nunblog: 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 Luke 23-24 and John 1.

Luke's story of the last earthly hours of Jesus gives us the unforgettable story of the "Good Thief," and Jesus' final act of mercy. Luke's Easter narrative, too, provides the details of the two travelers on the road to Emmaus (a story hinted at in the "longer ending" of Mark's Gospel). Luke wants to remind us that we can always recognize Jesus where his disciples come together "in the breaking of the bread."

And so we come to John.

When I was a novice, we had theology class with the Servant of God, Fr John Hardon, SJ. I still remember how in one class he had been speaking about the way the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) presented a certain aspect of Christ. And then he turned to the fourth Evangelist, and said, "as for John: Well, you know John...." And we all chuckled. Because if "one of these things is not like the other," the Gospel of John is the one of the Four Gospels that bears no real family resemblance to the other three. And that is obvious as soon as you turn the page:

In the beginning was the Word

and the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

John is not taking us back to John the Baptizer, the way Mark did; he is not tracing a genealogy back to Abraham, the way Matthew did; he is not even tracing Jesus' roots back to Adam, "son of God," the way Luke did. John is re-writing the Bible, taking up the words of the Book of Genesis ("In the beginning") and going into the very heart of God, and saying, "Here is where the Gospel begins, and this 'Word was made flesh' in Jesus of Nazareth."

The prologue of the Gospel of John is an epic poem that starts in the Trinity, promising to show us how Jesus gives us access to the life that is his in the Father.

The rest of Chapter 1 will take it from there, starting from the damp earth at the banks of the Jordan River.

Start reading Luke here and John 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.