Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! We've been reading the Bible clear through this year. We've reached the New Testament, so read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Father,

When the fullness of time had come, you sent your Word in the One who said, “Whoever sees me, sees the Father.” No revelation can surpass this, until Jesus comes again in glory. 

Open my mind today to the gift of life and truth your Word offers me through the Church. By your Holy Spirit, grant me wisdom and strength to put this Word into practice and to become, myself, a presence of Jesus for people who are looking for you.

Jesus, eternal Word and Son of the Father, live in me with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Today's chapters are John 17-19.

The entire seventeenth chapter of John is a prayer by Jesus just as he is about to enter into his "glory." Jesus prays for himself as his mission comes to its completion. He prays for his disciples "("those you gave me"), and he prays for us ("for all those who will believe in me through their word"). And what is his greatest desire? "That they may all be one." Not just hand-in-hand fellowship kind of united, but "as you, Father, are in me, and I in you." Jesus enters into the Way of the Cross so that you and I might become participants in the life of the Trinity. It is Jesus' glory to be the eternal Son of the Father, and he will "go away" (as he said in chapter 16) so that we can share in his sonship. 

Chapter 18 gives the details of the arrest and trial of Jesus. Even before Pilate, Jesus affirms, "I came to bear witness to the truth." Pilate walks away. 

In Chapter 19, every detail of the Crucifixion is intensely meaningful but John draws our attention to something that the Synoptics did not even mention: the brutal post-mortem spear-thrust into Christ's side and the streams of blood and then water (pericardial fluid) that flowed out. Running a spear through the heart was not Roman practice for ascertaining a prisoner’s death. (It would have been a poor soldier who could not recognize a dead man.) This was an unusual action and John takes pains to assure us of its historicity. The First Letter of John will also emphasize the truthfulness of three witnesses, “the Spirit and the water and the blood” in giving one self-same testimony to Christ (see 1 Jn 5:8). Though John only cited two of them, prophecy after prophecy was being fulfilled the moment the soldier withdrew his lance: Zechariah 12: 9, 13:1; Ezekiel 47:1; Isaiah 55:1; even Exodus 17:6, as interpreted by Paul in 1 Cor 10:7.

And then there were Jesus’ own prophecies: 

“Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’ He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.” (Jn 7:37-39).

And his dramatic challenge: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ … But he was speaking about the temple of his body” (Jn 2:19-21).

For a thousand years, theologians saw the blood and water streaming from the dead Christ's side as a symbol of the Church and the sacraments (especially Baptism and Eucharist). They are the visible signs of grace, the signs of participation in the life of God, and the sacraments which bring about and sustain that life in us. And they were established in the dying and rising of Jesus. 

Start reading here.

For additional background

This year for "Buy a Nun a Book Day," one of the first books I received was Dr John Bergsma's Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood. As I read it, I saw how many of the Old Testament "types" and institutions we read about through the year were fulfilled (super-abundantly) in Jesus and in the Church. This is especially clear in the Gospel of John, which in a way is the most "priestly" of the four Gospels. 

If you have questions about the priesthood in the Church, or about the difference between our baptismal participation in the priesthood of Christ and that exercised by our ministerial priests, or even simple questions like why Catholics call priests "Father" (when Jesus said, "Call no one on earth 'father'"), or if you would like to see in a fuller way how very many Old Testament types were pointing to Jesus and to the Church, this very readable book is for you.

I am happy to recommend this volume of The Four Gospels in an edition directed to young readers and their parents. The text of all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in the New Revised Standard Translation is accompanied by FAQs that a middle-school reader might ask (or, to be honest,  anybody reading the Gospels for the first time). The footnotes were prepared by a team of Scripture scholars for parents and guardians, making the book ideal for family Bible reading. 

A look inside; I translated the FAQs 
(above the eagle) and footnotes for Mt 16-28!