Sacred Scripture is a living reality that develops, grows in tradition, pope says

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Word of God is not “fossilized,” but rather develops and grows in tradition, Pope Leo XIV said.

The Church’s “deposit of faith,” which contains “the entirety of our faith — doctrine, worship, morality, etc. — is not static but dynamic for it develops and is more profoundly understood by the Church over the centuries under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” he said Jan. 28 during his weekly general audience.

“Entrusted to the Church, who preserves and interprets it in Jesus’ name, this deposit helps us to navigate the complexities of life to reach our eternal home in heaven,” he said, praying that “we become living and faithful witnesses to God’s word in Scripture and tradition.”

Speaking to visitors gathered in the Paul VI Audience Hall for the general audience, the pope continued his series of talks dedicated to the Second Vatican Council with an ongoing, in-depth reflection on the council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, “Dei Verbum.”

“Today we considered the relationship between Scripture and tradition,” he said in his remarks in English.

Jesus sent “the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles to remember, apply and proclaim everything he taught,” he said. That means, “sacred Scripture, the inspired word of God, and sacred tradition, the living memory of the Church, are intimately bound together and form the one deposit of faith.”

In his main catechesis in Italian, Pope Leo said, “the Word of God, then, is not fossilized, but rather it is a living and organic reality that develops and grows in tradition.”

“Thanks to the Holy Spirit, tradition understands it in the richness of its truth and embodies it in the shifting coordinates of history,” he said.

“The Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes,” he said, quoting from “Dei Verbum.”

St. Gregory the Great said, “The sacred Scriptures grow with the one who reads them,” the pope said, and St. John Henry Newman affirmed that “Christianity, both as a communal experience and as a doctrine, is a dynamic reality, in the manner indicated by Jesus himself in the parables of the seed: a living reality that develops thanks to an inner vital force.”

The Vatican II document said that “‘Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church,’ interpreted by the ‘living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ,'” he said, quoting from “Dei Verbum.”

The term “deposit” is used because of its juridical nature as it “imposes on the depositary the duty to preserve the content, which in this case is the faith, and to transmit it intact,” Pope Leo said.

“The ‘deposit’ of the Word of God is still in the hands of the Church and all of us, in our various
ecclesial ministries must continue to preserve it in its integrity, as a lodestar for our journey through the complexity of history and existence,” he said.

The pope concluded by urging Catholics to rediscover “‘Dei Verbum,’ which emphasizes how sacred Scripture and tradition, “together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

In his greetings in different languages, Pope Leo also highlighted the Jan. 28 feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas. He prayed that this doctor of the Church “guide us in understanding the Scriptures, which he commented on with such wisdom, so that we may understand how much God loves us and desires our salvation.”