Should he have told her to read the Gospel as if she did not believe it really happened?Did anyone read the article on the front of the recent Liguori Sunday Bulletin? I don’t have it in front of me, but there was some wording that struck me as very strange.
As I recall, the author said her priest told her to read the gospel “as if she believed it really happened.”
As I was sitting down to write this meditation, I received an email from a reader asking for help. His employee wanted him to recommend a “book about religion.” The first book I though about was the Gospel, either Matthew or Luke. It all starts in the Gospel; this is where we “encounter the living Christ” – which just happens to be the theme of this year’s Catechetical Sunday.
It’s the “as if” that bothers me. Maybe I’m misunderstanding it (it wouldn’t be the first time), but “as if” seems to imply that it’s not really true, but read the Gospel “as if” it were.There are different ways to read. One can read to analyze, for information, to catch the highlights, to pass a test, to justify oneself, or to win an argument. Several years ago I heard a homily in which** the priest encouraged me to read the Gospel of Matthew straight through just as if I believed it, as if it were true**: how Jesus lived and what he taught and how he died.
The problem (as I see it) is that the priest told her to read the Gospel as if it were true. As I stated before, that phrase, to me, seems to imply that it’s really not true.she is quoting a priest not using her own words, she is quoting something she remembered, not something right in front of her, she is contrasting reading the gospel in this way–as if it truly happened and is the truth–with other ways of reading the gospel, that is, with skeptical analytical ways. So what is the problem?
I read it differently, the priest was criticizing those who approach the gospels as if they were myths, stories or academic exercises, and urging her and others to read the gospels as truth. Probably would have been more helpful to hear all the priest’s remarks in their original context.The problem (as I see it) is that the priest told her to read the Gospel as if it were true. As I stated before, that phrase, to me, seems to imply that it’s really not true.