|
Hi Francis,
Due to the type of questions you have asked, I'm hesitant in giving you any answer. If this is for a homework assignment you are obliged to note where you received your answers on the homework assignment.
You said:
- Who is called the Word of God?
The short answer is: Jesus, the Christ, the God-Man is the Word of God who came to save mankind
from their sins in 33 A.D. He is called the Word of God.
The Catechism tells Catholic Christians and all men the following:
The New Testament
124 "The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who has faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most
wonderful way in the writings of the New Testament" [Dei Verbum
17; cf. Romans 1:16] which hand on the ultimate truth of God's Revelation.
Their central object is Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son: his acts,
teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church's beginnings under
the Spirit's guidance.
125 The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures because they
are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word,
our Savior. (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 18)
126 We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:
1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the
four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully
hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really
did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was
taken up." (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 19; cf. Acts 1:1-2)
2. The oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord,
the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done,
but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious
events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed." (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 19)
3. The written Gospels. "The sacred authors, in writing the four
Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed
on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized
or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while
sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that
they have told us the honest truth about Jesus." (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 19)
|
You said:
- What future follower of Jesus stood by watching
the stoning of the Church's first martyr, Stephen?
That was St. Paul, who before his conversion to the Catholic faith, was
called Saul. You can read more about it at the end of Acts Chapter 7 and the beginning of Acts Chapter 8. A special year has been
dedicated for the bimillennium celebrations of the birth of the Apostle
Paul.
This Pauline Year began June 28, 2008 and will continue
to June
29, 2009.
Although the word Christian or Catholic wasn't used until the disciples gathered at Antioch,
it was the same Church. St. Pacian of Barcelona, (c.310-375 A.D.) explains on the AskACatholic.com home page why the Apostles needed the unique name Catholic to distinguish the true Church of Our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, from others, at the time, who also called themselves Christians.
You said:
- Which is the shortest of the four Gospels?
- St. Mark's Gospel is the shortest with 16 chapters.
- St. John's Gospel has 21 chapters.
- St. Luke's Gospel has 24 chapters, and
- St. Matthew's Gospel, is the longest of the four, with 28 chapters
Mike
|
