Preface the Word in Words and Images
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Preface The Word in Words and Images Catholicism is “not a religion of the book.” It is instead a religion of the Word—Christ himself, the Logos of the Father in whom everything has been communicated to us and passed down in two forms. “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture,” the Second Vatican Council’s Dei Verbum tells us, “then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.” That goal is that the presence of Christ be made manifest in the life of the Church throughout history. This understanding, shared by our Orthodox brothers and sisters, is usually denied by our Protestant brothers and sisters, who generally deny that the Word is found in any medium except the written Scriptures. For them, Scripture is the only place to which one can turn to receive the message of the Word in a public, authoritative way. Catholics (and Orthodox, for that matter) are not forbidden from thinking there is something true about the traditionally Protestant take on Scripture. While the Protestant notion of Scripture as perspicuous, or clearly expressed and easy logos 21:2 spring 2018 6 logos to understand, is not something that a Catholic can accept, the notion that all truth is indeed found in Scripture is quite easy to believe. Bl. John Henry Newman’s Essay on Development argued for the development of doctrine and the need for an infallible authority in part on the basis of the inchoate and seemingly incomplete nature of the Revelation of Jesus Christ as it is found in the Bible. Where, for instance, does the Bible have an inspired table of contents that tells us which books are in it? Nevertheless, Newman indicated a belief that all truths might be found there. In fact, he seemed to think that the seeming incompleteness of the Bible was not caused by being incomplete, but by including all truth in an unsystematic, mysterious, and veiled fashion. It is in point to notice also the structure and style of Scrip- ture, a structure so unsystematic and various, and a style so figurative and indirect, that no one would presume at first sight to say what is in it and what is not. It cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents catalogued; but after all our dili- gence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures. Of no doctrine whatever, which does not actually contradict what has been delivered, can it be peremptorily as- serted that it is not in Scripture; of no reader, whatever be his study of it, can it be said that he has mastered every doctrine which it contains.1 A 1984 commercial for Prego pasta sauce features an Italian- American father chastising his newlywed son for getting sauce from a jar. As he lists what ingredients must be there for a successful sauce—and marriage—the son repeats, “It’s in there.” After the son puts a spoonful of sauce into his mouth, the father exclaims, wide- eyed, “It’s in there!” So it is with Scripture. Those who approach with faith and openness will find that all the truths of the world, preface 7 though not obvious on the outside and not accessible simply by reading without the tradition and authority of the Church, are indeed “in there.” That is why the development of lay Catholics studying Scripture has been such a powerful one in the modern world. While many Reformation-era polemics about the Church’s denial of the laity’s right to read the Scriptures in various time periods have been exaggerated, it is nonetheless true that in the last few centuries regular reading of Scripture has not always been emphasized in the whole of the Catholic Church. Newman himself complained of the lack of Catholic scripture study in an 1883 letter to Lord Emly, a friend and fellow convert: Another great difficulty is the ignorance of our people in the Scriptures. It is to them a terra incognita. The Old Testament especially excites no sentiment of love, reverence, devotion, or trust. They hear bold things said against it—or fragments of it detached from the context, and they have no associa- tions with it in their affections. It creates in them no distress or horror to hear it contemptuously treated as a “venerable book.” This is not the Holy See’s doing for you recollect the Brief of Pius VI, prefixed to our Bible. In our Bishops’ Catechism there is no reference to Scripture as a book given to us by God, inspired, a guide—and a comfort. One such reference is the exception—thus “We ought frequently to read good books, such as the Holy Gospel, the Lives of the Saints and other spiritual work.”2 I recall attending Mass for the first time as an adult interested in Catholicism and experiencing shock that almost all of the liturgy was a series of biblical passages or allusions strung together into a dramatic action. As it so happened, the young woman with whom I attended that liturgy was annoyed at my constantly poking her throughout with 8 logos comments like, “That’s from Malachi!” and “Did you hear that little bit from Revelation?” Her experience as a cradle Catholic was that the Mass was the Mass. My experience was that of a very strange, very good book coming to life off the pages—and the author and key character walking and talking in front of me. To one who had been assigned in childhood the reading and memorization of Scripture passages both by my Sunday school teachers and my parents, the Mass was a revelation. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that though she had been to Mass countless times in her life, she had much less curiosity and excitement about what was going on in this supernatural pageant. I had read and even memorized parts of the Script. Now I discovered that the Play was indeed the thing. As I got to know more Catholics, I discovered that knowledge of Scripture was indeed uncommon for the run-of-the-mill Catholic. This fact is not unconnected in my mind with the weakness of the Catholic Church in the early twenty- first century. “Ignorance of Scripture,” said St. Jerome, “is ignorance of Christ.” The patterns of Catholics in England in the 1880s are still found in the United States and elsewhere in the 2010s. And yet where the Church is alive and dynamic there is indeed a love of Scripture—and, it must be noted, a love of the liturgy in which Scripture now comes alive with the force that I experienced so long ago. The signs of such a change are everywhere, including the various series of biblical commentaries and other volumes on Scripture that have been published by a variety of academic and popular Catholic publishers. Or the practice of asking Catholics to contribute to volumes and series on Scripture put out by Protestant publishers. Or the growing practice of leading Bible study groups, a staple of Protestant life but historically less common in my experience. Or the various versions of the Rosary that include many more mysteries drawn from the Gospels than the traditional fifteen (now twenty since St. John Paul II’s promotion of the Luminous mysteries in 2002). Or the interest in praying the Divine Office. preface 9 What is common among all these different movements is the sense that active Catholics are finding that familiarity with Scripture is not just a “Protestant thing.” It is firmly Catholic to spend time, as Evangelicals say, “in the Word” as He is found in Scripture. One recent volume of reflection on Scripture comes from Elizabeth M. Kelly, the managing editor of Logos. Contributors and subscribers to this journal have often commented that what they love about it is that our articles have a greater accessibility and a greater literary feel to them. This is due in no small part to having a managing editor who has published six popular books on Catholic themes that manage to put deep subjects into prose that is often sparkling. She knows how to polish and smooth writing that has too much of the (some would say oxymoronic) academic style about it. Her 2007 book, May Crowning, Mass, and Merton: 50 Reasons I Love Being Catholic, won the Catholic Press Association’s award for best popular presentation of the faith; my guess is that her newest book, Jesus Approaches, will probably garner at least one award.3 Midwest Book Review’s treatment of the book ends this way: “An erudite study that is exceptionally inspiring and biblically grounded, Jesus Approaches is an extraordinary and highly recommended addition to church and seminary Christian Studies collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of clergy and all members of the Christian Community.”4 There is a great deal of erudition in the book, but it is not of the sort that calls attention to itself. Borrowings from the likes of Catherine of Siena, Romano Guardini, St. Edith Stein, St. John Paul II, and St. Teresa of Kolkatta all show how Scripture serves as a window into the heart of a God who wants to bring us into his own joyful heart.