Ignorance of Scripture IS ignorance of Christ

" What are you doing this summer?"

That is a question that a lot of us have heard quite a bit the past couple weeks. Some of us have taken and will take vacations. Then there is the annual rotation of soccer and baseball games, cook-out, and days at the beach.

Okay - but I am asking: What are you doing this summer to grow closer to Christ?

Reading theBible? I am. Not the whole thing of course, but part of it -- parts from the Old Testament since that is what I am least familar with.

This grows out of a big disappointment from the previous two years of theology studies. I have taken classed on the Gospels, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and the Letters of Paul, and they seem to have shared a set of common characteristics:

(1) There is a divorce between Scripture scholorship and pastoral applications. (Do you really want to hear me start an homily with: this word in Greek as many meanings, or since this story about Moses comes the the D-source)? I think you understand my point.

(2) Modern scripture scholarship seems to face the average Christian (like myself) with an insurmontalbe obstacle to reading the Bible. It all really does seem very confusing (at times) and always daunting. If the Church really expects all Catholics to be Bible Christians - does that mean all Catholics need to be experts in the geography of the near East from 600 BC, and find reading Akkadian stories to be their idea of a "good time on the Friday night?"

(3) Worse perhaps - all of the scripture courses so far have seem to not even required the reading of any scripture. Hmmm... to me that would be like studying biology without ever looking through a microscope or majoring in English without ever touching Shakespere.

All these things considered I found the following article to be very helpful and encouraging (you can click on the picture and it will link to the article):
Please consideri making the daily habit of reading scripture part of your summer -- just ten to fifteen minutes. It will change the way you pray (and is a good first step to starting to pray). You will enjoy Mass more. You will not regret it.