DO YOU PRAY THE BIBLE? OR DO YOU JUST READ IT SO YOU CAN ARGUE BETTER?

Click here for a perfect example of what this says

The other day, about two weeks ago I was sent a link to a Catholic blogger's site within an email which said: "This, you're going to really like!"  Since the source of the email is someone whom I really love and trust, I did proceed to go to the website and the first page that appeared provided me with some joy and satisfaction.  In fact if you click here you can go there to judge for yourself.  As I usually do when I am on a Catholic site, after I have read the first page I then go back to follow the links that the author proposes.  That was easy to do since the link sent the reader back to an exchange of comments from an earlier blog post published by the same author.  It turned out to be nearly 90 pages worth of diatribe and rebuttal after re-rebuttal between the "Sola Scriptura" crowd and the 'Roman Catholic" crowd.  90 pages full of smoke and not a single syllable of Holy Fire.
Two sides of invincibly ignorant people trying to convince the other about something that is so deeply entrenched in people that it is incorrigible by any other other force than by the Light, the Way and the Truth -- yeah, Him!
Oh, Him.  Well, in 90 pages, not a single word about Him nor from Him.  No siree, not in apologetics.  It's all about the text and MY way of reading the text against yours.  And I know that the text is God's word infused and Spirit blown into the soul of the writer, so my reading can't possibly be wrong.  Real sweet...Both sides coming from opposite poles with the same weapon.  One using it as a hammer and the other as a saber.  Neither one of them acknowledging the Christ Himself is the Word.  Brothers and sisters, this is we humans' greatest insult to the Word of God conducted in His Name, if you can believe that?  The text put before the living Word's life example.

Apologetics the way it is understood in our world is nothing but the centuries-old head-butting between the Pharisees and the Sadducees continued.  The only time the Gospels are mentioned is when a) it is pointed out by whomever thinks of it first, that Jesus defeated Satan by the Scripture quotes He wielded in the desert and b) snippets of rebuke to the people of the day about, say, when Jesus says that Satan can deceive even the believers.
In nearly 90 pages, not one single word of Jesus' command that we "pick up our cross daily and follow Me." [Mt. 16;24]
Not once did we hear the command, "...you lack one thing, go, sell all that you have, give the proceeds to the poor and then, come and follow me." [Mk. 10;21 + Mt and Lk]
Not once did we hear the admonition to "...visit the sick, clothe the naked..." - not once! [Mt. 25]
I could go on for at least another 1,000 words, but you get the point.  At no time was God, neither the Father nor His Son, His living Word,  the real subject of this discussion.  It was all about who is right and who is in error.  It is my opinion that in this kind of exchange, neither side is doing the Will of God.  Discussions of this nature do not make God float to the top and come into the line of vision of those discussing and certainly not of those reading/hearing.

You all know, of course, that I am Catholic.  I was born long before many of you saw the light of day.  I admit to being an exception to the Catholic "rule" about the Bible.  We always had a Bible in our house.  Not in a place of honor.  We were not THAT much of an exception.  But we had it because my father was a faithful prayor [maybe that's not word, but you know what I mean] of the Psalms.  We read the stories of creation, Noah, Abraham, Samson, of course, Tobit and the great fish, The Birth of Jesus and His passion, etc.  The praying of the Psalms is a daily exercise for me.  The praying of the song of Moses is a now and again treat.  The Song of Zachariah,  of Mary, of Hannah are all moments of deep spiritual meaning for me.  I regularly pray the vocation stories of Moses, Abraham, and the great prophets.  Finally, every single day I read one of the commands of God the Father to Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham and others to collaborate with Him in the work of caring for His creation.  Every day I read the parallel orders of His Son to follow him, to feed the hungry, to help the widows, to pray daily, to eat His Body and Drink His Blood and finally to serve all nations by spreading His Good News.  Finally, at least once a month I reread the powerful prayer of Deacon Stephen [Acts, chapter 7] as he prepared to be stoned to death by the Chosen People themselves.  His prayer was the Biblical story of the escape from Egypt and the Covenant between God and the very people who were preparing to kill him.  

Brothers and Sisters, no matter what else you may hear about the Bible, remember this, it is the sacramental presence of the Word of God, telling us who He is and how to maintain a righteous spiritual and physical relationship to Him.  It is not exclusively to teach us who He is through the reading of it and the arguing about what it says to us.  We come to really know who He is through praying it, not just reading it in order to sharpen our saber.  Finally, we come to know Him even more deeply by duplicating His life style in our own, by energetically collaborating with the Triune God in an effort to make this world a holier place in which to live.

Now that you know all of this about me, since you won't be crying at my funeral, you'll be saving yourself the trouble of having to wash another handkerchief.

THE VALUE OF WAITING

Are you trying to say that waiting is not a waste of time?  Yes.  Watch.

1. "Time answers questions and removes uncertainty."
2. "Our willingness to wait reveals the level of value that we place on  
    what it is for which we wait."
3. "Good things come to those who wait."
The best thing that happens to those who wait is God Himself, per Isaiah: (64;4)

For since the beginning of the world

People have not heard nor perceived by the ear,

Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,

Who acts for the one who waits for Him.

We are in the time of Advent.  Advent is a short form of the future participle of the Latin word meaning "to arrive."  The interesting thing about this word is that when we use it in its full-blown form, we don't have the same negative feeling about it as we experience when we consider it in its shortened form.  Yet, the meaning is the same and the final results for us are generally positive in either case.  Since "Advent" is a religious term more than a secular one, let's start there.

Advent puts our North American patience [or lack thereof ] to the test.  We dislike waiting.  Waiting for us is a negative.  It is a waste of time.  We dislike it so strongly that we even spend big money buying and using devices that make us forget that we are waiting.  We are so averse to waiting that we even use our I-phones and other electronic devices while waiting at the restaurant table for the order to come.  We do this in front of our companions, even if they do not have an I-phone.  Rather than to enrich ourselves with the thoughts and opinions of our friends and relatives, we have recourse to texting or gaming or managing our contacts list, or...

Of course, we do the same thing during Advent.  Rather than to spend a moment enriching ourselves with the spiritual treasures that the season holds, we hide behind our impatience and our impulsive nature in an effort to forget the pain of waiting for the 25th of December to come and go. 

It is difficult to imagine that a culture so intent upon productive action can be so absorbed in non-productive, mindless escapism as we are.  We have forgotten the fundamental truth that there is more value in people watching than there is in composing a series of "Whassup, Dude" texts while waiting for the bus to arrive or for another friend to come out from the doctor's office. 

It is nearly impossible to rise above this morass of mindless activity in the search for internal fulfillment of some kind.  It is quasi impossible to reach out to an invisible but loving God in order to feel His loving warmth in our lives.  Even Advent doesn't make it happen because it gets pre-empted by Wal-Mart, et al.  It gets pre-empted because it is a "wait" not a search.  We know that Christ is coming, and that is fine, but it's the wait that is killing us.

May I therefore suggest that we turn to the long form of the word to see if there is some help to be found there.  We are looking for spiritual fulfillment and the appreciation of God's never ending flow of grace into our lives.  What we might as well do therefore, is to embark on a spiritual "ADVENTURE."  The meaning is related to "Advent."  It means that things are going to happen.  In most conversations it means that "I am going to go out and make something happen."  I will make reality come to me and I will make reality know that I too am on the way. Remember, I said that this is a future participle.  (You grammar nerds know that we don't have that verb form in the English language.)  

What  am proposing therefore is that we submerse ourselves not in "Advent" but in "Adventure."  We know that God is reaching out to us, so why not answer His reach by "adventuring" back towards Him?  If we do that we will find ourselves on Christmas Eve so fast we will wonder where the time went.  Dare I venture to say that we might even save a dollar or two in the process?  

There are some interesting ways to activate our minds and souls around the waiting period.  There is always the possibility that we decide to have a family Bible Prayer every day, at a convenient time, from now until the end of Christmastide.  There is the building of an Advent wreath with the four candles to decorate the Bible Prayer space.  If you Catholics aren't too familiar with the Bible, use the Bible Readings that are used in church on Sunday.  Go to a solid, trustworthy website like www.usccb.org or Parishworld.net or Universalis.com

It is also fun, believe it, to reach out and help someone who needs it.  Not necessarily a room in your house, for instance, but something simple like driving an old person to the doctor, watering the neighbor's plants while she is out of town, helping a family to clean the house or the yard, or...?  Here's one, volunteer for the food bank nearest you.  At this time of the year, they need all the help that they can get.  When you're at the supermarket and you bump into the person with the manager's name tag, ask if the company has a policy of donating goods to church food banks.  The manager won't give the donation directly to you, but take the information and send the leader of the food bank to see the store manager in a day or two and it shall be done.  Where I go to church there is a warm blanket drive every December aimed at making Winter time a little easier on the homeless.  

The point is, the spiritual life in the company of Jesus is Adventure.  It is His coming to us and our going to him.  This December moment is a time of High Adventure.  Get used to it now, and let it grow on you so that your whole life will take place side by side with Our God and the Angels and Saints who surround Him, and us.

If I die after you've made this spiritual effort, you will be required to refrain from crying at my funeral.

God bless you all with peace and joy.