My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 

I have been spending time recently reading through the documents of the Second Vatican Council – carefully, prayerfully, and always in the light of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the perennial teaching of the Church. 

At Pillars of Faith, we have begun a reading challenge called 14 Days Through Dei Verbum. Dei Verbum is the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Each day, we take a small portion of the document and read it slowly. We ask what it actually says, how it stands in continuity with what the Church has always taught, and where its language may require careful explanation so that it is not separated from the Deposit of Faith. 

If you would like to read along with us, I invite you to visit PillarsofFaith.net and click the tab marked “Vatican II Reading Challenge.” There you can subscribe to receive each day’s reading and reflection. And if you have missed the earlier days, simply click the “Writings” tab. All of the previous readings are there, so you can begin with Day One or join us wherever you are and catch up at your own pace. 

But today, I want to share with you one sentence that stopped me in my tracks. It appears in section 13 of Dei Verbum. The Council says: 

“In Sacred Scripture, therefore, while the truth and holiness of God always remains intact, the marvelous ‘condescension’ of eternal wisdom is clearly shown.” 

The marvelous condescension of eternal wisdom. 

That is a beautiful expression! And I believe it opens a window into the very heart of God. 

What does “Condescension” mean? 

We need to begin by rescuing the word condescension from its modern meaning. 

Today, if we say that someone is condescending, we usually mean that the person is speaking down to another with pride or contempt. We mean that someone considers himself superior and makes the other person feel small. 

That is not what the Church means when she speaks of the condescension of God. 

The word used by the ancient Fathers carries the sense of a loving descent, a gracious accommodation, a stooping down. It is the movement of the One who is truly above us but who bends low – not to humiliate us; not to display our littleness, but to lift us up. 

Think of a good father who kneels to speak to his little child face-to-face. 

The father does not become a child. He does not surrender the truth. He does not cease to possess the knowledge, strength, and maturity of a father. But out of love, he comes down to the child’s level. He uses words the child can understand. He takes the child by the hand. He enters the child’s small world in order to lead that child into something greater. 

This is only an analogy, of course. Every human analogy falls short before the mystery of God. But it helps us glimpse what the Church means. 

God is infinite. We are finite. 

God is eternal. We live moment by moment in time.  

God possesses all perfection. We are weak, wounded, forgetful, and subject to death. 

God is the Creator. We are His creatures.  

No ladder built by the human mind could ever reach from earth to Heaven. No philosophy, no technology, no political program, and no act of human will could climb high enough to reach the inner life of God. 

If we are to know God, God must first make Himself known. 

If we are to hear God, God must first speak. 

If we are to reach God, God must first come down to us. 

And this is the great pattern of salvation: God comes down so that He may raise us up. 

The first pages of Sacred Scripture show us a God who speaks. “In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.” God said, “Be light made.” And light was made.  

Creation itself comes forth through the divine Word. The heavens declare His glory. Every creature bears some trace of the wisdom of the Creator. But God does not leave man with creation alone. 

He speaks to Adam and Eve. After the Fall, when man hides from God, God calls to him: “where art thou?” 

That question is already an act of condescension. God does not ask because He lacks knowledge. He asks because man is lost. He speaks in order to draw the sinner out of hiding.  

God calls Abraham. He reveals His name to Moses. He gives His law to Israel. He sends the prophets. He speaks through histories, commandments, songs, laments, proverbs, parables, visions, and promises. 

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son.” 

At sundry times and in divers manners. 

God enters human history. He speaks with particular times, places, languages, and cultures. He does not wait for mankind to become strong enough, wise enough, or pure enough to ascend to Him. He addresses man in the midst of his weakness. 

This does not mean that Revelation is something man invents through religious experience. It does not arise from human consciousness. It is not the record of humanity slowly imagining God.  

God acts first. God reveals. God calls. God speaks.  

Man receives. Man listens. Man responds in faith – or refuses to respond. 

The initiative is always God’s.  

This brings us back to section 13 of Dei Verbum.  

The Council says that in Sacred Scripture the truth and holiness of God remain intact, yet His eternal wisdom condescends to us. It then quotes St. John Chrysostom, speaking of God’s “gentle kindness” and “how far He has gone in adapting His language with thoughtful concern for our weak human nature.” 

How far He has gone. 

Pause and consider those words. 

How far has God gone in order to speak to us? The eternal God allows His Word to be expressed in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Creator of the stars speaks through shepherds, fishermen, kings, prophets, tax collectors, and apostles. 

The One who sees all of history at once speaks through men living in a particular century, walking particular roads, facing particular dangers, and addressing particular people.  

The divine Word comes to us through the vocabulary, grammar, literary forms, memories, and real human abilities of the sacred writers.  

The Scriptures contain history, poetry, prophecy, law, wisdom, parable, genealogy, letter, and apocalyptic vision. God does not flatten every sacred book into the same human style. He makes true use of the human authors He has chosen. 

They are not unconscious instruments. They are true authors. They use their own powers and abilities. Yet the Holy Ghost acts in them and through them, so that the sacred books have God as their principal Author and teach the truth He willed to place in Scripture. 

Here we must hold both truths together. 

Sacred Scripture is truly the Word of God. And Sacred Scripture is expressed in genuinely human words.  

If we deny the divine authorship, the Bible becomes merely an ancient human library – interesting perhaps, but no longer the living Word entrusted to the Church. If we ignore the human words, we may treat Scripture as though it had simply fallen from Heaven without history, language, genre, or human authorship. The Catholic Faith receives both because God Himself has joined them.  

And notice the safeguard that Dei Verbum gives us: the truth and holiness of God always remains intact.  

God’s condescension is not a compromise with falsehood. God adapts His language to our weakness; He does not adapt His truth to our errors. He stoops down, He does not cease to be holy. He speaks in human words; He does not become merely human.  

This matters greatly in our age because people sometimes use the human dimension of Scripture as a pretext for emptying it of divine authority. They say, “These words belonged to another time,” as though time could make divine truth false. Or they appeal to culture and literary form in order to dismiss whatever challenges the spirit of the age. 

But God did not enter human language so that man could sit in judgment over God. He entered human language so that His Word could judge, heal, correct, and save man. 

We study the human words precisely because through them God has chosen to speak. We attend to history and literary form, not to escape divine truth, but to hear it more faithfully. We read every passage within the unity of all Scripture, within the living Tradition of the Church, and according to the analogy of Faith. 

The same Holy Ghost who inspired the sacred books does not contradict Himself.  

Then Dei Verbum gives us the deepest comparison of all. It says:  

“For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as the Word of the Eternal Father, when He took to Himself the flesh of human weakness, was in every way made like man.” 

This is an analogy, not an identity. The mystery of inspiration is not the same thing as the hypostatic union. But the Council directs our eyes toward the Incarnation so that we may understand the direction of divine love. 

The eternal Son of God did not merely send us information about Heaven. He came. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The One whom the heavens cannot contain was carried beneath the heart of a young woman of Nazareth. The Almighty became an infant. 

The eternal Word, through whom creation was spoken into being, accepted the silence and dependence of a child. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. He was laid in a manger. He submitted Himself to Mary and Joseph. He learned a carpenter’s trade. He walked dusty roads. He grew tired and slept. He hungered and thirsted. Her wept at the tomb of His friend. He allowed sinners to approach Him. He touched the leper. He received the tears of the penitent. He placed His hands upon the sick. 

He spoke of seeds, sheep, coins, lamps, vineyards, fathers, sons, weddings, and banquets – ordinary things that opened before His hearers into the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. 

This is divine condescension – not the surrender of divinity, but the revelation of divine love through true humanity.  

St. Paul tells us that Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and “humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.” 

How far has He gone? 

To Bethlehem. To Nazareth. To the roads of Galilee. To the house of sinners. To Gethsemane. To the judgment hall. To the pillar of scourging. To the Cross. To the tomb.  

The Son of God descends into the full depth of our misery – not by committing sin, for He is perfectly holy, but by bearing the consequences of sin in His own flesh.  

He who knew no sin was made a sacrifice for sin. He enters death in order to break its power from within. He descends so low that there is no honest human sorrow from which a suffering soul can say, “God has remained far away from me.” 

He has entered our hunger. He has entered our weariness. He has entered our rejection. He has entered our grief. He has entered our suffering. He has entered death itself. And then He rises.  

The descent is not the end. God stoops down in order to take hold of fallen man and raise him to new life. This is the moment of grace. 

We do not save ourselves by climbing. Christ descends, takes us into Himself, and carries us home to the Father. 

And my brothers and sisters, the condescension of God does not become merely a memory after the Ascension. Consider the Holy Eucharist. The same Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin, who died upon the Cross, who rose from the dead, and who sits at the right hand of the Father makes Himself truly present under the appearance of bread and wine.  

The King of kings comes to our altars. The Lord whom angels adore allows Himself to be carried in the hands of a priest. He remains in our tabernacles. He comes to us as food.  

This is not absence. It is not a mere symbol produced by the community. It is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. 

And yet He veils His glory.  

Why? 

Because He knows our weakness. He comes in a manner we can approach. He hides the splendor that would overwhelm our senses, while remaining truly and substantially present. The Eucharist is the humility of God placed before our eyes. And this should bring us to our knees. 

Casualness before the Blessed Sacrament is incompatible with understanding how far He has gone. If we truly believe that the Lord of glory has humbled Himself to remain among us, reverence is not rigidity. Silence is not emptiness. Adoration is not an outdated custom. 

They are the response of love to Love made humble. 

But we must also guard against a serious misunderstanding. The condescension of God does not mean that He affirms us in everything we think, desire, or do.  

Our Lord comes down to sinners, but He does not bless sin. He eats with tax collectors, but He calls them to conversion. He receives the woman taken in adultery, protects her from condemnation by a self-righteous crowd, and then tells her, “Go, and now sin no more.” 

He stoops to wash the feet of His Apostles, but He also commands them to keep His commandments. He adapts His language to our weakness, but He does not rename darkness as light.  

True mercy descends into the pit in order to bring the sinner out. False mercy sits beside the sinner in the pit and tells him there is no need to leave. 

Jesus Christ did not become man to make fallen humanity comfortable in its fall. He became man to redeem, sanctify, and divinize us – to make us, by grace, sons and daughters in the Son.  

God comes down to us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us as we are. That is the gentle kindness of God. That is His marvelous condescension. 

And if God has stooped so low to speak to us, how can we remain indifferent to His Word? The tragedy is not that God has remained silent. God has spoken. The tragedy is that we are often too distracted to listen.  

Our homes are filled with voices. Our phones speak to us throughout the day. News, entertainment, advertising, anger, fear, and endless commentary compete for our attention. But how many minutes do we give to the voice of God in Sacred Scripture? 

We say that we want God to guide us, yet we may leave His written Word unopened. We say that we want to know Jesus, yet St. Jerome warns us that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. We say that we want peace, yet we do not become silent enough to hear the One who says, “Peace be to you.” 

The proper response to divine condescension is not intellectual curiosity alone. It is reverence, gratitude, faith, obedience, and love. 

Let me offer several simple practices.  

First, read a portion of Sacred Scripture every day. You do not have to begin with many chapters. Begin with the Gospel. Read a paragraph slowly. Ask the Holy Ghost to open your heart. Listen for what the sacred text truly says – not merely for what you would like it to say. 

Second, read Scripture with the Church. The Bible was entrusted to the Church. It belongs within the Apostolic Tradition from which it came. Use a faithful Catholic translation. Consult the Fathers and the perennial Magisterium. Do not allow an isolated verse or a fashionable theory to be set against the whole Deposit of Faith.  

Third, pray before and after reading. Reading Scripture is not merely collecting information. In the sacred books, the Father comes lovingly to meet His children and speaks with them. Speak to Him in prayer. Listen to Him in the sacred text. Then answer Him with your life.  

Fourth, make room for silence. The Word entered the silence of Mary’s womb. The Word often withdrew to lonely places to pray. If every moment is filled with noise, the seed of the Word may never sink deeply into the soil of the heart. 

Turn off the noise. Sit before a crucifix. Spend time before the tabernacle. Read slowly. Remain still. 

Fifth, obey what God reveals. We have not truly heard the Word if we refuse to be changed by it. When Scripture exposes sin, repent. When it commands forgiveness, forgive. When it calls for purity, turn away from impurity. When it commands charity, serve your neighbor. When it reveals Christ, adore Him. When it promises eternal life, place your hope in Him.  

The Word of God is living and active. It is not an ornament for a shelf. It is not a quotation to decorate our opinions. It is a sword that cuts, a fire that purifies, a lamp for our feet, bread for the soul, and a seed that bears fruit unto eternal life.  

 And so, my brothers and sisters, this is the great reversal of the Gospel: the world tells us that greatness means rising above others, but the Son of God reveals greatness by stooping down in love. He comes close without ceasing to be holy. He speaks gently without weakening the truth. He enters our weakness not to leave us there, but to raise us with Him. 

The question I want to leave with you is simply this: How far has He gone to reach us? He has placed His Word into human words. He has taken flesh. He has borne the Cross. He waits for us in the Holy Eucharist. Still He speaks, still He calls, and still He waits. May we become still enough to hear Him, humble enough to receive Him, and faithful enough to answer Him with our lives.  

Heavenly Father, we praise Thee for the marvelous condescension of Thine eternal wisdom. Open our minds and hearts to Thy Word. Teach us to receive it with reverence, to obey it with love, and to follow Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.  

And may Almighty God bless you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland 
Bishop Emeritus