This was delivered as part of a parish evangelization retreat, and as such, it is both personal and incomplete, as it is directed to a particular purpose/mg.
In God's Word, and In Teaching
This talk is titled "In God's Word, and In Teaching." It's about our relationship with Jesus, through prayer, the bible, and the Church. Since my favorite prayer forms, the rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours, have been covered in other talks, I will talk about Holy Scripture, that awesome treasure of love given to us by God.
It is true that reading and getting to know the bible can be an intimidating task, but believe me, it is worth the effort.
It is a task that I intentionally avoided for most of my life. I did not have the blessing to be born Catholic, or to be raised in Catholic schools. As a child I learned a few comic book versions of Old Testament stories. I remember Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, Joseph and his coat of many colors; but mostly they were just heard and forgotten, relics of another time. My parents were not very interested in religion, but their beliefs were strongly influenced by their parents; My grandmothers were Lutheran and Baptist, both grandfathers were Masons. When I graduated from high school, I was well formed in the world's religion. I did not believe in sin, but evil clearly existed. How did I explain this? Well, since I believed man was basically good, the source of evil was religion. What did that mean for the bible? My belief was that the bible was a collection of myths, fables, and outright lies. While Jesus might actually have existed, most of the events and teachings attributed to him were false, as they were obviously impossible.
My hatred of religion was not passionate, but ambivalent; I could not see the point of it in this modern age. The God of the bible was an embarrassment; I would say things like "I don't want a vengeful, wrathful God." This God of love, I would sneer, says in Psalm 137 "blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock." No, I would be my own rock, totally self-sufficient. I needed no one, certainly no carrot and stick God. It never occurred to me that God didn't need me either, but that He wanted me, and would teach me to want Him.
So I look back today with tears and sorrow at where I began, thanking the Lord for his loving mercy. You see, after so many years of trying to live a life by the standards of the world, I gave up the fight. It was a long fight, but without God, nothing is possible. In fact, without God, who but Satan was my counselor? Job satisfaction? Nope. Pre marital sex and contraception, hey that'll really set you free! No, a destroyed marriage and agony beyond endurance. Alcohol to drown the pain? Not really. More safe sex, try marriage again? More drink, more hours spent hiding in a depressing job; I couldn't go on, I wanted to die; but I couldn't take my life either, because I just couldn't follow my mother down that road (she died from a terminal illness); it hurt me too much when I was 14, and I couldn't do that to my children.
Perhaps it is because I had so many demons to be freed of, that today I cling to the Lord so hard. He peeled me like an onion. It started with the first passage of Holy Scripture that I ever really heard; oh yeah, I had sat there and listened to it for many Sundays, picking what I liked, rejecting what I did not. This was different; one Sunday I heard Luke 10:38-42, the Martha and Mary story. But this time it spoke to me, no it commanded me. For I had been busy with many things, but the one thing that was necessary I had not done; it was time to sit down and listen.
And the first thing I heard occurred while I was in a float tube on Henry's Lake, catching really big fish. The angels are God's messengers, and I guess they began to sing to me; for an entire day I heard the Gloria; It wouldn't stop… "Glory to God in the Highest, and peace to his people on earth…" It was not beer that made me stagger that day, but later I learned that a dear friend had been severely injured when thrown from a horse, at the very time the singing started. Psalm 10 says "He who loves iniquity hates his own soul." God was using my disordered loves to teach me something about His love.
In a way, it is really a question of what do you want. I know what I wanted; I have always wanted to love, and to be loved. To love fully and completely, without reservation. Over time, I had loved my dog, my motorcycle, my wife, my children, my job; I had loved everything except for the creator of everything, who is Love Himself. The clear and certain knowledge of this came when I opened St. Augustine's Confessions, and read "You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
It is like yesterday, remembering the day our gracious Lord finally gave me what I had been seeking; gave me himself. Our Lord said, "Only one sign will be given to unbelievers, the sign of Jonah." To an unbeliever, the death and resurrection of Christ is an impossible fabrication. But with God, all things are possible, and God is not God if God cannot take our sins upon His flesh to the Cross, there to die, and rise from the tomb that we may live with Him. That also meant that if God really was almighty God, then His word was good for something, and the Bible must actually be what it claims to be, His word. His word, because He loves us.
I was outside the Church, and I wanted to get to know Jesus Christ as my lord. There was a problem. To be blunt, which Jesus should I follow? I kid you not, this was a serious hurdle; I was afraid to read the bible. I did not know then that Jesus had prayed for his disciples "that you would all be one, so the world would know that I have sent you." I talked with my brother, the most rabid fundamentalist I know. He assured me that I needn't worry, the Holy Spirit would guide me, and keep me from all error. Somehow against a protestant landscape with thousands of competing denominations, I was skeptical. There is no area of human activity, the knowledge of which is passed on only by book; God created us with a need to be taught; you don't learn to sing from a song book! I needed a teacher, and I was kind of picky.
In the Episcopal church I had recited the creed for almost 10 years every Sunday, it came as a tremendous surprise to discover that the "one holy catholic and apostolic church" I professed to believe in was not invisible, as I had been taught, but that it really existed, in fulfillment of Christ's promise that He would be with us always, and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
Jesus sent his apostles to proclaim the good news, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" Oh, my Lord and my God! your word is true, the Kingdom is here; You told Pilate that your kingdom is not OF this world, but you did not tell him that it is not IN this world! What joy, then, ( in 1996,) to enter the Roman Catholic Church, verily the coming of the Kingdom of heaven into this world, and there to receive Jesus Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the blessed and most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
My brother had told me to trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Poor guy, he neglects the same Holy Spirit who warns in First John that we are to test the spirits, as not all of them are holy. The only qualified tester of spirits is Holy Mother Church Herself, under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. We also do not need to try and understand what is in the bible by ourselves, as we have the Church and the communion of saints! For almost 2000 years holy men and women have been praying and meditating and contemplating our God and His word in Holy Scripture, and they have had plenty to say about it. I was given some advice when I started; I was told that to give a bible to someone and to send them off to read it alone was like giving a child a loaded shotgun to play with. I was shocked, but it got my attention. It was a dangerous self-deception to think that I could read the bible with no more skill than poor English, and understand what is written there, and place my understanding against the teaching of the Church. Dangerous, because pride is the mother of all sin.
Does this mean not to read scripture? Heavens no! It does mean to read it with a little humility, that's all. It's amazing how much easier it is to read Scripture when I remember that God is the author, and He is telling me what He wishes. If I don't understand, or if I find difficult or offensive what is written there, then is the problem God, or me? Shall we change what God has said, or shall I let God change me? These are important questions. St. Jerome says that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. I will go one further; you can memorize all of scripture and still remain ignorant of Christ, if you don't know what it means. As Steve Ray says, “Text without a context is a pretext.”
And what a delight, once we read Holy Scripture with the knowledge that God is the primary author, and the care with which Holy Mother Church has preserved it for us! Scripture says, "Taste and see, that the Lord is good!" We open the Old Testament, and read "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." We open the New Testament, and read in John "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." God has spoken one Word into the void, and that Word is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Word, who is the Eternal Son, took flesh and became man. The Holy Spirit has given us Holy Scripture, human words to express the incomparable Word, human words as far from the Word, as human flesh is far from God, yet, like in the person of Jesus, where both human flesh and God are united, in Holy Scripture human words are united with the inexpressible Word. With reverence and awe we give You thanks, Oh Lord, that through this mirror, You have permitted us to see You dimly, one day, we pray, we will see You face to face.
The bible commands a new place of honor in my life. It has so much to tell us today, as much as long ago. It is ever old, ever new, because God's word is alive. It is the food of our soul; I try and see how much time I spend feeding and caring for my body, and try and give my soul at least that much time also. St. Jerome said that although gluttony is a sin, if you must be gluttonous about anything, be gluttonous about reading the bible! Fall asleep with Jesus in your arms, awaken in His embrace. There is so much that I don't understand, but Jesus promised that if we knock, he will open to us. Be persistent!
I have become very attached to the psalms. I used to wonder why they were read every Sunday. They seemed so, well, disconnected with 'reality.' I went to Ascension Priory, and there they were, reciting and chanting psalms so beautifully; why? I learned that in the early days of the Church, the desert hermits memorized the psalms and recited all 150 of them every day! What was the big secret? So I read St. Augustine's sermons on the psalms (it took two years). He tells us that in the psalms we seek Jesus speaking; either from heaven seated at the right hand of the Father, or from His sacred humanity while He walked this earth, or in His body, the Church. The psalms contain the entire Old and New Testaments, shrouded, if you will. A divine song book from God to us. Others will tear open the roof of the house, which is the hard cover of the bible, and lower us in to Jesus, who will command us to rise, pick up our pallet, and walk. Psalm 137 thus becomes a joy, instead of an embarrassment. For what are the children of Babylon, but those first inclinations to sin that are born within us? What should we do with them? Before they are brought to maturity, or committed, we dash them against the rock, and that rock is Christ.
My dear friends, there are four pillars to the Christian life; the Creed, the Commandments, the Sacraments, and the Our Father. If you know them, if you know what they mean, and if you live them, you will be united with our Lord for all eternity. That is my prayer for every one of you.
I wish to close with a quote:
The whole trouble is that - literally - we do not know what is good for us; and what makes the trouble still worse is that we think we do. We have our own plans for our happiness and too often we merely regard God as somebody who will help us to accomplish them. The true state of affairs is just the opposite. God has His plan for our happiness, and He is waiting for us to help Him to accomplish them. And let us be quite clear about it, we cannot improve on God's plans(1).
[Hold up Bible!]
Here is His plan book. I hope you'll learn to love it.
May the blessings of the Lord be upon you.
(1) This Tremendous Lover, M. Eugene Boylan
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