St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

The newest episode of the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast is up!

In this fourth of five episodes on the Annunciation, we hone in on Luke 1.32-33, in which the angel Gabriel uses some highly charged Old Testament phrases to describe the mission of the Messiah. Our goal is to understand what is meant by the phrases “throne of David,” “house of Jacob,” and “everlasting kingdom.”

To do this, we spend much of our time trying to understand the history of Israel. We begin with the call of Abraham (Genesis 12.1-3) and see how contained in this call is the basic outline of the history of Israel — from is beginning as a tribal nation, to its development as a royal kingdom, and finally to its being the people that brings forth the savior of the world. This is only the first step.

We then turn to the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. We see that whereas Jesus did not promise to restore the Kingdom to Israel, he did promise to send the Holy Spirit. This happens on the Feast of Pentecost. In attempting to understand Pentecost, we see we must return once again to Genesis: This time we go farther back in the history of salvation, all the way to the Tower of Babel — indeed, all the way back to the creation of the world.

What we ultimately conclude is that the everlasting kingdom Jesus came to establish is the Church, which is the sacrament of salvation — the visible sign of our union with God as well as the visible sign of our union with one another.