Fr. Emeterio Barcelon, SJ
VOICE FROM THE SOUTH
The Holy Bible is the word of God speaking to us. It is not one book but a whole library of books. There are two main parts the Old Testament and the New Testament. For Christians, the Old Testament was the preparation for the coming of the Redeemer. It predicted the coming of the Messiah who would redeem the world from its sins. We also learn a lot from its stories. The books of the Bible are of different genre. They must be read according to their genre; otherwise they would be possibly misunderstood. The Old Testament was put down in writing about 500 years before Christ. Before that it was all recited from memory. The New Testament was written about fifty to a hundred years after the Ascension of Our Lord to heaven. Our oldest Bible now dates to about the year 400 AD until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. These were probably hidden about a hundred years before Christ.
Before the coming of Martin Luther in the 15th century, there was no problem about the books that were accepted as canonical or inspired books. Luther rejected some of the books in the Old Testament books that did not agree with his doctrines. But with the Dead Sea scrolls this controversy has been corrected. Martin Luther was a young man who was caught in frightening storm where he vowed to become a priest. He was an excellent theologian and wrote convincingly about abuses in the Church in a time when many leaders of their countries in northern Europe wanted to revolt against the Catholic Church. In the ensuing polemics and wars the solution was to consider that in every country the citizens of a country would have the religion of its leader. Many northern European states followed Luther out of the Catholic Church. The followers of Luther and other theologians against the Catholic Church were called Protestants. They did away with the Sacrifice of the Mass and concentrated on the pulpit. So we have the Protestants having no altars but only a podium in their churches. Another problem that they encountered since rejecting the teachings of the Church was they had no one to define for them what the meaning of the passages of the Bible was. Each one therefor interpreted the Bible as he saw it. This has resulted in having thirty thousand Protestant churches.
At Mass the first part is the reading of the Bible. On Sunday Masses the first reading is from the Old Testament and the second reading from the New Testament. On other days there is only one reading from the Gospels. Then there is the offering that represents the people. This is followed by the Consecration and Communion. After the Mass and the rosary the reading of the Bible is important. After these three are confession and fasting. These are the five important duties of the Christian. The problem with the reading the Bible is the possibility of misreading it. It is therefore important to read the Bible with the Church. People who made it a habit to read the Bible daily find it very consoling and enlightening. The reading of the Bible allows God to speak to us. The four Gospels are especially important since they tell us of the teachings and life of Our Lord. They also tell us of the miracles Jesus performed to show the people that He was from the Father who loves all of us. And all He is asking of us is to love Him with all our heart and all our strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.