Catholic Faith?

Question

how is "Word" used in the catholic faith?

Answer 1

The Holy Scriptures, along with Holy Tradition and the Holy Magesterium and the Councils and the Creeds and the Bishop of Rome, when he speaks "from the throne" (Ex Cathedra) on matters of faith and morals are all authoritative.

But it all is based on Holy Scripture. Not Scripture "alone" like the Protestant denominations, but together, with and as seen through, Holy Tradition

Answer 2

Protestants being thus impious enough to make liars of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Ghost, and of the Apostles, need we wonder if they continually slander Catholics, telling and believing worse absurdities about them than the heathens did? What is more absurd than to preach that Catholics worship stocks and stones for gods; set up pictures of Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and other saints, to pray to them, and put their confidence in them; that they adore a god of bread and wine; that their sins are forgiven by the priest, without repentance and amendment of life; that the pope or any other person can give leave to commit sin, or that for a sum of money the forgiveness of sins can be obtained ? To these and similar absurdities and slanders, we simply answer: "Cursed is he who believes in such absurdities and falsehoods, with which Protestants impiously charge the children of the Catholic Church. All those grievous transgressions are another source of their reprobation."

"But what faith can we learn from these false teachers when, in consequence of separating from the Church, they have no rule of faith? ... How often Calvin changed his opinions! And, during his life, Luther was constantly contradicting himself: on the single article of the Eucharist, he fell into thirty-three contradictions! A single contradiction is enough to show that they did not have the Spirit of God. "He cannot deny Himself" (II Timothy 2:13). In a word, take away the authority of the Church, and neither Divine Revelation nor natural reason itself is of any use, for each of them may be interpreted by every individual according to his own caprice ... Do they not see that from this accursed liberty of conscience has arisen the immense variety of heretical and atheistic sects? ... I repeat: if you take away obedience to the Church, there is no error which will not be embraced.

Source(s):
Against the Reformers
Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible online

Additional Reading

St Alphonsus Mary De Liguori (1696-1787)
Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Answer 3

Jesus is the Word, or more precisely to use the Greek the Logos. It means both the simple English meaning but also and simultaneously "reason," as in rationality and thinking, but not purpose.

So, the Bible is not the Word of God, Jesus is and the bible contains God's revelation. Catholics do use the bible as the "word of the Lord," because of course it is, but not necessarily in the same sense as a Protestant uses it.

It is important to understand, from both a scriptural and ancient Christian perspective, what is God's revelation. The bible isn't the exclusive list of God's revelation, neither Jews nor any Christians before Luther invented the doctrine would have considered that idea. It is rather, the list of books to be read in Church. This is of the deepest importance in the Catholic faith since what is prayed is what is believed and since the bible is the prayer of God to man, it is to be believed. But, it is important to understand a difference here. The bible was considered true by the ancient Christians because it was used in the service, books considered true but not used in the liturgy, such as the Didache which is really instructions to ministers from the Apostles, were excluded.

The books of the bible are those books to be read during the service. Except for the Apostle's Creed or the Nicene Creed, both of which are almost universally accepted by Protestants (Mormons, Unitarians, certain sectarian baptists and sectarian adventists excepted), every other word is either a direct quote of scripture in the service or a very close paraphrase to permit the passage to make sense in the context. So every word of a Catholic or Orthodox service, the creed excepted is a direct quote of scripture. This is the reason Catholics were not permitted to sing hymns in Church until the 1960's. Protestant hymns are man made, the psalms and canticles of the bible are considered God made. So in place of hymns, Catholics sang the songs of the bible. At Vatican II, the Fathers of the Council acknowledged the value and importance of the Protestant hymnal and the use of hymns occurs in some parts of the Catholic Church during the service. Not all parts of the Catholic Church use hymns outside the bible, however, during the service itself, though they may permit them before the beginning blessing.

Likewise, the liturgy is meaningless apart from scripture. Whereas the scriptures were made for reading in the service or in essence for the liturgy, the liturgy was made to house the proclamation of the faith and to welcome the presence (parousia) of Christ in His Church. It is in the bible that this proclamation occurs in its fullest sense.

To understand the two uses of word, you need to look both at Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, our High Priest AND you need to see the lesser usage of that of the text of the bible and in particular the Gospels.

It is in the Gospels that the two meanings collide. In the Roman service (there are other services in use), Catholics stand for any prayer. When the Gospels are read, Catholics stand because to hear the Gospels is to be in prayer. If you are in prayer then you are with God Most High, in the Spirit, through the mercies of the Son. So when the Gospels are read, the word of God and the Word join together as one. In the Greek service, this is called the "little entrance."

At the beginning of the "little entrance," the priest, deacon and acolytes process through the deacon's doors into the main part of the Church. The priest then passes through the doors of the Annunciation and enthrones the Gospel to begin the reading of the scriptures. They are called the doors of the Annunciation because symbolically, when the priest opens the doors in essence to Heaven, he asks each parishoner to carry Jesus into the world as the Father asked Mary to carry Jesus into the world, in the sense that the Angel did. The word Gospel and the word Angel are essentially identical in Greek and the word for the Annunciation and the word Gospel are also the same word.

Finally, the scriptures are not exclusive elements of the truth. In Timothy Paul instructs Timothy to keep all aspects of tradition given to him, both written and oral. The scriptures are the primary written texts from the apostles, but the oral tradition is still passed on as well through the liturgy primarily, but also through other mechanisms as well.

St Basil the Great makes the distiction between kerygma and dogma, written vs. oral context essentially, but Paul is a little more subtle. Scripture is tradition put into a concrete form, but tradition includes the services the apostles Mark, Peter, James and Thomas (through Mari and Addai) left to us. It also includes art (Luke painted), practices, beliefs and stories. So the word (little w) only has its context within the framework of the apostolic tradition (or paradosis to use Paul's word), and Christ is made manifest (Word with a captial w) through the liturgy and in the scriptures. Christ is the content, the word or the scriptures are the primary delivery of the message and tradition is the context the message is to be understood. In that best case, the Word made Flesh is made manifest in His fullness or at least as close as humans can arrive at.

Answer 4

Word is a word used by catholics pretty much the same way it's used by everybody else.

Answer 5

I guess the same way as in most Christian churches.

The Word can refer to Jesus Christ as in the first chapter of the Gospel of John or to the Gospels or to the Bible as a whole.

With love in Christ.

Answer 6

The "Word" refers to the sacred Scripture = the Bible.

The "Word" also refers to Jesus Christ at the beginning of the Gospel of John. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

That's all the definitions I have.

Answer 7

Catholocism has become based almost entirely upon tradition and even pagan rituals, I don't even know if they use their bibles anymore...