[44] "Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the desert just as the One who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. [45] Our ancestors who inherited it brought it with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out from before our ancestors, up to the time of David, [46] who found favor in the sight of God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. [47] But Solomon built a house for him. [48] Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: [49] 'The heavens are my throne, the earth is my footstool. What kind of house can you build for me? says the Lord, or what is to be my resting place? [50] Did not my hand make all these things?' [51] "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors. [52] Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. [53] You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it." [54] When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him.
(CCC 64) Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their hearts (Cf Isa 2:2-4; Jer 31:31-34; Heb 10:16). The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations (Cf. Ezek 36; Isa 49:5-6; 53:11). Above all, the poor and humble of the Lord will bear this hope. Such holy women as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Judith and Esther kept alive the hope of Israel's salvation. The purest figure among them is Mary (Cf. Zeph 2:3; Lk 1:38). (CCC 65) "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Heb 1:1-2). Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father's one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. St. John of the Cross, among others, commented strikingly on Hebrews 1:1-2: In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word - and he has no more to say… because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty [St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel 2, 22, 3-5 in The Collected Works, tr. K. Kavanaugh, OCD and O. Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979), 179-180: LH, OR Advent, wk 2, Mon.].
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