BRISBANE Deacon Ivan Ortiz says the feast of Word of God Sunday, instituted by Pope Francis in 2020 and set for February 7 in Australia, is a fantastic opportunity to elevate Scripture in our daily lives.
But when it comes time to actually reading the Bible, many Catholics are stifled by the sheer size or archaic language sometimes found in Scripture.
Deacon Ortiz said if you approach it like any other book, “it’s just not going to work”.
“If you start from beginning to end, Genesis and Exodus and the first few books will be okay, but then you get to Numbers and Leviticus, and Deuteronomy and then you’re lost.
“And then you look up (and say) ‘By the time I get to the New Testament, there’s still like many, many books away and I’m already bored’.
“That’s because we’re handling the Bible like a book.
“What we have to be cautious of is that it is a person – it is a dialogue – it’s not a book we’re reading, it’s a conversation we’re having with Jesus – with God.”
He recalled John 14:6, when Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life”.
“Those three things come together as we go through the Scripture,” he said.
“When we’re lost, … we find our way as Catholics in the Bible – what does God want to say to me in this situation and that’s Jesus saying, ‘I am the Way, come to me’.
“When we’re going with what the world is saying, what’s happening in life, what’s all this information on the internet – what is truth? And Jesus says, ‘I am the Truth’, and we come back to the Bible.
“What should I believe, what should I do, how should I live my life truthful to you, that’s the dialogue with Jesus.
“Then he says, ‘I am the Life’.
“When we come to the Bible, we see it as Jesus giving life to us, but also us seeing our lives which led to being there.”
Deacon Ortiz said there were lots of programs out there to help people read the Bible in a year.
His advice was to talk to your priest or your spiritual director to help guide that journey.
But as a permanent deacon with a family life, he had some advice for families – make use of school holidays.
He said his own children had taken on a challenge to read more of the Bible over the school break and had made great progress.
He said it only takes a few minutes every day.
General consensus is that it takes about 70 hours to read the Bible, which could be split up into 15-minute sessions each day for a year.
It was important to persevere too, Deacon Ortiz said, recalling the words from his ordination that he held dear – “to believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach”.
“That sort of encapsulates what, for me as a deacon, preaching Gospel and humbling and bringing the Word alive into people’s lives and touching hearts and mending broken hearts is all about,” he said.
“Not as a deacon but Jesus acting through us, and that is just magnificent and a very important aspect of our ministry.
“I think I’m just privileged to be able to partake in that, allow that to happen, Mass after Mass.”
