Reading the Bible--Not Catholic?

[Tom]

Meggie:

My dad told me that Catholics aren’t supposed to read the Bible because that is why there is such a thing as the Vatican and the Pope.

Your dad is incorrect. Pray for him and your whole family.

Meggie:

and my family is Catholic.

Catholic in name perhaps. You sound like the Catholic of the family. Be a good example to the rest of the family. Read the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) and the bible. The church should have a copy of the CCC you can borrow.

Meggie:

they taunt me for going to Daily Mass, doing things with my youth group, and praying the rosary.

Don’t give up your faith because of a unfaithful family. Pray for them.

Meggie:

…one more question…if the church says to then what makes us different from the Protestants who believe in Sola-scripture?

The difference is “sola” sola, means alone, sole, only. The bible itself says not all is written here. It was never intended to be the “sole” basis for faith.

 

[Meggie]

Thank you very much for all your help. I know from my old Baltimore Catechism (a required course of Seton Home Study School) that indulgences are like things that get one out of purgatorty faster. Or are they something else?
Do you still get the indulgence if you read for five minutes and then think about it for the rest?
What about if you can only read a few lines in a whole half hour?
What about if you don’t understand a single thing?
Why is the Bible so important if we can’t base all of our religion on it?

 

[Meggie]

another question (yah I never shut-up)

Is not reading the Bible a sin?

 

[Tom]

Meggie:

indulgences are like things that get one out of purgatorty faster. Or are they something else? Do you still get the indulgence if you read for five minutes and then think about it for the rest?

You seem to be falling into a common “trap” concerning indulgences. Indulgences aren’t a “get out of jail free” card. I recommend you read and contemplate the CCC paragraphs 1472-1479. Indulgences bring us to faith and works of charity. We’re not looking for the minimum I need to get “credit”.

Meggie:

Why is the Bible so important if we can’t base all of our religion on it?

Scripture is one third of the equation. Is it important, absolutely. Is it the “sole” foundation? No. Remember the foundation of truth is the Church, not Scripture. The Church includes Scripture, not the other way around.

 

[Busybee]

Meggie:

My dad told me that Catholics aren’t supposed to read the Bible because that is why there is such a thing as the Vatican and the Pope. He said that the only proper place to read anything from the Bible is during Mass because the Bible is a sacred book and not a toy. He said that common people aren’t supposed to read it because we do not have the capability to understand what it really means. My mom and brothers agree with him…and my family is Catholic.
I disagree with their brand of Sunday Catholisim, they taunt me for going to Daily Mass, doing things with my youth group, and praying the rosary.
I asked someone from my youth group about this and they basically laughed and said it was not true.
I thought that my dad brought up valid points…please explain this to me.

Meggie,
How old is your father? My mother is 95. In 1956 when I bought my first bible, she thought we weren’t allowed to read it. Some of my relatives agreed. In my mothers time many people didn’t go far in school. She went up to fourth grade. So in that time it was thought many people would not be able to discern it appropriately. And some parts of the bible were rather scandalous to people from that era. My mother was shocked to hear about Lot and his daughters. It didn’t seem appopriate reading for the average innocent person.

The understanding was that the common lay person, reading the bible might misinterpret it. It must be read within the context of other parts of the bible. If you read a sentence, paragraph, page or one chapter, you might jump to conclusions and then think you have a whole new idea, you could be led astray.

It does make sense when you consider what many people outside the church believe after reading the bible and interpreting it themselves without the help of the church or theologians.

By all means read the bible. Pray to the Holy Spirit first. Don’t set a clock or work at it every day for a half hour. Pick it up often. Read it. It is interesting. You may find you will want to read a half hour today and in a couple of days you may spend and hour and a half. Keep it near your breakfast table or quiet spot where you are alone and open it often. Let God speak to you, through the bible, the church and it’s rich tradition. Remember the church through many knowledgeable holy men, who followed holy
tradition, wrote the bible.

You will find you know much of it already from the mass. The priest reads it to you daily and weekly at mass. So you are already familiar with it. But reading it from beginning to
end, you will find it all falls together.

The New Testament will give you the meditations you need when you pray the holy rosary.

God Bless and keep you, Busybee

:bible1:

 

[Pug]

Meggie:

Thank you very much for all your help. I know from my old Baltimore Catechism (a required course of Seton Home Study School) that indulgences are like things that get one out of purgatorty faster. Or are they something else?
Do you still get the indulgence if you read for five minutes and then think about it for the rest?
What about if you can only read a few lines in a whole half hour?
What about if you don’t understand a single thing?
Why is the Bible so important if we can’t base all of our religion on it?

Yes, indulgences might be described as shortening your “time” in purgatory. When people on earth do something that has an indulgence attatched to it, they often pray to have it applied to a “poor soul” in purgatory, instead of themselves. An indulgence is a remission(removal) of temporal (not eternal) consequences of sin, of sin that is already forgiven. So getting an indulgence means less unpleasantness to be experienced by you in purgatory.

30 minutes is long, but doable. I would encourage you to try several starting schemes to make bible reading manageable. Read the first psalm. That isn’t too long. Try other psalms on other days. Skip the really long ones like 119, I think. Alternatively, pick the shortest gospel, Mark, and read a few verses a day. A study bible with bold headings marking off sections makes this easy. Just read up to the next heading. It is an excellent suggestion to read the daily mass gospel reading each day.

To get the full (plenary) indulgence, it is not enough just to read the bible prayerfully for 30 minutes. Plenary indulgences have other requirements to them, like to go to confession (within about a week of the bible reading), receive communion, and pray for the pope, and here’s the biggie , to have no attatchment to sin, even little sins.

So, you will usually only be dealing with the partial indulgence for scripture reading, unless you are a frequent flyer in the confessional. Not to worry, though. Just read scripture anyway!

It cannot be a sin to fail to read scripture, because it is not a sin to be unable to read and it isn’t a sin to be unable to afford a copy. But if you have the time and ability to pray/study with the bible, you probably ought. I know that it helps me keep God’s mercy in focus, so I might be failing to use appropriate means if I didn’t read any scripture for a long time. And that is a problem.

The bible is important because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit and God made the bible for a reason. It contains what He wanted put there for us to have.

 

[Marauder]

Pug:

Yes, indulgences might be described as shortening your “time” in purgatory. When people on earth do something that has an indulgence attatched to it, they often pray to have it applied to a “poor soul” in purgatory, instead of themselves.

Actually since time is meaningless in heaven and purgatory. Nobody knows how much actual time is taken off when we are granted an indulgence.

A better way for me to understand indulgences was that sin is like a wound. Imagine sin as a knife cut on the body. Confession is bandage that heals the wound, but the damage is still there in the form of the bruise and the scar that results. Indulgences go towards removing the scar.

The scar needs to be totally gone before you can enter heaven (since nothing (name removed by moderator)ure can enter heaven), so you either need to remove the scar via indulgences or by burning it off in purgatory.

 

[The_Barrister]

Meggie:

Thank you very much for all your help. I know from my old Baltimore Catechism (a required course of Seton Home Study School) that indulgences are like things that get one out of purgatorty faster. Or are they something else?
Do you still get the indulgence if you read for five minutes and then think about it for the rest?
What about if you can only read a few lines in a whole half hour?
What about if you don’t understand a single thing?
Why is the Bible so important if we can’t base all of our religion on it?

1. Don’t worry about indulgences. Just don’t. Get closer to God through Mass and prayer and reading the Bible and living your life in a Christian manner.
2. What if you don’t understand? Ask a priest. Ask a question here. Get a study Bible. Go to a Catholic Bible study group. Get a Scott Hahn book/tape on the topic (he really helped me understand Revelations, with those scary horsemen).
3. We DO base our entire beliefs on the Bible. There are relatively few doctrines taught in the Church as dogma that cannot be wholly supported by the Bible, and the Bible alone.
4. Not reading the Bible a sin? You would have to skip Church every week or put your hands over your ears and scream nyah-nyah-nyah during the Liturgy of the Word to avoid the Bible. So not “reading” the Bible = never going to Church = sin. Not reading it on your own in addition to what you get from Mass? Probably a mistake, but probably not sinful (depending on your reason/intention in not reading it).

I pray that you’re being sincere in these questions.

 

[Pug]

Marauder:

Nobody knows how much actual time is taken off when we are granted an indulgence.

True. That is why I have time in quotes. The old system of calling things a 30 days indulgence referred to old canonical punishments that took time to complete, and were not a reference to 30 days hard time in purgatory. Yet, it is difficult to think of being in purgatory without thinking of being there for “a while”. So one tends to conflate that to thinking of being there longer as describing being in more need of purifying, and I thought that would be generally understood by the questioner. But it is only a manner of conveying information, and not saying anything really about the manner of time passing in purgatory.

I like that scar idea. I approach it in the words I used, temporal consequences. You have to be purifed of these (whatever they may be, like attatchments to various sins) to enter to heaven. Reading scripture in a fruitful manner will help you to be less atatched to sins, and so less unpleasant purifying will be needed in purgatory.

 

[Meggie]

Tom: I sort of know indulgences aren’t get out of jail free cards…but thank you for explainig that
The church makes the scripture?

Busybee: My dad is 49 & my mom is 44 & they both hold this opinion. Thank you for the other info.

Pug: thank you for all of that info. I think I will not worry about my indulgences and just give them away…I can’t really use them now anyway so hopefully when I die there will be someone to get indulgence for me

Maruader: that is a really vivid and great description…I have never hear of that before, I really like it.

The Barrister: 1.not worried about indulgences anymore
2. Well for right now I can’t ask a Priest and I can’t get a study Bible…if I have anyquestions I will just have to ask on the forums
3.oh
4.ok
Yes, I am being sincere…I want to know this stuff. Thats why I am asking! This stuff is like taboo in my house. Television and school is the only thing my family ever talks about.

Question (again) What about the scarry stuff in the Bible? Like one time I tried to read it and it had this stuff about some green horseman who made earthquakes or something like that. I heard Protstents talk about it but I was reading my Catholic Bible.
Oh (Question 2) I know that Catholic Bibles are different than Protstant Bibles…but why was it just Martin Luther? Are Protestant Bibles all the same or are each different for each denomination?

 

[Socrates]

Question (again) What about the scarry stuff in the Bible? Like one time I tried to read it and it had this stuff about some green horseman who made earthquakes or something like that. I heard Protstents talk about it but I was reading my Catholic Bible.

Nothing in the bible should be scary because we already know how everything ends. The good guys win!

Oh (Question 2) I know that Catholic Bibles are different than Protstant Bibles…but why was it just Martin Luther? Are Protestant Bibles all the same or are each different for each denomination?

Apart from some different accepted translations, the main difference is that Protestant bibles are missing seven books from the Old Testament. These are known as the Deuterocanonical books.

You can read about those books here.

 

[Tom]

Socrates:

Apart from some different accepted translations, the main difference is that Protestant bibles are missing seven books from the Old Testament. These are known as the Deuterocanonical books.

You may also hear them called the Apocrypha. They are all from the Old Testament, the names of the books are , Sirach, Wisdom, 1Maccabees, 2Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, and Baruch, and also some parts of the book of Esther. The New Testament is the same for Catholic and Protestant bibles.

Socrates:

You can read about those books here.

Much of the teachings Of Jesus come from those books. Much of the difference between the Protestants and Catholics are the result of the removal of those books in the 16th century by the reformers.

 

[Emmaus]

Meggie:

My dad told me that Catholics aren’t supposed to read the Bible because that is why there is such a thing as the Vatican and the Pope. He said that the only proper place to read anything from the Bible is during Mass because the Bible is a sacred book and not a toy. He said that common people aren’t supposed to read it because we do not have the capability to understand what it really means. My mom and brothers agree with him…and my family is Catholic.
I disagree with their brand of Sunday Catholisim, they taunt me for going to Daily Mass, doing things with my youth group, and praying the rosary.
I asked someone from my youth group about this and they basically laughed and said it was not true.
I thought that my dad brought up valid points…please explain this to me.

Meggie,
What your father told you was a very common misunderstanding on the part of many Catholics before Vatican II. It was rooted in history in the experience of what the Protestant teaching of Sola Scriptura or the Bible Alone had done to the unity of the Church. Catholics were warned against private interpretation of the Bible and many took that to mean they should not read it at all, only hear it at Mass. That was a almost universal misunderstanding of the message

Where your family is wrong is in making fun of you for your personal piety.

Below is a link to a site that addresses what it really means to “read the Bible from the heart of the Church.” The same site has an excellent lessons on an Overview of the Scriptures, Understanding a Biblical World View and a bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew. All are excellent Catholic resources and those links are also below. Check them out for yourself.

God bless you.

salvationhistory.com/mission/hahnmessage.cfm

salvationhistory.com/online/Beginner/WalkGen.cfm

salvationhistory.com/online/intermediate/covlove.cfm

salvationhistory.com/online/Advanced/index.cfm

 

[RedGolum]

Half of my Mom’s family is RC, and I remember clearly a great aunt telling my father and I that for a lay person to read the bible results in that person being excomunicated.

The sad thing is that was the view of the majority of layity and a number of priest for a time.

 

[hlgomez]

Meggie,

I want to add, secure a copy of the Cathecism of the Catholic Church. It’s one of the best source of our Catholic faith.

God bless!

Pio

 

[Britta]

…sigh…I don’t know what I believe…I just try to do the right thing

Meggie,

I read through this thread and see that you are really trying to do the right thing. God knows your heart.

There is a lot of Protestant ideas out there that Catholics do not read the bible for the very reason your father has stated. Unfortunately, their idea is skewed and hopefully they will come to see how important it is. As St. Jerome said, “ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ.”

but do you really have to read the bible for an entire half hour ??? That seems like a bit of overkill to me.
What about if you can only read a few lines in a whole half hour?

I really wanted to understand the bible and at first I had a hard time. I basically started with the New Testament. The Acts of the Apostles was great because it is so much history of the early Church. I avoided Revelation and still do somewhat. I am not ready to understand that just yet. In time, I’m hope to. However, I now love to read the bible and read it often.

…one more question…if the church says to then what makes us different from the Protestants who believe in Sola-scripture? because then the Bible backs up what they say becasue they can interpret it anyway they want because they are supposed to read it.

What about if you don’t understand a single thing?

Basically, I would definitely start with the Mass readings and try to understand what is going on there. Try to read in context. A big reason there are so many differences is that others do not read it in context and the meaning becomes skewed. Always remember that the Church is where to go when we do not understand it. A good commentary helps a great deal as well.

Scripture itself tells us that it is hard to understand. “There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction…” (1 Peter 3:16)

Why is the Bible so important if we can’t base all of our religion on it?

It is important because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit and He has left us the Church to aid in understanding it. One thing I can recommend that helped me tremendously was the tape series Scott Hahn and Jeff Cavins did called “Our Father’s Plan.” I believe it is on EWTN Saturday nights. It is a walk through the bible from a historical perspective. I actually bought the series because it helped me understand so much.

You are definitely on the right track. Good Luck and God Bless.

 

[Meggie]

Thank you for all the help…I will try to read acts of the apostles tonight…thats new testament, right? because the apostles are in the new testament I once read somewhere that everything in the old testament is just like another thing in the new testament…if so who were the old testament apostles?

 

[Pug]

Meggie:

I once read somewhere that everything in the old testament is just like another thing in the new testament…if so who were the old testament apostles?

Jesus picked 12 apostles. This is related in the old testament to the 12 tribes of Israel. Israel means both the nation and the man. There was this man named Jacob, and God renamed him Israel. This Jacob/Israel went on the have lots of sons. Gosh, maybe, they were Rueben, Gad, Issacar, Joseph, Benjamin, Levi, Asher, Judah, eeek! I don’t remember the rest. Anyway, basically each of the tribes is associated with a son of jacob… Well, except for the manassah/ephraim thing, which is too complicated unless I look it up.

In the book of Rev 21:12-14, they talk about both 12 apostles and 12 tribes:

12 It had a massive, high wall, with twelve gates where twelve angels were stationed and on which names were inscribed, (the names) of the twelve tribes of the Israelites.
13 There were three gates facing east, three north, three south, and three west.
14 The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

 

[Cat]

Meggie,
I recently converted to Catholicism after forty years in evangelical Protestant churches. From the time I was a child, I was taught the Bible.

Here are a few suggestions from an “ex-Protestant” who loves the Bible.

1. Try reading through a children’s picture Bible to get an overview of the history and all the different characters in the Bible. I believe I’ve seen them at Catholic bookstores, but if you can’t find one, go to the Protestant bookstore and buy one. Your purpose is not to study theology and doctrine, but to get an overview, and a children’s picture Bible (comic-book style) is a great way to do that without getting confused.
2. I agree that the Mass readings are excellent. Another book to try is Mark. It has lots of action, and it is about Our Lord.
3. Try reading one Psalm per day. A few of the Psalms are very long, but most are pretty short, and very uplifting.
4. Father David Knight did a Mission at our church. He suggested just one verse per day, if you are new to the Bible. And he said to put your Bible on your pillow in the morning so that you will be forced to actually pick it up before you go to sleep (so you may as well read your one sentence!), and to put the Bible on your shoes at night, so that you will be forced to pick it up in the morning (so you may as well read another sentence!).
   Cute ideas.
5. Underline Bible verses that you like. You will need a Bible that doesn’t have onion-skin pages if you do this.
6. Make a “Bible book” for yourself from all the verses that you like. Maybe group them into categories, such as “verses that make my think of God’s gifts to me,” “verses to read when I am afraid,” etc.
7. Hang little Scripture cards and pictures up around your room or in your notebooks or wherever. God can use just one verse of Scripture can really minister to you during the day.
8. Join a Bible study group in your parish. There is one starting in our parish for “Christians New To The Bible.” I am so excited about this group, and have been praying for it. The movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” got people talking about the need for such a class, as many of the people who saw the movie realized that they had never really read the Bible themselves. So the Adult Formation in our Church is responding by starting this study. Hooray!
9. One more suggestion. If it is possible for you to do this, try reading the Bible in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. For about a year, I was afraid to read the Bible because I was kicked out of my Protestant church by pastors who supposedly believed the Bible told them to kick me out. So I was scared that if I read the Bible, I would come up with some weird, evil interpretation like those pastors did.

But I realized that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament would protect me from evil and help me to understand His Word. This has been SUCH a blessing to me!

God bless you as you continue to journey to heaven! You sound like someone I would love to be around, a godly person who is determined to be a saint!

 

[Socrates]

For about a year, I was afraid to read the Bible because I was kicked out of my Protestant church by pastors who supposedly believed the Bible told them to kick me out. So I was scared that if I read the Bible, I would come up with some weird, evil interpretation like those pastors did.

Wow. That sounds awful. But it also sounds like an interesting story. What church were you “kicked out” of? I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.