One of the greatest fruits of the Second Vatican Council was the renewed focus on and desire for the Sacred Scriptures. Although the Church has always venerated and encouraged knowledge of the Scriptures, that didn’t always translate into encouragement on the parish and individual levels. Many stories have been told of pastors and bishops who discouraged their people from reading the Scriptures, and so biblical literacy suffered within the Catholic Church.
Today, however, there is a great desire and encouragement to study and read the Scriptures. We almost have an embarrassment of riches in helping us understand the Word of God. Translations, commentaries, reflections, bible studies, homilies, videos, and much more are easily available. In some cases, we can find out everything we want to know about the Scriptures with just a click of a mouse.
The challenge now is to separate “the wheat from the chaff,” to use the image from the Scriptures itself. The abundance of resources means that both good and bad are equally available. We need to find people and organizations that are trustworthy for their faithfulness to the teachings of Christ passed from generation to generation through His Church. Just because a particular commentary or reflection sounds good to us and agrees with what we think doesn’t mean that the commentator is expressing something in line with Our Lord.
For those who desire to study the Scriptures, permit me to make a couple recommendations. A great source for both audio and video commentaries, as well as individual and group study programs, is the Formed.org site that we have available free of charge for us, and contains a lot of great content. Dr. Scott Hahn’s St. Paul Center is also a great source, including a weekly commentary on the upcoming readings for Sunday Mass. We even have a great Scripture scholar within our diocese, with Fr. Joe Ponessa and his Come and See series of books. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but a good start to better understanding the Word of God.
Through the Scriptures, we can hear Jesus speaking to us, if we are open and are willing to seek Him out. The great wealth of resources available help us to do that!
