Report: Pope Asks Us to Read Bible 10-15 Minutes a Day, Rather Than Watching Soaps or Exchanging Gossip

[CHRISTINE77]

This is actually a really good idea for a Lenten resolution. I spend a lot of time reading blogs and books when I could be devoting that time to scripture. I know what mid-century modern is, how to make cloud dough and a hundred recipes for quinoa, but I forgot who wrote Lamentations.

Yes I am going to do this for Lent too. I used to read the Bible a lot more religiously . I am going to make this one of my Lenten promises - 15 minutes a day.

 

[TimothyH]

I wish he’d said “everyone should pray part of the Liturgy of the Hours every day”.

I chant it daily; total when I’m at home, about 105 minutes a day, about 20 min less when I omit Terce and None and do only 1 mid-day.

As the LOTH is almost all scriptural except the hymns and patristic readings, one would get one’s daily Bible dose PLUS participation in the public prayer of the Church.

If one only reads the LOTH:

Office of Readings, about 15-20 minutes
Lauds and Vespers: 10-15 minutes each
Minor hours and Compline: 5-10 minutes each.

If you read quickly, no more than 40 minutes a day.

For scripture, the Office of Readings is very hard to beat. If you can only afford the time for one Office, make it that one.

I love you like a brother Ora…

You know it’s not about “getting a dose of Scripture” It’s about meeting Jesus in the text and making God’s written word part of who you are.

Again, the Pope did not say for us to practice Lectio, to read the daily readings, do a scriptural rosary or pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I wish everyone would just let the Pope be the Pope and stop adding to what he said. For 98% of the Catholics in Western societies, reading scripture for 15 minutes each day is going to be a radical life change.

Reading scripture 15 minutes/day is the gateway drug. The rest will come. The Pope knows this.

PAX, my brother.

-Tim-

 

[Justin61790]

Sounds like you could use a copy of a book that I found very informative and helpful. Check out,
shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/t/h/the-protestants-dilemma.jpg The Protestant’s Dilemma

I’ve been working my way through that book. It’s been a great little resource. I’ve also picked up The Father’s Know Best by Jimmy Akin. And I finished Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism last night. It was very informative. I’ve been on a bit of a binge. I’ve got a ton of books on my wishlist that deal with Catholic Church beliefs, apologetics, history etc. I managed to get a humongous collection of pre-Nicene, nicene, and post-Nicene documents on my Kindle for $2.99. It’s got 500 books, 65 chapters, and 18,000 words from the Church fathers. At $2.99 for all that it’s a steal! I highly recommend that to anyone who has a kindle. It’s put out by Catholic Way Publishing.

 

[Church_Militant]

I’ve been working my way through that book. It’s been a great little resource. I’ve also picked up The Father’s Know Best by Jimmy Akin. And I finished Karl Keating’s Catholicism and Fundamentalism last night. It was very informative. I’ve been on a bit of a binge. I’ve got a ton of books on my wishlist that deal with Catholic Church beliefs, apologetics, history etc. I managed to get a humongous collection of pre-Nicene, nicene, and post-Nicene documents on my Kindle for $2.99. It’s got 500 books, 65 chapters, and 18,000 words from the Church fathers. At $2.99 for all that it’s a steal! I highly recommend that to anyone who has a kindle. It’s put out by Catholic Way Publishing.

Yep…I’ve read that last book too long ago. Keating is very good.

There is a lot of good stuff for cheap on the Kindle. You can even get the Kindle for PC free download for your computer and read them all there too. It’s real handy.

 

[OraLabora]

I love you like a brother Ora…

You know it’s not about “getting a dose of Scripture” It’s about meeting Jesus in the text and making God’s written word part of who you are.

Again, the Pope did not say for us to practice Lectio, to read the daily readings, do a scriptural rosary or pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I wish everyone would just let the Pope be the Pope and stop adding to what he said. For 98% of the Catholics in Western societies, reading scripture for 15 minutes each day is going to be a radical life change.

Reading scripture 15 minutes/day is the gateway drug. The rest will come. The Pope knows this.

PAX, my brother.

-Tim-

The feeling is mutual, frater

However… yes it is about getting one’s daily dose of scripture, and that’s how we make God’s word a part of who we are. That is in fact what the Holy Father is asking of us. He also asks us to pray, and the Liturgy of the Hours can accomplish both at once.

Now, about that “dose”, and “meeting Jesus in the text”. If there’s one thing I learned from monastics is this: the essence of their prayer and lectio life is perseverance. We are a broken species. God’s intent was the unification of our soul with His. Original sin ruptured this bond, and there’s an a more or less huge gap between what we are, and what we’re meant to be and what we think we are: we are what we are, what we think we are is what we construct for ourselves to mask the unpleasant parts of who we are, and what we are meant to be, is what we hope the Word will reveal to us. Monastic life is all about shedding that “false self”, our “altar ego” that hides who we really are, closing that gap in seeking communion with Him. It requires a humble appraisal of all our weaknesses, but also our strengths, and is the path to the self love required to “love your neighbour as yourself” because without genuine, humble and realistic love of self, if you hate yourself, how can you love others as yourself?

The big problem with meeting Jesus is the text is the effect of that gap between a soul unified with God and our broken selves. One of the effects is that we’re not always well-disposed to “meet Jesus in the text”. In fact most honest monastics will probably say that on most days they are not disposed to meet Jesus in the text. But through the liturgy and lectio, they’re exposed to Him whether they feel like it or not. I know for myself I am rarely fully disposed to enter into communion with Jesus in my daily readings. There are too many distractions, too many demons taking possession of my soul, too much of a heart of stone.

But a steady drip of water can wear away even the hardest stone. It works more or less the same with us. That daily dose of scripture wears away a hole in our hearts of stone to reveal, paraphrasing Ezekiel, a little bit of our heart of flesh underneath. And that eventually allows the Word to penetrate into us. But the hole remains very small and we still require perseverance because of the Word trying get into that hole, only a small amount really does make it through.

Through the Liturgy we read the same thing again and again, week after week, year after year. Eventually more and more little bits of the Word sink in… often without our even realizing it.

Then at some unexpected but keenly appropriate moment, a relevant scripture or psalm verse wells up in us, nourishes us, and comforts us when we most needed. And we wonder “how the heck did I remember that verse”, because we don’t ever recall trying. Another way of looking at it: we’re cows, and that verse came back like a cow chewing its cud which is food that it ate mindlessly previously.

In the Rule of Saint Benedict’s 12 degrees of humility we see the fruits of that perseverance. Where monks have an advantage over us in the secular world, is that they have the support of a community of brothers to help them persevere. Nobody will notice if I’m too lazy to pray the Office on any given day, but if a monk doesn’t show up in choir, it certainly won’t escape the community’s, and the abbot’s, notice. I almost guilt myself into praying it and doing my readings when I’m not in the mood. I think of some of the most frail monks in the abbey shuffling to the Offices at 5 am, 7:30 am, 9:45 am, 11 (Mass), 12:10 pm, 5 pm, and 7:45 pm, every single day; of the monk so frail that he looks like he’ll keel over at any minute who still gets down on his knees on the hard floor when Jesus is present on the altar (no kneelers in the stalls); of the abbot reading Vespers aloud at the beside of a dying monk because even in death, the daily dose of spiritual medicine remains vitally important.

Without that steady daily dose (I simply use the daily Mass and Vigils lectionaries for my daily “dose”), I’d have been lost a long time ago, even though on most days it flies in one ear and out the other. At least that’s what I think happened, until that verse wells back up in me again unexpectedly to chew on like a cow chews its cud…

And on that note, it’s time for Sext…

 

[ProVobis]

The indulgence attached to 15-30 minutes of reading Scripture daily is motivation enough.

Besides the Nova Vulgata is also a good way of catching up with some Latin.

 

[TimothyH]

Some of us tho need those notes. Me for example Ive spent my whole life surrounded by anti-Catholic propaganda. I knew a lot of it was propaganda, but up until a few years ago that Baptist interpretation was all I had really heard and known. I have to break down Baptist interpretations of verses and chapters that were drilled in and replace them with proper teachings from the Church. And while the Desert Fathers might have done fine on their own history shows that when people start trying to interpret verses and chapters with no guidance bad things can happen. The average person isn’t a Church Father or even a scholar. The maps, the notes, the concordance etc benefit them when they are studying at home. Granted they can also distract, but a good study bible is an invaluable asset to have.

I get what you are saying about non-Catholic interpretation. It makes sense. Thank you for replying. I totally get where you are coming from.

Just to be clear, the desert fathers were ordinary men in search of holiness. They each had a spiritual guide to help them and were firmly rooted in the Church. They weren’t rogues out in the middle of nowhere doing their own thing apart from the Church.

-Tim-

 

[agnes_therese]

. . .even though on most days it flies in one ear and out the other. At least that’s what I think happened, until that verse wells back up in me again unexpectedly to chew on like a cow chews its cud…

You’re not the only one. God can be very sneaky like that.

 

[OraLabora]

I get what you are saying about non-Catholic interpretation. It makes sense. Thank you for replying. I totally get where you are coming from.

Just to be clear, the desert fathers were ordinary men in search of holiness. They each had a spiritual guide to help them and were firmly rooted in the Church. They weren’t rogues out in the middle of nowhere doing their own thing apart from the Church.

-Tim-

Although they had their share of heresies to fight, they did have the benefit of, well, the desert, with no Internet, no downtown street corner evangelists, no Internet forum apologists, etc. They were also patient men, not in search of instant gratification, and were content to devote an entire lifetime to search for that holiness.

Fortunately some of them left us priceless gifts in the form of writings (often used in the Office of Readings) that can be used to defend against downtown street corner evangelists, Internet forum apologists, etc. Not in the sense of trying to argue chapter and verse with these folks which is usually a waste of time, but rather in the sense that they defend us, the reader, from falling into those traps, and the fruits of their search for God then reinforces our own search, and keeps us in the Church’s bosom.

Increasingly I’m realizing that the person to evangelize and convert is not the street corner evangelists or the Internet forum apologists. The person most in need to be to evangelized is me.

 

[powerofk]

The indulgence attached to 15-30 minutes of reading Scripture daily is motivation enough.

Right. One plenary (full) indulgence for reading scripture for 15 minutes, as long as the “general conditions” are met (i.e., state of grace, reception of communion, confession within a week’s time before or after, detachment from even venial sins, and the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for the intentions of the Pope). Of course, this also applies to the Rosary, the Divine Mercy chaplet, praying of the Divine Liturgy, etc.

 

[TimothyH]

The feeling is mutual, frater

However… yes it is about getting one’s daily dose of scripture, and that’s how we make God’s word a part of who we are. That is in fact what the Holy Father is asking of us. He also asks us to pray, and the Liturgy of the Hours can accomplish both at once.

Now, about that “dose”, and “meeting Jesus in the text”. If there’s one thing I learned from monastics is this: the essence of their prayer and lectio life is perseverance. We are a broken species. God’s intent was the unification of our soul with His. Original sin ruptured this bond, and there’s an a more or less huge gap between what we are, and what we’re meant to be and what we think we are: we are what we are, what we think we are is what we construct for ourselves to mask the unpleasant parts of who we are, and what we are meant to be, is what we hope the Word will reveal to us. Monastic life is all about shedding that “false self”, our “altar ego” that hides who we really are, closing that gap in seeking communion with Him. It requires a humble appraisal of all our weaknesses, but also our strengths, and is the path to the self love required to “love your neighbour as yourself” because without genuine, humble and realistic love of self, if you hate yourself, how can you love others as yourself?

The big problem with meeting Jesus is the text is the effect of that gap between a soul unified with God and our broken selves. One of the effects is that we’re not always well-disposed to “meet Jesus in the text”. In fact most honest monastics will probably say that on most days they are not disposed to meet Jesus in the text. But through the liturgy and lectio, they’re exposed to Him whether they feel like it or not. I know for myself I am rarely fully disposed to enter into communion with Jesus in my daily readings. There are too many distractions, too many demons taking possession of my soul, too much of a heart of stone.

But a steady drip of water can wear away even the hardest stone. It works more or less the same with us. That daily dose of scripture wears away a hole in our hearts of stone to reveal, paraphrasing Ezekiel, a little bit of our heart of flesh underneath. And that eventually allows the Word to penetrate into us. But the hole remains very small and we still require perseverance because of the Word trying get into that hole, only a small amount really does make it through.

Through the Liturgy we read the same thing again and again, week after week, year after year. Eventually more and more little bits of the Word sink in… often without our even realizing it.

Then at some unexpected but keenly appropriate moment, a relevant scripture or psalm verse wells up in us, nourishes us, and comforts us when we most needed. And we wonder “how the heck did I remember that verse”, because we don’t ever recall trying. Another way of looking at it: we’re cows, and that verse came back like a cow chewing its cud which is food that it ate mindlessly previously.

In the Rule of Saint Benedict’s 12 degrees of humility we see the fruits of that perseverance. Where monks have an advantage over us in the secular world, is that they have the support of a community of brothers to help them persevere. Nobody will notice if I’m too lazy to pray the Office on any given day, but if a monk doesn’t show up in choir, it certainly won’t escape the community’s, and the abbot’s, notice. I almost guilt myself into praying it and doing my readings when I’m not in the mood. I think of some of the most frail monks in the abbey shuffling to the Offices at 5 am, 7:30 am, 9:45 am, 11 (Mass), 12:10 pm, 5 pm, and 7:45 pm, every single day; of the monk so frail that he looks like he’ll keel over at any minute who still gets down on his knees on the hard floor when Jesus is present on the altar (no kneelers in the stalls); of the abbot reading Vespers aloud at the beside of a dying monk because even in death, the daily dose of spiritual medicine remains vitally important.

Without that steady daily dose (I simply use the daily Mass and Vigils lectionaries for my daily “dose”), I’d have been lost a long time ago, even though on most days it flies in one ear and out the other. At least that’s what I think happened, until that verse wells back up in me again unexpectedly to chew on like a cow chews its cud…

And on that note, it’s time for Sext…

This is very beautiful. I am going to print it and read it a few times over the next few days, and keep the image of the 100 year old monk shuffling with his walker through the silent garden to the Church to pray at 4:00 AM in my mind.

I have often thought of the hardness of heart and how to make my heart porous. Thank you for this

-Tim-
-Tim-

 

[ProVobis]

Right. One plenary (full) indulgence for reading scripture for 15 minutes, as long as the “general conditions” are met (i.e., state of grace, reception of communion, confession within a week’s time before or after, detachment from even venial sins, and the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for the intentions of the Pope). Of course, this also applies to the Rosary, the Divine Mercy chaplet, praying of the Divine Liturgy, etc.

Father Z just put out this list last week. (One can probably find this information elsewhere as well.)

wdtprs.com/blog/2015/02/ask-father-how-can-i-gain-a-plenary-indulgence-as-fast-as-i-can/

Don’t forget, plenary or partial indulgences can be applied to those in purgatory. I’m sure they’ll be appreciated one way or another.

 

[Ignatius]

see www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Vatican.php?id=11608

We could fast from television for Lent.