Verbum Domini: The Word of God

Excerpt from the POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION VERBUM DOMINI OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY, CONSECRATED PERSONS AND THE LAY FAITHFUL ON THE WORD OF GOD IN THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH (page 52):

"Saint Bonaventure states that without faith there is no key to throw open the sacred text: 'This is the knowledge of Jesus Christ, from whom, as from a fountain, flow forth the certainty and the understanding of all sacred Scripture. Therefore it is impossible for anyone to attain to knowledge of that truth unless he first have infused faith in Christ, which is the lamp, the gate and the foundation of all Scripture'.84 And Saint Thomas Aquinas, citing Saint Augustine, insists that 'the letter, even that of the Gospel, would kill, were there not the inward grace of healing faith'.85

84 Breviloquium, Prol.: Opera Omnia, V, Quaracchi 1891, pp. 201-202.
85 Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 106, art. 2.