By Father John Bayer, O. Cist.
Special to The Texas Catholic
It can be difficult to cultivate a regular habit of reading Scripture. Its literary world can seem so strange to us that we feel as though it would take forever before we could even just understand what is going on, let alone find spiritual consolation and inspiration. If you feel like that, know you’re not alone, and know there is much that can help.
First, embrace the challenge. It is entirely fitting that Scripture would at first seem so strange. It tells about a different world, and we need time to get used to it. God says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). We must always grow into what is above us; and such rising is truly ennobling. Let us be comfortable being uncomfortable, and find joy just knowing that we are growing through the effort.
Second, get resources to help. Fr. Mike Schmitz’s famous Bible in a Year podcast has been a marvelous gift for countless people – in 2022 it had over 238 million downloads and for several weeks it was ranked #1 among all Apple Podcasts. I can only wonder about how many millions of lives it has touched, but what I do know is that it has been a blessing to many of my own friends and family. Similarly, Bishop Barron and Word on Fire are producing oodles of awesome content – articles, podcasts, books, videos – to help us all enter the world of Scripture. Perhaps most exciting is The Word on Fire Bible, a series of beautiful books full of art and excellent commentary.
Third, let me offer a piece of advice from my own experience: start small and dive deeply. For example, take just one letter of St. Paul and read it over and over. Or take a short story from the Old Testament and read it several times (like Ruth, Tobit, Judith, Esther and Jonah). I recently did this with Tobit and am now so excited by the things I noticed just by staying with the text without making any demands or having any expectations. In my experience, a slow and repetitive reading can lead us to discover surprisingly familiar things in Scripture.
For example, as I read Tobit, I was struck by the emotional intensity of Tobit and Sarah’s prayers (3:1-15). Their lives were so filled with suffering that they even felt like they wanted to die – and they told God as much! Scripture is, in a way, so intimately human, and it portrays emotions that we all can experience very easily. (How remarkably familiar this strange Bible of ours can be!) When suffering seems to threaten the very meaning of our lives, we can have negative thoughts – what a gift it is to see that Scripture knows this and can therefore help us frame these moments in faith.
Tobit expresses his desire to be released from life within a frame of faith: he praises God for his mercy and for his truth, and he commends himself into his hands. He accepts his emotions (he does not pretend as though they were different), even as he continues to act rationally. He trusts God and so he does not despair; but he mindfully accepts the emotional drama occasioned by his inability to see the meaning of his life. Sarah makes a similar prayer.
It makes perfect sense that we would struggle emotionally if God’s benevolent will becomes obscured, if we cannot see how each moment of our lives belongs to a beautiful whole. Acute suffering can obscure that vision and threaten to undermine the meaning of life. Earthly life makes sense only in light of higher purposes; biological continuance is not enough to justify itself. We await the more encompassing meaning that allows us to embrace our sufferings.
Scripture understands this existential angst. And it recommends the only truly life-giving answer: keep journeying in faith, for the meaning that we seek is one that can only be bestowed upon us ‘from above’ by God; and he wants to bestow it – even if it might take time, because human life necessarily takes time to unfold all its drama.
God hears their prayers and sends the Archangel Raphael “to heal” them (3:17) by leading them into the beautiful meaning they long to behold. The marvel of the rest of the book is that God heals them, and others, by intertwining their lives to make them gifts to each other precisely through their suffering and perseverance.
Their sufferings thus become meaningful as the means through which Providence ties them and their families closer together in love. What began with the alienation of sickness and death ends with marriage and happy relationships. Blessed indeed are those who mourn (cf. Mt 5:4)!
Let us commit to reading Scripture! The more perseveringly we dive into it, the more familiar it will become, as it attunes us to the most inspiring frame for our lives. And if you are feeling down about things, consider starting with Tobit.
Father John Bayer, O. Cist., is a monk at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Dallas in Irving.