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 Lamentations 4-5, Baruch 1 and (because it is Sunday), Psalms 115 and 116.

More laments over the fall of Jerusalem, including details that could only come from an eye-witness, close the book of Lamentations.

The short book of Baruch is one of those that is not included with the inspired Scriptures in Jewish and Protestant publications, but it has consistently been accepted as inspired by the Catholic Church. It was included within the Book of Jeremiah in the Septuagint although its position (before or after Lamentations) varied in different manuscripts. There is really no consensus on the book's origin or authorship. It could be a collection of three or four documents from different points during the exile. Only the opening chapters have any real likelihood of being attributable to Jeremiah's scribe, Baruch. (Even then, the book opens in Babylon, whereas Jeremiah and Baruch had been forced into Egypt.)

The festive "Hallel" psalms continue with Psalm 115, a celebration of the greatness of the transcendent God, who so surpasses the handmade "gods" of the other nations with their unseeing eyes, their noses incapable of telling the difference between incense or burnt meat, their ears that cannot hear the prayers and supplications of the people.

Psalm 116 is a two-part prayer of thanksgiving with a verse that reminds us of the Paschal Mystery and its presence in the Eucharistic liturgy: "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful one. Lord, I am your servant, I am your servant, the son of your handmaid; you have loosed my bonds. How can I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord."

Start reading here and Baruch 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.