BIBLE

DO CATHOLICS MISUSE THE BIBLE?

Catholics read the Bible
It is common knowledge that Protestants are more conversant with the Bible, while Catholics are associated with the Rosary, the Saints and novenas, and do not read the Bible. I consider this a sweeping statement, because things have changed a lot since the beginning of the liturgical reform implemented after the Vatican II Council (1962-1965). Catholics do read and use the Bible, especially when they pray as a community. Our Church encourages everybody to read the Bible daily. The Bible has a special place in the Liturgy of the Church. The first part of the Mass is called “Liturgy of the Word” because it is centred around the proclamation and listening to readings from the Bible.

CONTENTS

Do Catholics missuse the bible

Must Catholics read the bible

BIBLICAL liturgical READINGS FOR YEARS A-B-C

TRANSLATIONS OF THE NAME OF GOD

Note

Origin of prayer(Hail Mary)

The Catechism Of The Catholic Church states:
CCC 103 The Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God’s Word and Christ’s Body.

CCC 104 In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, “but as what it really is, the word of God.” “In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them.”

CCC 133 The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful... to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ’, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’

CATHOLICS MUST READ THE BIBLE
Christians should read the Bible regularly. During a Bible day celebrated in Nairobi on January 24, 2004, Archbishop Giovanni Tonucci, Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya untill 2004, said “the Bible is the living word of God only when you read it. Our Protestant brothers and sisters like to go round with a Bible under their arm; that is good for them; but for us the Bible remains at home where we read it in calm and tranquillity.” He cautioned against selective reading and urged Christians to read a full book or a chapter of the Bible, saying the Bible must be treated as a meal to be eaten, not as a medicine to be swallowed in small doses whenever need arose. “The Bible is not a mine of good quotes to support one’s views. But it is a source of inspiration as a whole, and always under the guidance of the Church.”

The Catholic Church encourages personal and family reading of the Bible (see CCC 133, quoted previously, and 2653). Often one finds it difficult to know what to read, where to start from… One of the simplest guidelines in reading the Bible is to follow the Liturgy of the Church that offers for every week day and holy day (Sundays, solemnities and feasts) a selection of readings from the Old and New Testament. These readings are proclaimed during the first part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the World.

BIBLICAL liturgical READINGS FOR YEARS A-B-C
The liturgical Mass readings are organized in such a way that the faithful are exposed to almost the entire Bible during a liturgical year.

The biblical readings for Sunday celebrations are divided into three cycles: year A, year B and year C. Year A is centred around the gospel of Matthew, year B the gospel of Mark and year C the gospel of Luke, while the gospel of John plays a prominent part during Easter time. Each selection of the gospel is accompanied by a proper first reading from the Old Testament, while the second reading is from the letters of the Apostles or from the Acts of the Apostles. In this way, the community is able to go through the whole Bible (through selected passages) in a period of three years. This planning is the fruit of the liturgical reform promoted by Vatican Council II that wanted the Bible to have a more prominent role in the life and prayer of the Church and of the individual faithful.

The readings for the weekly masses also are organised in cycles, one for even years and one for odd ones (cycle I and cycle II). The purpose is always the same: to go through the whole Bible and to offer it day by day, in selected passages, to the Christians. The Seed magazine, the Paulines Publications and many others publish calendars that can guide one through the Sunday and weekly readings. Available are also pocket diaries that are easy to carry around. Paulines Publications publish one of such diaries every year.

TRANSLATIONS OF THE NAME OF GOD
How do we translate the biblical name of God? Which is the right translation? These questions had different answers in the past. Todays, there is a general agreement among Catholics and mainstream Protestants to always use the local name of God when translating the Bible in a local language. So while to the Hebrews God is JHWH (a word which cannot be pronounced) or El, Elohim, Eloah or Adonai, to the Greeks and to the Romans he was Theos and Deus respectively. Italians call him Dio, French Dieu, English God, Spanish Dios, Germans Gott, Arabs Allah, Waswahili Mungu, Kikuyu and Maasai Ngai, Kipsigis Cheptalel, Meru Murungu, Luo Nyasaye, and so on. It may be interesting to carry out a research to find out in how many ways the one and only God is called among the many different peoples of the world!

NOTE:
“ The Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, was an ecclesial, theological, and ecumenical congress convened in the autumns of the four years from 1962 through 1965. Pope John XXIII convoked the Council on October 11, 1962, and with bishops from all over the world, sought to define the nature, scope, and mission of the Church. Of the 2,908 clergy entitled to attend the Council, 2,450 did so. The Council closed December 8, 1965. The Council produced 16 documents some of which are described as the greatest expressions of Catholic social teaching in church history.”
Quoted from the site The Second Vatican Council Resource Guide at
http://www.seattleu.edu/lemlib/web_archives/vaticanII/vaticanII.htm; it is a site with documents, comments and bibliography, created on the occasion of the 40 th anniversary of the beginning of the Vatican II.

Here are other interesting websites (among the many):
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v1.html (with studies and documents)
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/
(the documents, interactive with the Bible and the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church).

Daily and Sundays readings , a few references on the net:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/, http://www.st-william.net/readings.htm
http://www.easterbrooks.com/personal/calendar/
Origin of the English word God (Anglo-Saxon God; German Gott; akin to Persian khoda; Hindu khooda). The root-meaning of the name (from Gothic root gheu; Sanskrit hub or emu, “to invoke or to sacrifice to”) is either “the one invoked” or “the one sacrificed to.” From different Indo-Germanic roots (div, “to shine” or “give light”; thes in thessasthai “to implore”) come the Indo-Iranian deva, Sanskrit dyaus (gen. divas), Latin deus, Greek theos, Irish and Gaelic dia, all of which are generic names; also Greek Zeus (gen. Dios, Latin Jupiter (jovpater), Old Teutonic Tiu or Tiw (surviving in Tuesday), Latin Janus, Diana, and other proper names of pagan deities. The common name most widely used in Semitic occurs as ‘el in Hebrew, ‘ilu in Babylonian, ‘ilah in Arabic, etc.; and though scholars are not agreed on the point, the root-meaning most probably is “the strong or mighty one.” (Catholic Encyclopedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608x.htm )