Why we need to know the bible

I  have known Bible Sunday to be a day when the Catholic Church celebrates the Bible together with other churches. I have also known it to be a Sunday when the money collected in honour of the Bible is shared with other churches.

“If we don’t read the bible we will be ‘spiritual paupers’.” (CNS photo/Thomas Mukoya, Reuters)

This year Bible Sunday in Zimbabwe was a very special day. I was at St Joseph’s church in Hatfield, Harare. On this day the worshippers were given a deeper understanding of the Bible, and the role of the Bible in their lives. The celebrant was Fr Thokozani, the assistant parish priest.

Fr Thokozani started by walking several times round the church holding palms which he dipped into holy water, spraying all the worshippers with the water. As he did this the congregation was singing a special “Kyrie” (Lord Have Mercy), confessing that they were born in sin and asking the Lord to purify their souls.

The next stage was the presentation of the Bible to catechumens. These are people, both young and old, who are preparing for baptism and will be baptised more than six months later at Easter 2014.

Each catechumen held the Bible while the priest said words that can be roughly translated as follows: “Receive the Holy Bible. Let it guide you and be your light until you reach eternal life.” The response of each was: “I receive your Word, Lord. Help me to be faithful to it all my life.”

The next stage was even more inspiring. The first two readings were read by young parishioners. Then a big group of young children came up to the altar and faced the congregation. I was told the group was made up of children between ages of 3 and 10. Their role was to teach the catechumens and the congregation about the Bible.

Their leader, a girl of about eight years of age, was holding a microphone and asking the children to answer questions about the Bible. The following are some of the questions:

What are the two main divisions of the Bible? Name the books that make up the Pentateuch. Name all the books of the Prophets. How many books make up the New Testament? How many Gospels are there, and name them? List all the letters of St Paul. What is the last book of the Bible?

I was fascinated, not only by the questions, but also by the answers. I was amazed to hear little children naming the following as the books that make up the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

It was equally fascinating to hear children of that age giving a list of the letters of St Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and so on.

When I was a school child, Catholics were taught to memorise the catechism, but knew very little about the Bible. One of the weaknesses of the Catholic Church today is that many Catholics have a feeling of inferiority when they discuss the Bible with Protestants.

As I listened to the St Joseph’s children going through their question and answer session, I said to myself, if we could instil in our children the love of the Bible when they are this young, Catholics would see themselves as the equals of their Protestant brothers and sisters in discussing the Bible.

Fr Thokozani’s sermon completed the lessons of the day on the Bible. He explained how, when we get visitors, we tend to behave like Martha in the gospel’s story of Martha and Mary. We worry so much about what food to give our guests, and forget to give them the spiritual food that comes from the Bible. In our daily lives, we are keen to read the newspapers, but hardly spend any time reading the Bible.

He compared us to a domestic worker whose master left her great wealth in his will, but because she could not read she died a pauper as she did not know the contents of the will.

The Lord has given us everything in the Bible, but because we do not read the holy book, we remain spiritual paupers.

 In the Southern African conference region—South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland — Bible Sunday is observed annually on the last Sunday in August; this year it falls on August 25.