With your permission, wanted to take a break from the series on the Blessed Eucharist, to copy out some other Q&A from some friends that have occupied me recently...
Q. I don't understand you Catholics!
A. How come?
Q. Some signs you guys use and stuff you do...
A. For example...
Q. For example, I don't see the essence of praying through Mary... or the saints... or the angels for that matter.
A. We've tackled this before in Q&A 8, but let me quickly mention that the book of Revelation tells us what Jesus does in heaven, what Mary does in heaven and what the saints and angels do in heaven.
Q. It does!?
A. You were asking about the saints for example...
Q. Ye...
A. Well, Revelation 5 speaks of "the Lamb (Jesus) that came forward to take the scroll from the right hand of the One sitting on the throne". Meanwhile it mentions the twenty-four elders "...each one of them was holding a harp and had a golden bowl full of incense which are the prayers of the saints".
The elders in heaven - those who've gone on ahead of us - present our prayers to God on our behalf.
Q. And then you guys never read your Bibles.
A. Unfortunately this is VERY true for the greater majority of Catholics - even Christians!
Fortunately also, the Church herself and many faithful have addressed this over the last 90 years... For example Pope Benedict XVI and his efforts to encourage the faithful in the Lectio Divina ("Divine Reading"), St. Josemaria and his efforts to encourage ordinary faithful to read the Scriptures as one more character in the scene... Not to mention those saints of old like Jerome who insisted that "ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ".
And people are responding even today! I know many friends for example, who despite their busy schedules in campus or on their farms or in the office or in the gym still set aside 5 - 15 minutes every day for reading the Word and contemplating on it.
Then we have those Scripture scholars like Scott Hahn who've begun Bible centres where they take the ordinary faithful through the Bible more in-depth than your regular bible programs and BSFs.
Q. Does that centre of his have like a webpage I can check out?
A. Yup! It's the St. Paul Centre for Biblical Theology. Their webpage is on https://stpaulcenter.com/
Q. Thanks! Will check it out...
A. The problem of Catholics not reading their Bibles has its history though...
Protestants only have the Bible as their solitary source revelation. Consequently, they milk it as much as they can which is really brilliant!
Catholics have the Bible and Tradition and Magisterium and the Sacraments. If you miss grace or direction from one you can easily get it from another. Sad consequence is that we never really milk any of them well.
Happy Sunday!
19thFebruary 2017