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 Ezekiel 17-19.

With all the prophetic calls to repentance, it seems that the people were still blaming their ancestors for all the trouble they were experiencing. In today's central chapter, Ezekiel sets them straight. There are such things as structures of sin (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1869), but people will be judged for their own use of freedom. This was already present in Deuteronomy 24 and 2 Kings 14, but Ezekiel's presentation gives heightened emphasis to the greatness of our dignity and of God's respect for the dreadful greatness of human freedom.

Start reading 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.