Then the list comes down to one thing that Catholics need to take seriously, where fundamentalists are better:
More frequent reading of the Bible.
Yes, we hear the entire Bible every three years during Mass. After 53 years of going to Mass, the Bible has been read to me 17 times. I’ve read it twice on my own.
But I’m unable to quote Bible verses like the fundamentalists can.
That's an old canard, and one easily disproved by matching your lexionary to a list of chapters and verses in the Bible itself.
Assuming you attended daily mass faithfully for three years (after which the Lectionary reading cycle ends), you only heard 13.5% of the Old Testament (3378 verses), and 71.5% of the New Testament (5689 verses). That's 9067 out of 33001 verses mentioned in the chart, i.e. you heard 27.5% of the entire Bible (excluding Psalms). But good job on the personal reading!
**Yes, we hear the entire Bible every three years during Mass. After 53 years of going to Mass, the Bible has been read to me 17 times.**
Do y’all really read 2 Samuel 20:10 out loud?
irrelevant, you probably can't quote a whole lot from the Constitution either, that in no way diminishes your respect for both of them. Knowing where to find the info is far more important that memorizing little bits of it.
I spent 5th and 6th grade in a private Baptist school. We had daily Bible Study as coursework and were tested on it. Memorization of key passages featured prominently, and occasionally went so far as entire books of the Bible. I can’t honestly say that I liked it at the time.
There’s a certain variety of Baptist that to this day I tend to avoid, there’s no excuse for telling a 5th grader he’s going to hell because he had been raised Lutheran up to that point. I’m somewhere between amused and befuddled by the constant bashing of Martin Luther by the RC faithful here on the FR Religion Forum, because he’s the most Catholic of the Reformers. Matter of fact, I got teased mercilessly then as being “almost Catholic” because of it.
That’s the not-so-good, now on to the good. All those verses, passages, chapters and entire books committed to memory and graded upon it are still there, quite actively kicking around and welling up. They rise unbidden at times and it’s always appropriate to the circumstance at hand.
The Bible is quite the guide for living, if you get close enough to it to see and understand it in that manner. I’ve come to understand that and appreciate it. For that I thank those Baptists. I love certain varieties of Baptist and have quite a few in my family, so I couldn’t be completely put off.
From what I see here, your church keeps the Bible on something of a pedestal and at arms’ length. An intimate familiarity with the text is not an objective and applying it to daily life is not encouraged. All the learned elders cited like a sort of Greek chorus along with any passage deemed important to Catholicism, well, it’s certainly intellectual but intellectualizing a matter of faith is sometimes not the most constructive thing to do for the majority of laity, from what I’ve seen and experienced.
God is very real and very present in the day to day, and does speak to you through those verses that arise out of memory. It’s an excellent guide through life, having that at one’s disposal. You would benefit yourself, of that I have no doubt.
Psa_119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
“Yes, we hear the entire Bible every three years during Mass.”
No, if you attend mass for three years, you will still miss large portions of God’s Word. This has been analyzed on FR and posted several times.
No you do not as part of the liturgy, and far from it.
It is hard to hear the entire bible when it seems even in the weekly Sundays & Weekdays cycle Obadiah doesn't get a single reading, and only 1% of 1 Chronicles and 3% of 2 Chronicles, 5% of Leviticus and Lamentations, and 6% of Numbers and Proverbs, and 7% of Joshua and 8% of Ezra and Job (just in the under 10% category) are read.
Moreover, much of what you do hear is repetition.
That’s a very interesting post to this “fundamentalist”.
Thanks for the comment. My advice is to get a one year Bible reading plan. If you have a tablet or smart phone you can download a Bible App named “YouVersion.” You can select which ever Bible version you like (there are two Catholic versions among many others). There are also reading plans in the App. My favorite is one which takes you through the OT once, Psalms and NT twice in a year.
Being able to quote the Bible and find passages easily comes from continuous Bible reading and study.
It’s God’s revelation to us. Let us read!