Reading of the Gospels to get to know Jesus Christ

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my Father and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

A lady remarked to me once how we Catholics have more exposure to Scripture than any other Christian denomination. She was referring to the fact that if you go to Mass regularly, you’re exposed to a two-day cycle on weekdays and a three-day cycle of readings on Sundays. The Church has selected for us some of the choicest pieces of Scripture to read and to contemplate. This meditation is about the reading of the Gospel, particularly with a view to getting to know the life and the words of Jesus Christ.

We’re told in the Gospel that “your words are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63). There’s a great wealth in Scripture, and particularly in the Gospels.

Sometimes we hear of people who say they read the Bible for an hour every night, but the Bible is not an easy book to read. Saint Josemaria gave a recipe that is perhaps much more within reach of the ordinary person. He suggested two or three minutes of Gospel reading each day. He also suggested fifteen minutes of spiritual reading.

If you read a book for fifteen minutes every day, a spiritual reading book, at the end of the year you will have spent 90 hours in spiritual reading. That’s a lot of hours. And if two or three minutes of that are spent on Gospel reading, you will have spent 12 hours reading the Gospels. All the parts of Scripture are important, but the most important parts of Scripture are the Gospels, because that is the life and the words of Christ.

The incarnate God speaks to us through those words in particular. As followers of Christ, we have a special interest in knowing Him. St. Teresa liked to say that we have to have a tender love for Jesus. One of the ways we do that is by getting to know him, his words, his actions, his reactions.

When Our Lord said, “do you also want to go away?” Peter said to him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

In the 21st century, we are in a time of great uncertainty. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. In the 21st century, we’re also very much in need of saying those same words.

In the recent Amazonia document, Pope Francis has talked about the spiritual emptiness of the world. Well, we have the antidote. We have the words and actions of Christ. We also have his real presence in the Blessed Eucharist.

Somehow, all the force and fragility of hope hang on those words: You have the words of eternal life. You have all the answers. Therefore, we have all the truth.

A professor of obstetrics told me once how we have the truth. We have all the answers. Moral truth is a great liberating force. There are wonderful treasures for us to absorb, little by little, with daily doses, in the daily reading of the Gospel.

We’re also told in Scripture that Jesus’ words are not like the words of other men. He taught as someone with authority, not like the scribes and the Pharisees. This was something his first listeners also realized.

In the Book of Amos, in the Old Testament, it says, “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send a hunger into the country. Not hunger for bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the word of God” (Amos 8:11). Our soul has an appetite—an appetite for infinite truth and infinite goodness. Every day, that hunger in our soul can be satisfied by a few words of Our Lord from the Sacred Scriptures.

The Book of Isaiah says, “for just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down, and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end to which I sent it” (Isa. 55:10–11).

Every word of Scripture is meant, in the mind of God, to plant a seed in our soul, in our mind, in our heart. All the words of the Gospels reflect love, because God is love. And the word of God is the word of love.

St. Jerome liked to say that all Scripture is a single book, and this book is Christ. Because of that, he said, ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

Down through the Old Testament, God spoke to the prophets, revealed himself in all sorts of ways, let man know many things about God. But with the Incarnation, the high point of human history came. And God, instead of just speaking to man, became man. Revelation becomes personified in the person of Christ. That’s why the Church talks to us about the importance of being Christocentric, very focused on Christ.

There was a time, a decade or two ago, when there were words in the Church that were very frequent, like togetherness, community. They’re still there. They’re still used. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict and Pope Francis also used those words. But they talked much more about Christ, very Christ-focused, as though everything has to come from there.

We’re told in St. John, “if you remain faithful to my word, you will truly be my disciples. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Moral truth is a great liberating force for everything we do. Truth is beautiful. It rings deep down in the hearts and minds of souls. It doesn’t need to be debated or argued.

Through daily exposure to the Gospels, we expose ourselves to truth. One word may be full of truth, and that truth can help us to solve many little problems in our life.

Sometimes that Gospel reading can be a chapter, sometimes a phrase, possibly sometimes a word. That word or phrase, with the Holy Spirit behind it, communicates the truth that satisfies the hunger of our soul. Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you. In the word, it is God himself who comes to us and transforms us. That word goes deep inside our being, changes our orientation.

St. Paul says to the Hebrews, “the word of God is living, efficacious, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the very division of the soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, and is able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates.

Even though we read the passage over and over again, there are new graces each time, new lights. It’s one of the reasons why the Church proposes for our contemplation the different mysteries of our faith in a regular way—Christmas, Easter, feast days of the saints—that bring with them various passages of Scripture that tell the stories again and again: the Annunciation, the Visitation. There’s always something new there for us to learn.

“The word will be for you,” says St. Peter, “a lamp that shines in a dark place until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19).

The words of Our Lord, “do not let your heart be troubled” (John 14:1), have brought peace to many a fatherly or motherly heart. Or in moments of contradiction or challenge, that phrase that says, “if you evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” (Matt. 7:11).

If we find ourselves in a bit of a bind, asking ourselves, why is this happening to me, or to my marriage, or my family, or my wife, or my children, or my finances, or my employment, or my health—well, we don’t know all the answers. There are many mysteries in this life. But the word of Scripture can bring peace to our heart and to our soul, and help us to live out our divine affiliation, and transmit that spirit to the people who live with us, which possibly may be the purpose of why God sends those things.

The words of Scripture can be a great guide for our life, and accompany us along the pathways. “Your word is a lamp for my step, and a light on my way,” says the Psalms (Ps. 119:105).

There might be times when the words of Scripture might say absolutely nothing to us. We might be completely unmoved by things we read. But the Psalm also tells us something that can be useful in those moments. It says, “Lord, give me life according to your word” (Ps. 119:107). There’s an answer for everything in those words.

We know that people around us are looking for truth. They’re hungry for good things, hungry for the answers of life. John Paul II liked to say that the search for meaning in life is the search for God.

In Hong Kong, maybe 5% of the students are Catholic; 95% are not. In Catholic schools there, they get exposed to all aspects of Catholic culture. Not too many convert when they’re young, but often they do later in older age.

There was one fellow who passed through a Catholic school in Hong Kong and heard all the things about Christianity and Catholicism—the Rosary, the Mass—but was completely untouched by all of these things. Then he went to study in Canada. While he was in his university studies, he decided that he would read the New Testament, just from a cultural point of view. There were so many Christians in the world, and there seemed to be something in Christianity. Just to know something about it, he decided to read the New Testament.

He began to read the Gospels. As he went through the Gospels, he began to be struck by the answers that Jesus gave to the Pharisees. He realized, wow, this guy Jesus was very clever. His answers really are very smart. Sometimes he would cover with his hand the book that he was reading. When there was a question, he would see, well, how would I answer that? He’d think up an answer and then he’d take his hand away and look at the answer of Jesus and say, oh, so clever. Really smart.

One time he came across the question where the Pharisees asked Our Lord, to whom should we give tribute—to God or to Caesar? He covered the text with his hand and thought long and hard how to answer that question. It’s a very difficult question. Eventually he came up with a very long, complicated answer. Then he took away his hand and saw the answer of Jesus: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). Just eight simple words.

Well, it was that cleverness of Christ that caught him. Eventually he began to attend a center of Opus Dei there in Canada. He exposed himself to formation. Eventually he converted to the Catholic faith. Eventually he joined Opus Dei as a numerary member. Eventually he was ordained. He’s now the second Chinese priest of Opus Dei living in Hong Kong. Such is the power of the word of God to reach out to souls.

“Whoever hears my words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock” (Matt. 7:24). We need to build our whole spiritual edifice on rock—and our marriage and our family and our business and so many other things that we’re doing.

When we expose ourselves to the words of Our Lord, well, they bring a new joy in our life, because we know where we’re going. We know where we’ve come from. We know what life is all about.

“When your words found me,” says the book of Jeremiah, “I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16). That joy is what was expressed by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus—the experience of burning in their hearts. They rediscovered the reasons for hope. They were full of the joy of the meeting.

Those two or three minutes of Gospel reading can be a source of joy in our day. If we miss it, well, it’s like we’ve missed something of the day. It’s like forgetting to brush your teeth. There’s something wrong. I’ve missed something.

It’s good to have the words of Scripture close by—maybe on our phone, or a copy of the New Testament somewhere within arm’s reach: in a drawer of our desk in the office, in the glove compartment of our car, in the kitchen—wherever we may be—so that in that odd moment, or at a certain definite moment, we can reach out and get our shot for the day, as it were.

Paul says to the Thessalonians that from obedience, listening to the word, flows the eloquent silence of life. We’re nourished with the words of truth, and that leads us to silence, to contemplation. “We give thanks to God,” he says, “always, because having received from us the divine word we preached, you accepted it—not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, who is at work in you who believe” (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13).

Christ comes to sow seeds in our soul that can grow over time. Little by little, with new graces, we come to see the truth, the value, the treasure, the meaning of those words that are contained in Scripture. We grow to a new spiritual maturity.

We’re told in St. Luke, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). He unveiled the meaning of the Paschal Mystery.

There may be a lot of things which on first reading we don’t quite grasp, or certain events in the Gospels where we don’t see the importance of what’s being stated. Possibly over time we go deeper in those ideas. Our soul grows to be more robust.

In the letter to Timothy, St. Paul says, “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). “The letter kills,” he says in another moment, “but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). It’s the Holy Spirit that makes Sacred Scripture, the living Word of God, handed down in the faith of his holy people.

Sometimes you hear of Bible study and personal interpretation of Scripture. Well, we need to be careful also when we’re reading the Bible. Sometimes the literal understanding of the words is what’s important, but sometimes there are hidden truths there. That’s why we need the guidance of the Church.

Our Lord said to the apostles, “go you therefore, teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The apostles were given the charism, the help of the Holy Spirit to guide them. The Protestant churches believe in personal interpretation of Scripture—What does this mean to you? What does this mean to me?—but now there are 20,000 different Protestant sects. In the Catholic Church we have one understanding of Scripture.

That’s why when reading the Scriptures, it’s a good idea to have a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the other hand. In fact, one very good way of reading Scripture could be to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It’s full of quotations of Scripture. It leads us to understand the truth that is there in Scripture. That’s the key—that we don’t go off on a different track, or go off on a tangent, or miss the essential words, the meaning that we’re supposed to understand.

If we stay close to the Church and stay close to the Holy Spirit, when we find those new treasures, “every scribe,” says Our Lord in St. Matthew, “who has been trained for the Kingdom of Heaven, is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt. 13:52).

There was a man in Manila who was the quartermaster for the army; he had to buy a lot of products and supplies. He had a supplier from another country. The supplier offered him a monumental bribe—a six-figure sum, straight into his bank account. Nobody would know, not even his wife. This man said no. The supplier was a bit teed off. He’d never been refused before, and this was a large amount of money. He said to this man, “Every man has his price. I will find your price.”

When this man was driving home that night, he was thinking to himself, I wonder if it’s true that every man has his price. If every man has his price, well, I wonder what my price is—because I’ve just turned down such a huge sum of money. That man had a custom of reading the Gospel for a few moments every day. When he got home, he opened up his New Testament. The book fell open at the first letter of St. Peter, chapter 1, verse 18, where it said, “you know you were redeemed from your vain manner of life, not with perishable things, with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). He said to himself, ah, this is my price.

That day he got the answer to the question he was looking for, from that very short Gospel reading that he’d gotten into the habit of doing. We bring out of our treasure what is new and what is old.

The prophet Ezekiel says, “it was in my mouth as sweet as honey” (Ezek. 3:3). From those words that will come to our lips, our deeper understanding of the miracles of Our Lord, the way he acted, will come answers to questions that arise.

“Simply proclaim,” says St. Peter, “the Lord Christ holy in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you have. But give it with courtesy and respect and with a clear conscience, that those who slander your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their accusations” (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15–16).

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we’re told about the rich man who feasted sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay at his gate with nothing, full of sores, and the dogs came and licked his sores. It’s the epitome of misery. But then both of them die. The angels come and carry Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom—before he had the dogs, now he has the angels. The rich man died and was buried in hell. Looking up, he asked for somebody to come and dip their finger in water and cool his tongue. He then asked that God would send an angel to warn his family members so that they don’t come to this place. But the reply was, “they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them” (Luke 16:29).

Every day of our life is an opportunity to listen to Moses and the prophets, to listen to the perfection of the law as spoken by Christ: “I have not come to destroy the law, but to bring it to fulfillment” (cf. Matt. 5:17). In exposing ourselves to those realities, we might be assured of our place in heaven and of going in the right direction.

One writer said how in the pages of Aristotle and Socrates, he had read many wonderful things, but nowhere had he read, “come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). There he was putting his finger on the nerve, the value of the word of Scripture, the richness.

The Gospel exerts a fascination, even for those who are strangers to the Christian world. There’s something enormously attractive there. St. Ephraim says, “Who is able to understand, Lord, all the richness of even one of your words? There is more that eludes us than what we can understand. We are like the thirsty drinking from a fountain. Your word has as many aspects as the perspectives of those who study it. The Lord has colored his words with diverse beauties, so that those who study it can contemplate what stirs them. He has hidden in his word all treasures, so that each of us may find a richness in what he or she contemplates.”

We could try to make a resolution to give a little more importance to the word of God in our life. “If you understand that the Bible is the letter of God,” said Pope Benedict, “which speaks to your heart, then you will approach it with the trepidation and the desire with which one who is in love reads the words of the beloved.” The word of God, he says, is the good news against solitude. For this reason, listening to the Scriptures is a listening that liberates and saves. There’s a treasure there, a wealth for us to grow in, to come to love.

We do apostolate by spreading the knowledge of the Gospel. The works of the Church in the past 20 centuries are signs of the fruitfulness of the word of God. The Church is the number one healthcare worker in the world, one of the world’s great educators. All these apostolic undertakings are a living out of the word of God, putting it into practice in very concrete ways.

Our Lady is the Virgin of listening. She’s an icon of fruitful listening to the word. She teaches us to welcome it, to care for it, to meditate on it without ceasing. “Mary, for her part, treasured all these things, meditating on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She’s the perfect image of the Church. She allows herself to be formed by the word of God. “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

In listening, she makes a gift of love. She goes to help Elizabeth in her need. The woman of listening, Mary presents herself in the Visitation as the mother of love: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Her voice is a bearer of messianic joy: “When the voice of your greeting came to me at my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy” (Luke 1:44). Her blessedness is to have heard and believed the word of the Eternal. Elizabeth said, “Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill his word through her” (cf. Luke 1:45).

We can ask Our Lady to help us to live as she did in listening to the word—to welcome the word of life and bring that word to many others, in transparency and in the concerns of our everyday life.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my Father and Lord, my Guardian Angel, intercede for me.

EW