorality and as Lot comes out and is basically seduced by his own two daughters who get him drunk To have relations with him and then give birth to these two sons of Their father you just wait and at the end of Genesis 19 You wonder if this is how it is in the life of the people of God like Abraham and his nephew lot What hope is there and then you turn to Genesis 20 and there's this pagan named Abimelech Who sees Abraham's wife takes her because he says she's my sister And then the Lord God appears to him and says you're a dead man You took another man's wife and he said I've done it in the innocence With a clear conscience and the Lord doesn't say who do you think you are you self-righteous? King He says I know you have because I myself preserved you from sinning, but this man is a prophet so restore her to him and Vindicate her honor which he does and then he says ask him to pray for you And as you're reading at your like shouldn't it be the other way around I mean here's this virtuous pagan He ought to pray for the patriarch who is ready to kind of cash in his wife and call her his sister But the prophet is someone who bears the word of God who fulfills a function. This is important besides Prediction besides prescription there is this other element that is already present before the age of the prophets It's already present in the very first prophet and that is Abraham and then again in the next book Exodus You have in chapter 7 a description how Aaron won't be just a priest. He will also be a prophet He'll get the word of God from Moses and he'll turn around and give it to the Israelites Even Moses sister Miriam is described as a prophet Because an ancient Israel to be a prophet wasn't an occupying office like the king The king is anointed and he occupies the throne the priest is anointed and he offers sacrifice These are the two offices the royal and the priestly, but to be a prophet is not to To occupy a chair. It is not to hold an office. It's to receive a calling a sort of commission And so Miriam as well as Aaron Deborah as well as Samson could be judges and prophets in delivering the word of God to the people of God to get them back to God And so this common pattern that we see is first located in this idea of commission You've got to be called But it's not just called by God. You also have to be sent by God So the very first stage of a prophet's calling is this commission He's called by God like Samuel was and so many others Isaiah in chapter 6 and then he is sent by God Whom shall I send here? I am send me and so the Lord God sends Isaiah like he does the other prophets The second thing is that this prophet who is called and then sent is given a revelation a Word from God to share with the people of God and the third thing besides the commission in addition to this Bearing of revelation is to be filled with the Holy Spirit So the spirit of God comes upon the prophets of God to declare the word of God to the people of God Because this goes beyond mere facts This goes beyond brute facts that constitute history, you know according to mere human reason Now who are the prophets? Well, we can think of the Old Testament prophets who are divided up into two major parts the major prophets and the Minor prophets and the major prophets are the big names the big guns like Isaiah 66 chapters And then you've got Jeremiah as well as Baruch, but you've got then Ezekiel one of my favorites followed by Daniel And then you have what is called the book of the 12th? We call them the 12 minor prophets But they were actually collected as one single volume the book of the 12th is how the rabbis refer to it And as you go through Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zechariah Malachi Zephaniah Zephaniah Malachi Zechariah Malachi All right, I'll get it later, but I was on a roll I had them almost down with Kimberley's help when you go through them you see a cumulative sense of divine purpose But besides the major prophets and the minor prophets there's a third category that we don't have that the rabbis did Because they speak of the former prophets and who are the former prophets? Well, you got to go back to Joshua and judges first and second Samuel first and second Kings We call these the historical books, but the rabbis called them the former prophets and why well for many centuries Theologians weren't really sure as to why in the Jewish tradition They were called the former prophets and you hear echoes of this in origin and some of the fathers as well And the reason is clear because it divests us of a false notion of history We tend to think that history is just well as Henry Ford put it just one damn thing after another Right history is just nothing but a series of facts brute facts Well, no that was an enlightenment myth This was this false sense of pure objectivity that history could be turned into a science And that we could just be objective in selecting the facts when in fact if we were to write a history in the last two minutes Think of what would be filling those volumes Not just everybody in the room and what you're thinking and how my talk is allowing you to be distracted But your loved ones back home, but how anthropocentric what about your pets? Your dogs and your cats and your fish and not just us but other people other places trees frogs Stars subatomic particles who are you to exclude any of that? But once you find a principle of selection you have what post-moderns call bias perspective Because once you decide what facts to select you've already imposed some kind of personal Extrinsic grid so you're skewing this. It's fake news or whatever you want to call it Well, the fact is every person's account is Perspectival it's biased it represents a certain prejudgment so it is prejudicial because none of us are So all-knowing as to be entirely objective as to find the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth behind Literally an infinite a myriad of facts Unless there happens to be a God and if God is active in history and Present in history and has a purpose for history and has revealed a plan through history Then his perspective wouldn't be as biased as say mine or yours Then if he excludes 99% of the facts Then we can probably trust that he's got a reason for doing so So he doesn't identify any of the pharaohs or the dynasties of Egypt He doesn't even tell us when Hammurabi was alive. He just zeros in on the patriarchs these family Figures of men and women like Abraham and Sarah because they're the bearers of the holy seed that will bring the Holy Spirit and The holy one of Israel to all of the nations to bring in salvation Well, how biased well, yeah, but divinely so So if you have to choose a poison, I mean pick a poison that is divine because that's why they call it the former prophets Because you don't write history Just by enumerating facts and events persons places and things without some kind of purpose plan and perspective and in this case The history that is written is the mystery of salvation. So history and prophecy are overlapping categories Israel is a prophetic people so Israel's story is not only our story It is more than history. It is prophecy. It conveys history and mystery both to us This is what Paul was saying all of these things happen as a warning to them But they're written down for our instruction Why because we are the ones upon whom the end of the ages have come so all of the promises all of the prophecies all of the oracles all of the predictions have been fulfilled in the coming of the Christ and Since we live on the other side of that we live in the final age The figure of Christ is so paramount and yet the coming of Christ was so well prepared That it's sort of like an object that cast this tall this long shadow all the way back to the beginning and That's why we speak of prophecy Not just as predictions whereby we connect the dots between Micah and Matthew and Bethlehem and Jesus's birthplace But we rather see this cumulative sense So that everything is a foreshadowing of the coming of the Christ So that the patriarchs and the prophets all have the same faith in the coming of the Christ as we do only their faith in Christ Is by way of anticipation our faith in Christ is by way of realization Because the promises have been fulfilled not just 2,000 years ago But the reality of the fulfillment is something that abides Because the father didn't just send the son the father sent the son to give us the Holy Spirit So that this fulfillment could continue So that the miracles are going to become signs that point to the sacraments That the prophecies are going to be oracles that point to how the church that we call Catholic is The body of the new Adam it is the new Israel Formed by a new Moses a new Passover a new Exodus It is the heavenly Jerusalem where the divine temple is established in a way that surpasses Everything David hoped for and everything that Solomon constructed These become the three mountain peaks of the Old Testament and again if you've taken Genesis the Jesus you recognize this familiar terrain Because all of the Old Testament is history in some sense even the wisdom literature and the poetry and the and the songs You know the Psalms of David were considered by the early church fathers as the greatest expression of prophecy in some ways Matching or exceeding even Isaiah More on that from dr. Barber and others to dr. Feingold But what I want to kind of help you see is that these three mountain peaks creation when the world came into existence and Man was made male and female in the image and likeness of God and then in the next book exodus the exodus is when Israel came into the existence as the Covenant people of God as the national family of God and the third mountain peak that even surpasses the first two Is the kingdom of David which is the kingdom of God? Not at Sinai where there's just one nation excluding the Gentiles, but at Zion where the temple Has the court of the Gentiles the largest precinct and the invitation goes out to all of the nations To come up to Zion and to learn that the God and father of Israel is our father, too And that through the covenant we are to form one family and so Adam Moses and Solomon Point the way to a pattern of fulfillment that is so Profound and so I would say that The three most important elements of all prophecy are the following number one to prepare for Christ God has given us countless gifts, but there is one that surpasses all the others combined and That is the gift of God God himself God on the flesh the God man and everything was preparing for that the second purpose is to Enable the people of God to return to God to be prepared for Christ through repentance through faith By trusting in his mercy and again and again the call to repentance in Hebrew shoe to return to the Lord To change your mind to change your life to come back to his mercy the trust in his grace He will forgive and restore us the third and most important thing of all besides Preparing for Christ coming besides preparing our hearts through repentance It is in order to keep the covenant And as you've heard me say before I suspect a covenant is not the same as a contract and a contract This is yours and that is mine. We exchange promises and then we exchange property and then you can walk away and never have any more dealings a Covenant is based upon a contract because you start with a promise, but you move to an oath You don't just say this is yours and that is mine. I am yours and you are mine It's not just my word that is the glue that unites us in an exchange It is the name of God that is invoked in an oath that forms the covenant that gives us the divine Cement that makes the two one and what God has joined together let not man put us under Not just because man shouldn't do that kind of thing, but because man isn't stronger than God He's not capable of breaking the one that God has made and so keeping the covenant is the most important thing the obedience of faith and Preparing for Christ through repentance returning to the Lord in order to live in this covenant family of God These are the three layers and you can see it going back to the beginning with Adam and Eve in the marital covenant You can see it in the next book exodus when Israel come into existence and come to sign I not for some constitutional convention not for some social contract, but for a sacred covenant through the mediation of Moses and the miracles and He becomes the paradigm of the prophet like Moses in Deuteronomy 18 as we'll see and All of that is to set the stage for the final form of the old covenant The kingdom of God the kingdom of David in the city of David where the son of David is called the son of God and It's sort of like layer upon layer upon layer Has anybody here ever seen an old book that came out back in 94 entitled magic eye? I Almost brought it, but it would have been frustrating Magic eye was the first form of computer generated artwork And we got it back in the 90s and my kids loved it and they would look at it And I would too and it was just computer generated colorful art, and I'm like that's neat You don't need a computer for that, and then they would be like wow is how we look at that, you know I'm like look at what it's three-dimensional. I mean these images are jumping off the page, and I'm like what have they taken I Can't see anything and I tried day after day for weeks for months, and the kids would pick it up and look at it Oh, wow look at this next page. Oh look at that. Oh my favorite is back here. It wasn't until almost a year later I came back, and I was so tired Late at night. I just sat down before going upstairs to go to bed I opened the book and maybe it was because I was so tired. I just couldn't trust in my own Resources, I'm looking at it my eyes are kind of blurry. Whoa Look at that This is what history is it's mystery it's prophecy It leads us to see that there's so much more than first met the eye It becomes kind of three-dimensional So that in effect you are prepared for Christ you do return to God And you are empowered to keep the covenant whether it's the covenant of marriage back in creation or the covenant at Sinai with the nation of Israel or the Davidic covenant the kingdom that includes all of the nations But Jesus comes to fulfill all of this Now what I have to do because of time constraints is to kind of fast forward over a lot of stuff that touches upon Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and some of the themes in the minor prophets as well as much as I'd like to Do that what I'd like to do now is to give you another try at all right another try And that is to say if prophecy is all of this and trust me. It's even more But if prophecy is all of this then what I think we can do is to understand how the early church fathers Transmitted to the medieval doctors like Saint Thomas Aquinas and by the way Pray for my oldest son Mike in just two days on Friday He will be defending his 600 page doctoral dissertation at Notre Dame on Thomas Aquinas's biblical theology The Old and New Testament I taught him way back then he is teaching me now and he's intimidatingly brilliant Oh, he loves to intimidate his dad. He doesn't realize I enjoy it even more He is now my tutor But what you get in the early church what you get you now have distilled in the catechism Because what you can see when you look at the prophecy of the old and the new is one single plan That comes from the heart of God the father and it's exactly what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 1 Verses 9 and 10 this plan for the fullness of time to unite all things Together in Christ and this plan is described by Paul using this Greek word Oikonomia that we translate economy, but it's got nothing to do with Wall Street Because Oikonomia economy is literally a compound that describes a family plan Because that's what a father does he plans to provide for his family and that's what prophecy reveals That when you read the old and the new all 73 books can be overwhelming But the fact is there is one story and it's not just there's back then it's ours right now There is one plot It's like any book that you pick up whether it's war and peace or you know a short novel or Dostoevsky, you know or I'm just thinking of a series of other ones, you know that I've read in the last several years You've got to figure out pretty early on. What's the story? What's the plot? Who are the main characters who are the minor characters? What are the issues? What's the plot? What's the story? What's the point and what you discover Especially when you read backwards from the new to the old and then you reread Forward to see how the promises are fulfilled and then some you realize that it is one Economy it is one plan. It isn't like the New Testament is plan B God arrives on the scene and he tries to figure out who are the injured who are likely to survive And it's like triage through Jesus the physician. No, it's always one plan and Christ fulfills what was there from the very beginning and So this one plan that goes from Genesis to Revelation is the economy And this is a prophetic insight into God's fatherly plan But at the same time the catechism treats this as twofold Typology and this is where it really pays dividends. This is the cash payment Because typology is precisely what Augustine describes when he says the new is concealed in the old and the old is revealed in the new More than connecting dots you have this cumulative sense of organic growth in the plan of God as a father for his people It gets bigger and better until it is fulfilled So typology is set forth in the Bible itself not just by the New Testament writers But especially the Old Testament prophets as well and Then by the fathers they went nuts on typology and then the medieval's took it to a new level and the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the first time has utilized this term and devoted three entire paragraphs to it Write these down 128 129 and 130 you don't have any other interpreted principle for understanding the Bible to which three Paragraphs are devoted and yes, I am going to read them The church is early as apostolic times and then constantly in her tradition is illuminated the unity of God's plan The economy in both testaments through typology Which discerns in God's works of the Old Covenant Prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time and of the purpose in the person of his incarnate son 129 therefore Christians read the Old Testament in light of Christ crucified and risen Such typological reading discloses get this the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament But it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value And then a gosh is quoted as the new is concealed in the old and the old is revealed or unveiled in the new Finally typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of God's plan when God will be all in all In order the calling of the patriarchs in the exodus for example lose their value in God's plan In fact, they gain more value not just as intermediate stages But revealing a pattern a paradigm for divine paternity to be fulfilled in the sun through the spirit I know this is lofty, but it also is practical because while I was studying this I was married I was becoming not only a husband, but a father and then infants become children then children become teenagers and then the adolescents are Now adults so with our six kids the three oldest are married We have 15 grandkids and we just spent like a whole week down in Virginia with eight out of the 15 grandkids and Two of the you know two of our kids who are married. It was just so wonderful The Denver Hans just are too far away to join us But it was really exciting, you know because when you are a father you Father your kids, but it's very different when you compare infancy to childhood or childhood to adolescence and then adolescence to adulthood Because just last week our youngest celebrated his 19th birthday. This is the last year and then we're out of the woods We're not gonna have teenagers anymore after more than 20 years But now that my former teens are adults and parenting their own kids They see how we've been raising their three younger siblings the three born in the 80s who are married look at the three born in the 90s And they they see the softening of you know, of course But they also can see sometimes me raising my voice which used to terrify them only now They realize that I'm not trying to strike terror. Well, maybe a little But only to win their trust back and so however fatherhood is Experienced by children by adolescents by adults There is so much change as you're raising children or teens or adults And as you're taking the grandkids into the pool at the hotel down in Virginia And by the way the last three who are born in the 90s after Kimberley became Catholic two out of those are Seminarians studying for the priesthood for the diocese of Steubenville Please pray for Jeremiah and Joseph But this pattern of paternity that is manifested when the father sends the son to give us the spirit of sonship To make us more than creatures to give us the life of the uncreated God to turn servants into sons and daughters Because he who is the eternal son became our servant and suffered in a way of love that surpasses Anything we were capable of doing ourselves And so I want to turn just briefly to that handout. We can't do it justice. So let me just do it some minor injustice As I've said it's more than prediction. There is a sense of prescription But there's also that's cumulative momentum that gathers from the very beginning Creation the patriarchs through the exodus and the conquest and the establishment of the kingdom Then the kingdom is divided and the people are exiled and they await the messiah to be restored to the lord And so the very first figure of the messiah in scripture is the first gospel as it's nicknamed the proto-evangelium In genesis 3 15 Where after the fall the lord announces that he will do what adam and eve fail to do and he'll undo what they did For I will set enmity between the woman and the serpent between her seed and his seed And he shall bruise the heel, but The woman's seed will crush the head of the serpent We all know that But what we need to recognize that this enmity between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed is not why women hate snakes More than men It's why there is a woman Whom jesus knows as mother, but they're at the wedding feast at cana. What does he call her? Woman not mama not mother, but woman Echoing genesis 3 15 and the only other time he addresses her that way is in john 19 Where after going to the garden as the new adam To undo what the first adam did he goes to the tree, but not the wrong tree, but the right tree The tree of life is what the cross is called the eucharist is referred to by the early fathers as the fruit of the tree of life Eating of which you will live forever So as the old was broken by eating and eyes were opened to nakedness and shame The new is established by eating and drinking and eyes are opened in the breaking of the bread to the resurrected adam And he calls her woman behold your son So the mystery of creation is fulfilled with a new adam and a new eve And the spiritual warfare that seemed to always be lost in the old Is finally won in the new as the book of revelation chapter 12 describes the woman Clothed with the sun the moon under her feet. She now embodies the new creation But she's crowned with 12 stars. She's the queen mother. She is coterminous identical to the ark of the new covenant in the heavenly temple there in the new jerusalem all these convergences show us this Victory that is not just won by a woman exclusively but inclusively because as paul points out in roman 1620 the god of peace Plans to crush shayton's head under your feet because who are we? We're the extension of what the spirit empowered married to be the bride and the mother That's the church the bride of christ and mother church And so the fulfillment of the promise that is the first prediction that is the first oracle But it's like a pebble and a pond that sends ripples that continue to go out and spread The ultimate outcome is this divine conquest amid triumph But also this triumph over evil through human suffering because the woman's Seed in the heel is bruised even while the woman's seed in the heel crushes the head of the serpent So from The book of revelation all the way back to the book of genesis and in between you can see what paul is doing In roman's 5 verse 14 he refers to adam who was a type of the one who is to come two pauses the greek word It's where we get typology. It's the study of types like adam was But it's not just adam. It's not just moses. It's not just david and solomon. It's persons It's places like cyanide and zion It's things it's events the calendar all of the feasts the temple All of the sacrifices Your heart pressed to find anything in the old testament that isn't linked somehow to the coming of christ He fulfills all of this if we have the eyes to see what the spirit is showing and ears to hear what the spirit is saying And then we move on to the new moses in deuteronomy 18 moses promises that there will be A prophet like a new moses and notice he is a prophetic figure I will raise up for them a prophet like a new moses And jesus as the new moses is the characteristic theme of matthew chapters 2 through 6 It's like a wave that continues to grow and likewise in john 121 And then with the samaritan woman at the well in john 4 Are you the one who was to come the samaritans? Don't call him messiah they call him to heave the coming one because of the prophet like in the moses who is destined to come And sure enough he is the prophet who is to come jews and samaritans alike Describe him as such in john 6 14 so what What difference does it make if jesus is the new moses? Well, he ushers in a new Passover that brings about a new exodus That then reveals the new manna of the new law and that's what we call the new covenant And that's what he instituted in the upper room and that's what we celebrate in the eucharist All of this is not just a new creation. It's a new and greater exodus by a new and greater moses And likewise we also have the son of abraham The new isaac and by the way, I just added a source there dale allison is not always a scholar I'd recommend but this book is worth its weight in gold the new moses a mathian typology that came out 25 years ago But now the third one the son of abraham the new isaac You can see the ultimate test of abraham's faith in genesis 22 Take your son your only son whom you love and offer him as a holocaust at the place that i will show you And then when he gets there on the third day He and the son go up the son carries the wood and asks the father. Where is the lamb? And so you can see all of this sudden Spokes on the wheel that converge on the hob of christ look at the list here The only beloved son is what is described in genesis 22 2 Who's offered as a holocaust where at mariah? Where is mariah the mountains of jerusalem one of the most prominent hills of mariah is called calvary So that you see the obedience of faith of both a faithful father and a beloved son Revealed when in verse 4 on the third day And who carries the wood the son carries the wood of the sacrifice up on the mountain This was an infant slaughter He was at least a teenager By rabbinic and patristic consensus when he asked the father Whereas the lamb god will provide himself the lamb for a burn offering That is an oracle if ever there was one And isaac then is a willing victim prefiguring jesus self offering at calvary there on the range known as mariah The result is that god swears a unilaterally binding oath to bless all the nations through abraham's seed And what is the family of abraham called it's the church the catholic church In matthew 3 and matthew 8 and especially in romans 4 and galatians 3 this is more than connecting the dots This is like looking at history and seeing mystery with the magic eye of faith when suddenly it just pops and becomes 3d Only it's trinitarian and not just special effects done by a computer The fourth is the son of david the new solomon going back to the oracle of the prophet nathan Announcing for the first time that a human will be The son of god I will be his father and he will be my son In second samuel 7 verses 12 to 14 and likewise in the psalms And what is the opening verse of the new testament the book of the genealogy of jesus christ the son of david the son of abraham The only two covenant mediators to whom god swore a covenant oath to bless all the nations through abraham's seed and david's seed So what is the body of christ? What is the church? It is the family of abraham. It is the kingdom of david And where did god swore the oath to abraham mariah where calvary is where did god swore the oath to david regarding his son zion right next door to calvary And so the preenactment of jesus sacrifice Then the preenactment of jesus exultation and enthronement 2000 bc And then a thousand years later in the fullness of time the father fulfills all of his promises and prophecies In a way that goes beyond our highest hopes and wildest dreams So you can see all of these different Oracular elements the future king from the tribe of judo to build the temple to dispense god's wisdom The son of david is the son of god because he's anointed as the marshiach the messiah Solomon enters jerusalem on a mule and they're all shouting hosanna to the son of david Just like you see in the triumphal entry of jesus the son of david coming into the city of david to restore the kingdom of david And they're shouting hosanna to the son of david This is the climax also of isaias oracles Regarding the branch or the tree or the stump of jesse david's father And you can read the rest and see how the messiah is like david a shepherd But the messianic shepherd is both the vidic and divine in ezekiel 34 And there's another source that i'd highly recommend lee roy hushing goes classic work the new isaac tradition intertextuality matthew It's his dissertation at duke and it only costs around 160 dollars So hawk you're firstborn all right Perhaps most notably the suffering servant in isaia from isaia 42 to 53 There are four servant songs that are often enumerated the climax is the suffering servant And what do you see in isaia 53? He's despised and rejected a man of sorrows acquainted with grief bearing our griefs carrying our sorrows That we esteemed him smitten by god, but he was wounded for our transgressions With his stripes. We are healed like a land led to the slaughter. He offers his life as a sin offering And there was a guy named eugenio pecc patchelli. You know him as pope pious the 12th He was the pope during the second world war And contrary to all of the slander. He was helping the rabbis and the jews get jews hidden until they could be Liberated from rome and sent to places where the nazis couldn't get him But all the while he was working with the chief rabbi of the synagogue of rome Which back then would have been like world headquarters like the vatican of world judaism And rabbi emil zoli was working so closely with eugenio peccelli pope pious the 12th That they were having long conversations About the old and the new Disputing back and forth were suddenly a grace of revelation was given to this rabbi so on the easter vigil of 1945 Emil zoli rabbi zoli the chief rabbi of the synagogue of rome Was not only baptized and brought into the catholic church, but his baptismal name was taken from pope pious the 12th eugenio And he writes the nazarene and a number of others He becomes a professor the only lay professor at the pontifical biblical institute in the subsequent years And i had the privilege of talking to sophia cavalletti about what it was like to have him as a tutor to learn hebrew and the prophets Because he showed her What isaac shows us That this oracle is so obviously not fulfilled by any figure apart from one And it captured not just the mind but the heart of the chief rabbi of rome And there are lots of stories about this so i can move on But the son of man is sort of like the final stage in daniel 7 13 The four animal beasts representing the four gentle empires that oppress the people of god the jews First babalon then meto persia then greece and finally rome How are we going to get out from under these pagan empires that are idolatrous? The son of man comes riding on the clouds of heaven to the ancient of days and to him For his suffering he is given this universal kingship this worldwide dominion, but it's not just him It's not just his to hoard alone in the second half of the oracle. He gives it to the saints of the most high As a rabbi recently pointed out to me. Nobody has ever called a saint in the old testament That's a new testament invention. He pointed out to me rabbi joshua berman But there's one exception that kind of confirms the rule and that is daniel 7 Because here you hear The prophet speaking of the saints of the most high who get the kingdom But only after the son of man has conquered through suffering and gets the kingdom from the ancient of days And henceforth jesus says you'll see the son of man riding on the clouds of heaven Jesus calls himself the son of man more than all of the other titles combined And nobody ever else nobody else ever calls him the son of man because nobody knows exactly what is this prophecy pointing to until christ's suffering ushers in a kingdom And repopulates heaven which had previously been only occupied by angels And then he leads captivity captive and repopulates heaven with the saints and the angels who now form the new kingdom In the new jerusalem, which is a new heavens and a new earth and new creation a new exodus and a new kingdom All of these things in a cumulative way Gain this kind of massive and divine momentum Until they're carried into jesus own ascension What i unfortunately don't have the time to get into Is what the gospel of john does and that is to show how the miracles of jesus are signs That point beyond themselves like signs are supposed to do To what to greater works than these shall you do because i go to the father We'll send you the pericles what greater works than raising the dead like lazars could they do What greater works than giving sight to a man born blind, which had never happened before And these signs that jesus does that are true miracles And the signs that jesus does like well he cleansed the temple like a good prophet And then they demand a sign and he says destroy this temple and on the third day raise it up So the death and resurrection of jesus in the second half of john is nothing less than a new temple a new priesthood A new liturgy a new sacrifice a new covenant That is still new two thousand years later because the signs point to the sacraments And the sacraments are the greater works that the pericles empowers the apostles And there are successors to do for the lowly likes of laypeople like me and you That go beyond lazars being raised from the dead So we have the single plan of god the father economy divided in two parts the old and the new typology But the fulfillment of the old and the new is continuing now In terms of misty goji right down ccc 1075 That's catechism of the catholic church paragraph 1075 because i'm going to read it too fast for you to digest it Liturgical catechesis initiates people into the mystery of christ It is misty goji proceeding from the visible to the invisible from the sign to the things signified From the sacraments to the mysteries This is who we are as catholics. This is what we do in every mass. This is what happens in every baptism Greater works than the miracles that jesus performed which were natural signs pointing to supernatural mysteries So what can we conclude at the bottom of the sheet? I have a long quote from one of my favorites Jean cardinal danielou in his book Sacrament and fruturi which is translated or mist translated from shadows to reality He says and I quote when the new testament shows that the life of christ is the truth and fulfillment of all That was outlined and typified in the exodus It is only taking up and continuing the typology outlined by the prophets themselves The basic difference does not lie in the typology But in the fact that what is presented by the prophets is something yet to come Is shown by the new testament writers as fulfilled in jesus christ If you look at isaia isaia talks about a new heavens a new earth and a new creation He talks about a new and greater exodus by a new and greater moses He talks about a new jerusalem a new kingdom that will unite all the nations The prophets were already doing typology before it was fulfilled The new testament writers are learning not only from our lord But from those that the spirit inspired to show us that we have the same faith as they do So he concludes This is the overall position of the new testament and the ground of its typology Through each writer will work out though each writer will work out the details according to his own plan Matthew does it differently than mark who does it differently than luke and john and paul It's like a symphony where you've got woodwinds and string and brass and percussion All of the new testament writers are like instruments of the divine spirit the spirit of prophecy Finally the organic relation between typology and prophecy is quite clear For so far from being distinct categories prophecy is The typological interpretation of history Which means that typology is how we discover that history is more than brute facts. It really is prophetic Israel is a prophetic people all of the old testament is a prophecy of christ All of the new shows us the fulfillment of a plan of god the father for his family that exceeds anything This dad could ever do for his kids ps Happy anniversary Because today marks the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest prophetic oracles of our lifetime Humane vitae by pope paul the sixth promulgated on july 25th 1968 Talk about a courageous witness and a testament of the truth in the midst of the summer of love in 1968 Where all the love luvi was counterfeit love Like given a thirsty man ice cold salt water not to slake his thirst but to make him die But he stood up and gave us this document humane vitae on human life The kimberley read when she was still a Protestant. She gave it to me when I was still a Protestant We were both convinced that this is not only true In terms of argument and reasoning But it was a light that it showed us as newlyweds. We were only married less than two years But that our love is unique in a marital covenant Because only marital love when it is expressed in this physical way is literally life giving When the two become one the one we became was so real that nine months later We had to come up with a name and in two days. He's defending his doctrine at Notre Dame I mean this prophetic witness of openness to a love that is life giving came at a time Where even the majority of bishops and priests were saying, oh, no, let's just let's just not cave but compromise Except for one guy named voitiwa who then became pope john paul And another newly installed bishop of rochester the late great soon to be blessed fulton sheen as well I really want you to see that humane vitae is prophetic It is a witness that gave life to our marriage To help us have a new creation talk about adam and eve in the marital covenant It led us in a new exodus out of the sexual revolution and all of the lies That create all of the bonds and the chains that lock people in addiction And it leads us and it points us to a kingdom and to the authority of christ who speaks to the vicar of christ The pope then is now Because and i'm morris latiziae pope francis continually quotes and cites pope paul the sixth humane vitae And in october pope francis himself plans to canonize him to make him saint paul the sixth Thanks be to god So prophecy is still lighting the way like a lamp in a dark place called the western culture To show us the light that will lead us home in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit Amen, almighty god our father in heaven. We are so grateful and proud of you Especially for how you prepared the way for the coming of your son our lord jesus christ Through all of the promises that were amplified as covenants and elevated as prophecies pointing us to uh To a grace that goes beyond what i can see or hear can hear or what we could even imagine in our minds and hearts Thank you god for the gift of jesus and for now the life of the holy spirit Who empowers us to bear the word of god and to fulfill our covenant with you our father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil amen holy mary our hopes see the wisdom Pray for us saint james saint paul Blessed paul the sixth In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Thank you very much