by Pedro A. Moreno, O.P. Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis
God’s books of life, truth and love
This year, my plan is to reflect on our Sacred Scriptures, the Bible. My prayer is that these reflections can help my sisters and brothers grow in love for, and learn more about, God’s Word – our great and sacred, personal and portable, divine gift.
“For in the sacred books … the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life” (Vatican II: Dei Verbum 21).
The Bible is a library of 73 books inspired by God and written by various men, in various times, places, cultures and languages, developed over a span of around 3,000 years. The Church recognized these books as truly the Word of God and invites us to be nourished daily by the life, wisdom and love contained within it. In his word we meet him, listen to him, respond in prayer and read some more.
We always have held a special place in our heart for God’s word: “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God's word and of Christ's body” (Vatican II:Dei Verbum 21).
An unmet dream of the Second Vatican Council is a greater intimacy between Sacred Scripture and all the baptized: “The sacred synod also earnestly and especially urges all the Christian faithful, especially religious, to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the ‘excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ.’ ‘For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’ Therefore, they should gladly put themselves in touch with the sacred text itself” (Vatican II: Dei Verbum 25).
Various writers have unique ways of describing what the Bible is. Bishop Barron in “Exploring Catholic Theology: Essays on God, Liturgy, and Evangelization,” has these words: “The Bible is a symphonos, a sounding together of tones and melodies, under the direction of the supreme artist. Also, since we the readers of the Bible participate in the divine being and are subject to the divine governance, we should expect the scriptural narrative to be illuminating for us. Finally, given that God is the author of both the Bible and history itself, we shouldn’t be surprised to find a whole set of figural or typological correspondences throughout the scriptural witness. We should expect that God will speak in a distinctive accent and according to certain characteristic patterns and rhythms.”
N.T. Wright, in Ch. 13 of “Simply Christian,” begins his topic on the Bible, “The Book God Breathed,” with these words: “It’s a big book, full of big stories with big characters. They have big ideas (not least about themselves) and make big mistakes. It’s about God and greed and grace; about life, lust, laughter and loneliness. It’s about birth, beginnings and betrayal; about siblings, squabbles and sex; about power and prayer and prison and passion. And, that’s only Genesis.”
I invite you to make this year your personal Year of the Bible! As Pope Benedict said in his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini: “Let us renew our efforts to understand deeply the word that God has given to his Church: thus we can aim for that ‘high standard of ordinary Christian living.’”
Start with the Gospel of Luke or spend some special time with the daily readings for Mass. Paragraph 104 from the Catechism says: In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God." "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children and talks with them."
I will end this first column of the year with Pope Francis’s final words in the preface to the YOUCAT BIBLE: “Do you want to make me happy? Read the Bible.”