Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Everlasting Father,

All time belongs to you, and all the ages. In signs, in songs, in words of promise, you reassured your chosen ones, “I am with you; fear not.” You taught them through the prophets to trust that your saving deeds were not limited to the past.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled “all that was written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

The Church has found him everywhere in these same holy books.

Help me to find Jesus in my reading today, to listen to him, and to follow him with all my heart.

Amen.

Today's chapters are Jeremiah 14-16 and (because it is Sunday) Psalm 111 and 112.

Jeremiah struggles to convince the people of their sins because false prophets keep assuaging their guilty consciences. God offers a psalm that will allow the people to confess their sins and beg for mercy. With its penitential character, it is included in the Liturgy of the Hours on a Friday (in Week Three of the Psalter).

In Chapter 16 we read God's specific command, unique in the Old Testament, that Jeremiah not marry. He is not to raise a family, even though, since he is a priest, this means fewer future ministers at the altar of the great Temple. Jeremiah's own life has become a prophecy of the nation and of the city (and of the Temple). 

Psalms 111 and 112 are a beautifully and carefully matched set of alphabet psalms with key words and phrases paired across both. They begin with the same words: Praise the Lord! and verse 3b is identical, too: his righteousness endures forever.  Psalm 111 especially contemplates the works of the Lord, and Psalm 112 considers the fruits of that contemplation in the life of the person who "fears the Lord." Even the expression "fear the Lord" is carried over from the very end of Psalm 111 to the first verse of Psalm 112, to make sure we get the connection between the two. 

Start reading Jeremiah here and the Psalms here.

If you are looking for a solid but approachable companion to the Bible, I can wholeheartedly recommend A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. Although the authors are top-level Scripture scholars, they write for "real" readers. Notes include recent findings from archaeology and ancient manuscripts, and how each book of the Bible has been understood by the Church Fathers and used in Liturgy.