Impossible to Exhaust the Riches of the Bible

Currently reading the Bible more now, than I have in any one year in my life.  There is the daily meditation I complete 4-5 days of the week following The Better Part.  I know I mention that book almost once a post.

Now my 7th grader and I are reading the Old Testament at a pretty good clip.  Genesis, which spans more time than the whole rest of the Bible combined, and Exodus were finished after three weeks of school.  Tonight we began Leviticus.

A friend of mine recommended Peter Kreeft's You Can Understand Bible: A Practical and Illuminating Guide to Each Book in the Bible.

I am only through the completely awesome and illuminating introduction and through his chapters up to Leviticus, and now I give you my highest recommendation to buy and enjoy his insights and incredibly efficient writing style.

Kreeft says in the introduction:

Reading the Bible should be a form of prayer.  The Bible should be read in God's presence and as the unfolding of his mind.  It is not just a book, but God's love letter to you. . . . Reading it is aligning your mind and will with God's; therefore it is a fulfillment of the prayer "Thy will be done."

Once you have listened, do talk back.  Dialogue with the Author as if He were standing right in front of you--because He is!  Ask Him questions and go to His Book to see how He answers.  God is a good teacher, and a good teacher wants his students to ask questions.

The Bible calls itself "the Word of God".  But it points beyond itself to the "Word of God", Jesus Christ. . . . The words man can utter are not alive, but the Word God utters eternally is not only alive but divine.  He calls Himself "the Son of God".  Meeting Him is the point of the whole Bible (see Jn 5:39) and the whole point of our lives.

Christ the Teacher (Icon Source: Monastery Icons)

In his chapter on Genesis 1-2 I found the following beautiful and profound quote, with bold emphasis added by me:

If God created my very existence, I simply have no being, no essence, and no rights apart from or independent of God.  My relationship to God is not an addition, however precious, to my being; it is my very being, my essence.  Man is not man and then related to God; to be a human being is to be God's creature, God's servant, God's son or daughter.  Not a second of my time, a cent of my money, a drop of my blood or my sweat or a thought in my head can I truly call my own unless I first call it His.  I owe Him my all because I owe Him my being.  The Bible does not present "religion" as a department of life.  It presents life itself as essentially, totally, and inescapably religious, that is, God-relational, from its center.

After reading it awhile, my Bible flipped from Leviticus to Psalms 62 and 63.  It kind of landed there.  As Archbishop Fulton Sheen would say on his weekly broadcast, "Thank you, Angel."

The other reason is Psalm 63 in my New Jerusalem Bible Saints Devotional Edition has completely beautiful meditation by Blessed Angela of Foligno, called "Knowing and Loving God".  I've read and re-read the Psalm and her meditation many times.  You know why?  Because, it is impossible to exhaust the riches of the Bible, even of a single Psalm, or as some would say, even of a single verse, like "Come to my help, O God, Lord, hurry to my rescue." (Ps. 70:1)

Here first is the first half of Psalm 62:

¹ In God alone there is rest for my soul, from him comes my safety;

² he alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold so that I stand unshaken.

⁵ Rest in God alone, my soul! He is the source of my hope.

⁶ He alone is my rock, my safety, my stronghold, so that I stand unwavering.

⁷ In God is my safety and my glory, the rock of my strength. In God is my refuge;

⁸ trust in him, you people, at all times. Pour out your hearts to him, God is a refuge for us. Pause

This passage did give me pause, because my friend and her family found their rock, their stronghold, and their source for hope in God!  This is the friend that underwent surgery yesterday morning, to remove cancerous tumor in one of her breasts.  They are all praising God tonight, as am I, and you are welcome to join in, that the lymph nodes extracted were clean.  This means most likely no chemotherapy, and only localized radiation therapy.  Thank you to all that joined with me in praying!

Here is the first half of Psalm 63, which is a Psalm of David when he was in the desert of Judah:

¹ God, you are my God, I pine for you; my heart thirsts for you, my body longs for you, as a land parched, dreary and waterless.

² Thus I have gazed on you in the sanctuary, seeing your power and your glory.

³ Better your faithful love than life itself; my lips will praise you.

⁴ Thus I will bless you all my life, in your name lift up my hands.

⁵ All my longings fulfilled as with fat and rich foods, a song of joy on my lips and praise in my mouth.

⁶ On my bed when I think of you, I muse on you in the watches of the night,

⁷ for you have always been my help; in the shadow of your wings I rejoice;

⁸ my heart clings to you, your right hand supports me.

This verse captures what I think many of you who find your way to this less than lean blog (how long is this post?) feel.  We do long for God.  We pine for Him.  Our hearts thirst for him.  We go to our Churches gazing at the monstrance or the tabernacle, longing to see Christ in his power and glory, as Sts. Peter, James, and John saw him in the Transfiguration, and St. John and Daniel saw him as the Son of Man in heaven.  

Blessed Angela of Foligno, 1248?-1309 writes on Psalm 63, a meditation Bert Ghezzi entitled, "Knowing and Loving God" (bold emphasis added):

The wise soul does not merely care to know God superficially, but strives to know him in truth and to learn his goodness and worth.  To such a soul God is not only good, but the Highest Good.  Thus knowing him, she loves him wholly because of his goodness, and loving him she desires to possess him.  And then God, the Highest Good, gives himself to the soul, and she feels his presence and tastes his sweetness, and enjoys him with great delight.  

Then as the soul partakes of the Highest Love, he touches her and she falls in love with her Beloved.  She wants to hold him fast, and embrace him, presses him to her, and joins herself to God.  And God draws her to himself with a great sweetness of love.  The power of love transforms the lover into the loved, and the loved into the lover.  The soul, inflamed by God's love, by the power of love is united to God, her Beloved. . . . 

Do you realize what good things that knowing God brings us?  In the way of God, the person who wants to possess God must first know him, and then God's love that transforms the lover into the loved will follow.

This is why we read, or rather pray, as we meditate on the words of Scripture.  We want to spend time, even if it is just 15 minutes a day, striving to know God in truth, because knowing God, being loved and transformed by God, loving God, and loving our neighbor with the love he showed us, and transforms our hearts into hearts like his, well that is why we were created.  It is the essence of our beginning, our eternity, and the joyous middle betwixt the trials, and sadness of our life on earth.

Note:  The New Jerusalem Bible was the version used for the scripture quotes in this post.

Catholics Do Read, Study, and Meditate on Holy Scripture!

Time to bust a myth!

There is a myth out there that Catholics do not read the Bible.  That Catholics get a Bible for Baptism, or Communion, or Confirmation, or Matrimony and then they find a place for it on a shelf somewhere.

This is not the case for many, many individuals that love to be known as Catholics.  I believe many of you reading today are examples of Bible reading Catholics that love to read, study and meditate on Holy Scripture.  In fact many of your blogs' names were inspired from scripture verses.

Here are some miscellaneous reasons why I read, study, and mediate on the Bible often, several times a day actually, besides what scripture I hear proclaimed while attending Mass or Divine Liturgy (Eastern Rite).

• My Mom used Vacation Bible Schools (VBS) as a form of very reasonable daycare, and week-long sanity breaks during the summer; VBS's usually have some excellent cheap toy motivational prizes for scripture passage memorization.
• Seeing "Jesus of Nazareth" as young girl inspired me to read the four gospel accounts of the Passion, and then the rest of the Gospels.
• My Dad started us reading the Bible together one summer.  I don't think we made it out of Exodus as a family, but still, it was a good beginning.
• During each period of emotional trial whether triggered by grief or relationship stress, I turn to the Bible.  Not always first place I turned for help (regretfully) but when I do turn to God's Word for help, it is there, HE is there and I am helped.
• More recently, was inspired that Sarah Palin said she reads the Bible first thing in the morning and last thing before she goes to bed because she wants to hear what God wants to tell her.  This is unrelated to my opinions about her politically.  It is just she did inspire me, because at the time I read that she read her Bible twice a day, it was two times more a day than I was reading it!
• Even more recently, one of our priests read the excerpt at the end of this post from St. John Chrysostom during a homily.  Note that St. John Chrysostom lived between 347-407 and how relevant his examples are to what you are living through today!  In case you weren't familiar, Chrysostom means golden-mouthed.  People would sit on logs and listen to him preach for 2 hours and then get into a mild uproar when he would stop because they wanted to hear more!  The priest also explained that the Bible is the handbook for living.  It has practical advice and commandments, new and old, for how to live as disciples of Christ our Savior and King.  
• I love that Jesus is our Our King!  (Just makes me happy and want to give that thought its own bullet.)
• Finally, I am in a Moms-In-Touch prayer group at my kids non-denominational Christian School.  I have to confess a bit of a sin of Catholic pride when one mentioned, "I am really surprised how well you know your Bible.  I haven't met many Catholics who do." 

What are some motivations you have had that either inspired you to more regularly reading the Bible, or reasons you continue to regularly turn to God's Word?  Please share in the comments, as it would be edifying to myself and other readers.  

If you want to see a few beautiful posts on favorite scriptures, Google in blogs "Three Favorite Scripture Verses" as there was a MEME for this last month that yielded some great verses and reflections.  Many of the authors in the Community of Catholic Bloggers participated in that MEME.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, 347-407

St. John Chrysostom says laypeople must read Scripture more regularly than monks because Bible study corrects the harmful effects of life's circumstances on our spirituality.  (Paraphrasing Bert Ghezzi from "Saints on Scripture" in The New Jerusalem Bible: Saints Devotional Edition.)

READING SCRIPTURE: 

ESSENTIAL FOR CHRISTIAN

LIVING 

I AM ALWAYS encouraging you to pay attention not only to what is said here in church, but also, when you are at home, to continue constantly in the practice of reading the divine Scriptures .... For let not anyone say to me those silly, contemptible words,

• "I'm stuck at the courthouse all day."
• "I'm tied up with political affairs."
• "I'm in an apprentice program."
• "I've got a wife."
• "I'm raising kids."
• "I'm responsible for a household."
• ''I'm a businessman."
• "Reading the Bible isn't my thing. That's for those who are set apart, for those who have made the mountaintops their home, who have a way of life without interruptions."

What are you saying, man?  It's not your business to pay attention to the Bible because you are distracted by thousands of concerns? Then Bible reading belongs more to you than to the monks! For they do not make as much use of the help of the divine Scriptures as those who always have a great many things to do.... But you are always standing in the line of battle and are constantly being hit, so you need more medicine. For not only does your spouse irritate you, but your son annoys you, and a servant makes you lose your temper.  An enemy schemes against you, a friend envies you, a neighbor insults you, a colleague trips you up. Often a lawsuit impends, poverty distresses, loss of possessions brings sorrow. At one moment success puffs you up; at another, failure deflates you. Numerous powerful inducements to anger and anxiety, to discouragement and grief, to vanity and loss of sense surround us on every side. A thousand missiles rain down from every direction. And so we constantly need the whole range of equipment supplied by Scripture....

Since many things of this kind besiege our soul, we need the divine medicines, so that we might treat the wounds we already have, and so that we might check beforehand the wounds that are not yet, but are going to be, from afar extinguishing the missiles of the devil and repelling them through the constant reading of the divine Scriptures.  For it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved who does not constantly have the benefit of spiritual reading.