T
TheSpiritHeals
Guest
Some years ago, I visited my relatives in a town in central Pennsylvania. One of the churches in town advertised in their bulletin that a bible class is held on Saturdays at 5:30 PM. I decided to attend the class. At 5:30, I met the priest who was teaching the class. The priest informed me, that since I was the only one to come to class, the class was canceled and I was invited to go to bingo across the hall. Bingo had over 200 participants.
Several years later, I joined a Catholic jail ministry group that was ministering in a large jail in Virginia. It was composed of six senior citizen cradle-Catholic men. They went from cell to cell and held hands with the Catholic inmates, said the Hail Mary prayer, and encouraged the inmates to come to Sunday mass in the jail. When I asked them if they were reading the bible with the Catholic inmates, they responded that only priests and deacons knew the bible well enough to read and teach the inmates. Several weeks later, I joined the Protestant volunteers. For the next continuous four years, I read and taught the bible, in groups and in one-to-one, to any inmates who would come. During that time, I received emails from the Catholic men warning me that I was conspiring with heretics. One email was 8 pages long and explained how the hormones of Henry VIII had created the heretic Anglican Church. I responded, by email, that I was not worried since my hormones were under control.
Recently, I had a conversation with a priest in my area concerning the bible. The priest responded that the Catholic Church reads three passages from the bible every Sunday to its parishioners, and that is sufficient. But is it sufficient?
What is really going on here? Is passive learning just as good, or better, than active learning? It is one thing for parishioners to passively listen to the bible being read to them. It is another thing for parishioners to actively sit with one another, read the bible, discuss what the verses meant at the time that they were written, and what the verses mean now in our everyday lives.
Dion, of the 50’s rock and roll group called Dion and the Belmonts, appeared on EWTN a year ago. He stated that the time that he spent in Protestant church was productive in that he learned to “connect the bible verse dots”. He learned the “dots” in Catholic Church where each Sunday reading constituted a dot. But it was in Protestant bible class that he learned to connect the dots.
Is it past time for the bishops in the United States to require that each church in their diocese have at least one bible class operating nine months of the year? Is it fair to say that bingo is not a substitute for the bible?
What do you say?
Several years later, I joined a Catholic jail ministry group that was ministering in a large jail in Virginia. It was composed of six senior citizen cradle-Catholic men. They went from cell to cell and held hands with the Catholic inmates, said the Hail Mary prayer, and encouraged the inmates to come to Sunday mass in the jail. When I asked them if they were reading the bible with the Catholic inmates, they responded that only priests and deacons knew the bible well enough to read and teach the inmates. Several weeks later, I joined the Protestant volunteers. For the next continuous four years, I read and taught the bible, in groups and in one-to-one, to any inmates who would come. During that time, I received emails from the Catholic men warning me that I was conspiring with heretics. One email was 8 pages long and explained how the hormones of Henry VIII had created the heretic Anglican Church. I responded, by email, that I was not worried since my hormones were under control.
Recently, I had a conversation with a priest in my area concerning the bible. The priest responded that the Catholic Church reads three passages from the bible every Sunday to its parishioners, and that is sufficient. But is it sufficient?
What is really going on here? Is passive learning just as good, or better, than active learning? It is one thing for parishioners to passively listen to the bible being read to them. It is another thing for parishioners to actively sit with one another, read the bible, discuss what the verses meant at the time that they were written, and what the verses mean now in our everyday lives.
Dion, of the 50’s rock and roll group called Dion and the Belmonts, appeared on EWTN a year ago. He stated that the time that he spent in Protestant church was productive in that he learned to “connect the bible verse dots”. He learned the “dots” in Catholic Church where each Sunday reading constituted a dot. But it was in Protestant bible class that he learned to connect the dots.
Is it past time for the bishops in the United States to require that each church in their diocese have at least one bible class operating nine months of the year? Is it fair to say that bingo is not a substitute for the bible?
What do you say?