History's Golden Thread

The Old and New Testaments contain the word of God. This word came to us through the people that God chose in Israel. In order to understand God’s word to us it is necessary to reflect upon the lives of God’s chosen ones, the Israelites. God has revealed himself gradually throughout the entire history of the created world. These chosen people learned to listen and established a permanent relationship with God. God still encounters and communicates with living people. He meets them in all of history and enters into relationship with them, too. The history of salvation in Cavalletti’s History’s Golden Thread presents eight key moments of salvation history in this divine plan of God for all humans that are connected. When we use the bible, we
With the events of the Egyptians, who threatened the chosen people, came a miraculous event known as the Passover. Their death had been avoided by passing through the Red Sea on the way to the Promised Land and this event was celebrated liturgically. The chosen people of God lived this history and renewed it in themselves over and over. This custom of eating unleavened bread was completely new. These are religious rites that help every Jew recognize that “the lamb is what saves the Jews from the angel of death that passed over Egypt, the bitter herbs are a remembrance of the bitter experience of the Jews as slaves, and the bread is unleavened because there was not time to let it rise at the moment of the Exodus.” (Cavalletti)
The Mosaic law of Israel guided the people’s knowledge of God’s will. Torah means teaching. A Jewish feast that celebrates the gift of the Law is Pentecost. Passover is connected to Pentecost in the synagogue where the gift of the Ten Commandments is the foundation of morality. Obedience is a response to God’s loving action in our lives. In the gift of preaching, God offers us the opportunity to connect our actions with a right intention. Saint Paul, in the New Testament, tells us that we would not know what sin is without the Law. The Law becomes light, guardian, positive, and
Those closest to Jesus are called the Apostles. They were commissioned to follow in His footsteps. The Zealots, Herodians, and Essenes were members of contemporary religious movements also waiting for a Messiah. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead and the afterlife, were influenced by the Hellenists, and were an aristocratic group that argued with Jesus. The Pharisees and Scribes were two separate groups that used the Torah. The Scribes were scholars and the Pharisees followed the law every day. There were many rules and regulations at the time of Christ that bound them to the temple but were of lesser importance to Jesus. It was the Pharisees that worshipped differently. The institution of the priesthood was questioned. Blood sacrifices were not seen as worthy “in the eyes of the Lord”. (Cavalletti) The Torah and the Synagogue became more important to these people, a more popular and holistic spirituality, a tradition that required that the law be followed “with one’s whole being.” (Cavalletti)
Jesus warned the Pharisees who practiced the Law rather than its spirit. Jesus saw the religion of the Law as a distortion. He was more concerned with a right attitude, receiving God’s good gifts and being in relationship. He also wanted religious people to understand that their good works were not independent of God’s spirit within them. He taught many parables