This is a visible, historical and institutional reality and at the same time invisible, celestial and mysterious; we, with the Fathers of the Church and with centuries of doctrinal teaching, call it the Body of Christ, and its visible boundaries appear in the Catholic Church led by Peter, while those equally real, but mysterious, which also gives it the name of the Mystical Body of Christ, are marked only by the Mercy of God himself, Creator, Savior and Judge of the universe, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Summary of the path already travelled

God therefore, whom no man has ever seen, spoke to Abraham and Moses, and at a certain moment in human history in the Covenant he autonomously revealed himself with "the Words" (haddebarìm), which in the testimony of time were ten: the first two affirm its absolute uniqueness: “I am the Lord, your God! You will not have another god opposed to Me!” and "you will not make yourself an image" of Me, because the image is a silent idol, which does not speak and does not manifest its will, while I speak, and you must listen to my voice which reminds you that my true image is you , a living man, created out of gratuitous love, "our image very much like us" (Gen. 1, 26), and nothing else.
Here then is the third command - for our Catechism the second, due to the well-known and painful historical event of the controversy over the images which recommended omitting the text of the second command (Ex, 20, 4), generating misunderstandings that have also reached us - it is the one in which the Lord no longer speaks about Himself to Moses and his people, but speaks about us, men who are the true image of Him, creator and savior in history. And so the third command of the biblical text (Ex. 20, 7) is the one which orders the man of the Covenant not to use the name of God to deceive his neighbor, to send him "into the void", "in vain": God has not nothing to do with it, and he proclaims it, with every use of his Name that offends, betrays, humiliates and despises man...The other commands follow, in the original text 7, in our Catechism, seen above, logically 8: in these other “words” (in Hebrew “haddebarìm”) the Lord reminds His People of their duties towards created reality, first and foremost men: the necessary rest so that men and animals are not brutalized by work, honor towards father and mother, the prohibition of killing the innocent, of betraying the pact of love between man and woman, of depriving others of their things through theft, of deceiving them through lies, and finally of willingly desiring to appropriate other people's things, among which in the original biblical text the woman is also included - as it was at that time in all oriental civilizations, and so it remained for a long, too long time elsewhere too, and very close to us too, Ed. - while in the text of our Catechism ad it is reserved for the tenth commandment, which definitively fills the void created by the cancellation of the command of the prohibition of images...
This is the God who reveals himself to Abraham, calling him to leave his land and who then formalizes the call and alliance with Moses, offering him the Decalogue which will be the identity card of the People of election and salvation in history...This God over the centuries has manifested the His will and revealed his characteristics, after the Torah, the Law, expressed in the first 5 books (called "Pentateuch", which includes the number 5) in other texts which for us Christians make up the "First Testament": Torah (Law) , Nevihìm (Prophets) and Qetuvìm (Writings).

What is “knowing God” in revelation? A first surprise.

At this point the real question is this: how do we know this God revealed in the Covenant, in the Prophets and in the Writings, how do we recognize His Lordship, how do we get closer to Him, how do we be faithful to the Covenant which culminates in Sinai and in the Ten Words that mark the history of the Jewish-Christian religion, which is ours up to 2000 years after Jesus of Nazareth, around 4000 after Abraham and around 3000 after Moses? And again, given that we are Christians, how does Jesus of Nazareth fit into the previous revelation, to Abraham and Moses and the biblical prophets?
With the premises already read on the reality of the "Ten Words" let us try to see how in Scripture itself the true knowledge of God is spoken of, of the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, of the God revealed to Moses on Sinai, of the God who led his People to the Land promised to their fathers, and who "spoke through the Prophets". The opening passage of the Letter to the Hebrews comes to mind, "In many ways, and in successive phases, God revealed himself in the past..." And precisely this "past", that is, the way in which He revealed himself, is the object, now, about our research, which will lead us to a surprise, which in reality shouldn't be there...
The surprise is due to the fact that the term knowledge of God, in the First Testament, is used in an unexpected way. The quotes would be countless, but let's start with the following, very clear and solemn even in the initial formulation, which recalls the “Shemàh Ishraèl” – Listen Israel! – which is the refrain of the decisive passages of revelation: “Listen to the word of the Lord, children of Israel, because the Lord has something to complain about with you. For there is no sincerity, no compassion among you, no knowledge of God (Nb: “knowledge of God”!) in the land: people perjure themselves, they lie, they kill, they steal, they commit adultery…” (Hosea 4, 1-2)
Here are the commandments, five lined up one by one, as the absence of the "knowledge of God". To know God is to respect his “Words”. Previously, Hosea had also spoken to the people in the name of God himself: "I will make you my bride in justice and justice, in compassion and love, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and so you will know Yahweh" (Hosea). 2, 21-22). Strange for us, perhaps, is this equation: justice, law, compassion and love are "knowledge of God".
And therefore the motif returns in other prophetic texts, one could say in all of them, even in the texts that speak of the future Messiah, in particular therefore in those of Isaiah: "He (the promised Messiah, Ed.) will defend with justice the cause of the poor, he will rightly judge the oppressed of the land. His word will be a whip that will strike the violent and the unjust... Justice will be the girdle of his loins, integrity the girdle of his waist” (11, 4). Followed after a few lines, 11, 9: "There will be no more deception or violence on all the sacred mountain, because the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God (Nb!) as the waters fill the sea". So a first conclusion: practicing justice and law, compassion and mercy, not killing, not lying, not deceiving others etc., which seem like things that do not concern God, are the way - note well: "the", not “an” – to truly know that God who reveals himself in the Decalogue, and in the Prophets.
It's a great first step to move forward with the right indications. The consequences will be important, and passing through other texts of the First Testament and then of the New and definitive, up to us, today and here... For now it is enough to have mentioned the fact that the God of revelation asks to be known essentially passing through his " re-cognition” in the reality of our neighbor, the true image of the living God. And the theme will have its absolute synthesis in Jesus and in the discourse on the Final Judgment (Mt. 25): "What you did to one of these little ones, you did to Me!". Until next time…