2. God's way of coming to us: scripture, tradition, magisterium

2. God's way of coming to us: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium Compendium 11-24 Scripture 1 Timothy 2:4 1. Catholicism is the fullest and truest expression of Christianity. 2. Our Faith is not a matter of personal conjecture and preferences but rather a Revelation from God and Jesus Christ through Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium. 3. The 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament are a unified and coherent blueprint of God's plan of love for the world. This is demonstrated at Mass in the liturgy that draws from both the old and the new testaments. The old points to and confirms the new and the new clarifies and completes the old. 4. The high point of revelation occurred when God the Father sent his only Son, the second Person of the Trinity into the world and the Son became like us in every way yet without sin. 5. The two sources of God's revelation and self-communication to us are Scripture and Tradition. Those who deny tradition deny the foundation of their own beliefs. 6. Christ established Peter and the Apostles as the first Magisterium and promised to protect their teachings from error. The Pope and the bishops are the only unbroken successors of that Magisterium and promise. 7. Jesus entrusts the keys of the kingdom to Peter. Jesus is referring to Isaiah 22 where King Hezekiah removed Shebna as prime minister and replaced him with Eliakim. The prime minister had all the authority of the king in all practical matters especially the safety and security of the kingdom. This is the authority which Peter clearly exercised among the apostles and past on to his successors. Peter is the rock upon which Christ builds his church. Christ has only one kingdom and one church. Christ cannot be happy about the tens of thousands of churches which self proclaim the authority of Christ exclusively for themselves and thereby make a mockery of his one church, one baptism, one truth and one way. None of these churches can trace their origins back to Peter except the Catholic Church. The disunity of Christians is the fundamental cause of disunity in the world. Christ’s mission was “that all may be one.” 8. It is not by divisive arguments that we work towards unity but by harmonious living and authentic, patient and humble listening without judgement or arrogance, believing that only the grace of God can bring about the miracle of unity and the presence of Jesus in our midst so that “all may be one, as you, father, and I are one.” They will only recognize us as Christians if we love one another.