Take Up Your Cross And Follow Me

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

-Matthew 16:24-28

The Lamp To My Feet And Light To My Path

In our last Year of Faith reflection, we touched on the revelation of Jesus Christ entrusted to us in Sacred Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) explains that in “order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words…” (101). Scripture is a gift to men and women, for otherwise we would not understand what God so mercifully wants to tell us.

The Church venerates Sacred Scripture as one utterance, one Word from God the Father who speaks lovingly to His children. Although this one Word was written by human authors, all parts of the Old and New Testaments are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit:

"God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted" (Dei Verbum, 11).

Now the Christian Church does not take all parts of the Scripture word for word, but understands that, “Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word,’ of God, a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living’” (CCC, 108):

The Bible is not meant to convey precise historical information or scientific findings to us. Moreover, the authors were children of their time. They shared the cultural ideas of the world around them and often were also dominated by its errors. Nevertheless, everything that man must know about God and the way of his salvation is found with infallible certainty in Sacred Scripture (YOUCAT, 15).

This is why the faithful must look to the Holy Spirit, the interpreter of Scripture, and recognize that there are literal and spiritual senses to what we read. We must pay attention to what the sacred author’s intention is, first being “attentive ‘to the content and unity of the whole Scripture’” (CCC, 112). Second, the Scriptures should be read within the Tradition of the Church, within “the faith that gave rise to them” (YOUCAT, 16). Third, pay attention to the “analogy of faith,” or the “coherence of the truths of faith among themselves” (CCC, 112-114).

Nuns Win The American Bible Challenge

So Catholics don’t know the Bible, eh? Well the Dominican Sisters of Mary just showed the world how important the Word of God is to the Catholic faith.

Sr. Maria Suso and her fellow sisters on Team Sisters of Mary competed in The American Bible Challenge on the Game Show Network this past Thursday, in order to win money for their community and to promote the New Evangelization. And they won!

Sr. Suso hopes that anyone who watched realizes, "that the joy that we have and the love that we have for one another comes from Christ and that they can also come into contact with him.”

Congratulations Sisters!