In place of those Proverbs, let's look at key sentences from the Constitutions of Vatican II.

Tuesday, 9/23/14

The proverbs in the First Reading are clever and thought provoking, and there was a time when good women stitched such proverbs into samplers they hung on our walls, but we don’t see much of that anymore.

I have found that instead of the old proverbs, it is the  statements in the documents of Vatican II that are more frequently on my lips. The Council published sixteen documents, but they classified the ones on Liturgy, on the Church itself, on Divine Revelation, and on the Church in the Modern World as Constitutions. In place of Proverbs, let me quote a key sentence from each of those.

A key sentence in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy states, “He is present in the sacraments so that when anybody baptizes it is really Christ himself who baptizes.”

A key sentence in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church states, “The Church subsists in the Catholic Church . . . Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible limits.”

A key sentence in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation states, “In determining the intention of the sacred writers attention must be paid to literary forms, for the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writings, in prophetic and poetical texts.”  

The opening sentence in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World states, “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts.”