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Chapter 3. Proclaim the Gospel to Every Creature • 23
tinuing with Paul VI and John Paul I, up to the present Pope. (Pope
John Paul II,
On the Coming of the Third Millennium [Tertio Millennio
Adveniente
], no. 18)
•
TRANSMITTING GOD’S REVELATION
Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound
closely together and communicate one with the other.
For both of them, flowing out from the same divine
well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one
thing and move towards the same goal.
—CCC, no. 80, citing DV, no. 9
Blessed John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council itself illustrate how
the Church constantly draws upon Tradition and Sacred Scripture. This
chapter examines these foundations of Church teaching because it is
throughTradition and Scripture that the Church knows God’s Revelation
and transmits it from one generation to another.
SACRED TRADITION
Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God become man, is the fullness of
Revelation by his teaching, witness, death, and Resurrection. On the
road to Emmaus, the risen Jesus showed the two disciples how the teach-
ings of the prophets were fulfilled in him and proclaimed by his own
lips. Just before his Ascension, Christ commissioned the Apostles to
preach the Gospel to all whose hearts would be open to receive them.
The revealed Word of God in the Gospel would be for everyone a source
of saving truth and moral discipline.
He commanded the Apostles to proclaim and witness his Kingdom
of love, justice, mercy, and healing, foretold by the prophets and fulfilled
in his Paschal Mystery. Jesus sent them the Holy Spirit to enable them to
fulfill this great commission, to give them needed courage, and to help
them in their evangelizing work.