I’m a cradle-Catholic and, in my household, a fair amount of emphasis was always put on the Bible. We aren’t Bible literalists, but I remember always having to discuss the Sunday readings on the way home from Mass (“What did you learn in church today, kids?”) and having religious discussions at dinner that frequently involved Dad sending one of us kids to grab a Bible off the bookshelf. I’m always a bit surprised when Catholics don’t read the Bible regularly, as it seems in this thread. It seems impossible to even begin to understand our faith without this sacred text. Sure, there’s the Catechism and encyclicals and whatnot, but the Bible is the core, isn’t it? Even our Mass is based around it.
So, Catholic Dopers, what say ye? Do you read your Bible?
Really? I wasn’t trying to witness, just trying to post a poll. Oh well, mods, if you deem fit, please move this thread.
ETA: If this does end up in Great Debates, I’ll probably end up being a bad OP and ditching my thread. GD scares me and I wasn’t really looking to debate if the Bible was important to the Catholic faith or not. I just wanted to know if other Catholics read it.
I was born and raised Catholic, although I no longer go to church. I was an altar boy and went to Catholic schools, and no, I never read the Bible. We always had one in the house, but I don’t recall anyone ever reading it. I never heard of any “Bible study” groups in the church either.
I read it more now that I have given up on the church. It’s a good book.
I don’t read it anymore, as I am not exactly a practicing Catholic, but when I was a child I read quite a lot of the Bible in CCD class and had to memorize certain sections (like the Beatitudes, the Commandments, certain Psalms).
Does attending Mass and listening to the readings and the gospel count as “reading” the Bible? Wouldn’t you end up going through a good portion of the Bible in this respect, at least?
I’m a practicing Catholic. I’ve read every book in the bible at one time or another, some multiple times in different translations. I don’t read the bible every day or every week. I know what’s in there, I use it as a reference book and have a good topical bible that is well indexed. While the bible is important, as I said, I know what is in there more or less, its real value to me is as a reference book when I read another theological text and will go to the bible passages cited to see what my take is on them in contrast with the theologians.
Reading the Catechism is very important too, in my opinion. If you were raised as a practicing Catholic it would be strange to not know the bible fairly well unless you had no interest in keeping up with the studies, however the Catechism is rarely expanded upon fully and it’s important reading for any Catholic.
I was raised very Catholic. 12 years of parochial school, great uncle was a priest, 2 of his sisters were nuns, etc.
Our household was not devout. There was certainly a sense of “follow all the rules, but don’t bother digging too deep” - as in, it was nearly unheard-of to miss Mass, we said grace at dinnertime, and of course the Catholic schools, but the family certainly never prayed or discussed the Bible together. Nor were we very much involved in any extracurricular church activities - prayer groups or whatever, if such a thing was even in existence at our parish. All in all, our relationship with the Church (and our parish) seems rather remote in hindsight. It’s actually interesting to me that, though my mother did not outwardly display her faith, when she was on her deathbed she reached for her rosary ([del]stole[/del]borrowed one from the priest who gave her Last Rites, actually :))
The Bible itself was not read or discussed all that much (at all?) in grade school either; it was all the Catechism (which was of course based on current interpretation of the Bible), learning the Church’s way of doing things etc. We never cracked a Bible until 9th grade religion class, and then not at all after that. And of course at Sunday Mass, passages are read from the gospels and epistles.
This was during the 60s and 70s, for what that’s worth. Direct experience of the Bible (as opposed to filtered through the catechism) may well be emphasized more now.
I’ve read it cover-to-cover, been to plenty of Masses and listened to the readings, and participated in at least a couple of Bible studies. Like Martin Hyde, I use it as reference now. Rereading the same thing over and over bores me to death; I know what it says and can find the relevant bits when I need them.
I’m a cradle Catholic. We always had a Bible in the house.
I thought we read the Bible until I went to college and met people from other Christian traditions who seriously read the Bible. If something Biblical came up in conversation, I’d be saying “oh, I think there’s something about that in the Bible, let me see if I can find it …” and while I was reaching for a copy, someone else would be reciting chapter and verse. That level of Bible knowledge was never expected at my school or in CCD. Sort of like how I can quote the very famous Shakespeare quotes, but other than that, I’d have to look up a more random line in an actual Shakespeare text, but would have a good idea of where to start looking.
However, I was also an art history major and ended up reading the Bible a lot as a reference book. One thing that surprised some of my classmates from other Christian traditions was how much of the gist of the Bible I had picked up through osmosis from Catechism talks and whatnot. Nothing was really a surprise, but at the same time, I didn’t particularly remember having read it before - unless it was one of the very popular bits, like the Gospels or the Epistles or “My beloved is like a gazelle” or “Yea though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death.”
I did… though, like the others, I use it as a reference more than anything now. From time to time I pull it out to read favourite passages though.
One summer, for no specific reason I recall, I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover and I did (though I skimmed over the begats and other similar lists… hey, I wasn’t more than 14 at the time).
I remember it being a part of classes, but when I think closer I realize that was at the Christian school I went to for a year where our first class of the morning was this book of fill in the blanks for every book in the Bible… or involved every other denomination I hung out with (I went several different churches and groups with friends or babysitters over the years).
I also remember having a picture Bible as a child. Obviously, it’s just going to be the ‘big stories’ couched in terms a child could understand (I remember big pictures of Eden and the Ark and Jesus etc) but it was one of the first books I read.
That was my experience, too. I was in parochial school up until the 7th grade, and all of our religion classes stressed the Catechism more than anything else.
I had a children’s Bible back then. I’d crack it open just to look at the illustrations every so often, but I also ended up memorizing the OT/NT books it empasized, luke Moses in the bulrushes, Noah, Passover, and, of course, the condensed version of Jesus’ life.
The first time I ever actually read a Bible was for a OT As Literature college class. The second time was when I accompanied a friend to a Hell Fire Damnation Bible study at her evangelical church. I found myself doing the “homework” (so to speak) while trying not to let her or them convert me.
Thanks for all of the great responses! It’s interesting to read how others practice their faith. Also, many thanks for not (yet) turning this into a debate. One of these days, I’ll face my fears and enter GD, but probably not any time soon.
Occasionally, but not all that often. I get plenty of scriptural exposure at mass, which I go to 3-4 times a week. I also read the breviary at home, which has a mixture of scriptural and patristic excerpts.
As I said in the thread linked to in the OP, when I was growing up there was very little Bible reading at home, in school (I went to parochial school) or church. There was some, but it wasn’t heavily encouraged, and you could easily be a good and devout practicing Catholic without doing any reading aside from the snippets you got every wek at Mass.
I did read the Bible, but mostly after I thought of myself as agnostic. I’ve been through each of the Pelican Bible commentaries (which exhaustively dissect the books, line by line) for the Evangelists. I even have the entire NT and some books of the OT on audio casette and CD, and have listened to these many times while driving.
I just asked Pepper Mill about her experience. She was brung up Presbyterian, and they encouraged Bible reading of key stories in the Bible, but she admits that she never read all the way through the Evangelists, let alone the NT.
I haven’t read it for a while (I don’t have one here), but except for the year when Religion class in school was “comparative religion”, we’d read from it in every Religion class. I was able to get out of Sunday school (which was on Saturday at the same time as the Saturday afternoon movie) when I proved to Mom that we were doing exactly the same readings at the parish and at school.
Currently I own a Spanish Bible of Jerusalem, an English Bible of Jerusalem which I was able to buy in Barcelona :eek: after years of seeking for “an English Bible written in a language I can understand” as opposed to a King James, my old BAC from school and my old NT from school, but they’re all in my flat in Spain. I’m going home next week and I want to get the two jerus if I do go to the flat, but don’t know that I will (I’ve got a housesitter, the flat is 1h away from my family, I’ll be staying at Mom’s).
Have to read the catechism one of these ages, too… I grew up during the “Jesus Loves You” years when many priests seemed to think the floor would open and dump then directly into Pedro Botero’s cauldron if they told us the life of a saint or mentioned any theology beyond “Jesus Loves You”. I did read unprompted Dad’s old Astete catechism, which is at home and a lot smaller than the current official one. My favourite religion teachers or catechists? The old missionary who loved telling the lives of saints and the big burly one who loved pulling our leg and making us think.
My brothers and SiL are all in the same Bible Study group. My parents were part of Teams of Our Lady, which includes Bible Study.
I’m 45 years old, and was born and raised Catholic.
I went through the catechism, first confession, first communion, went to Catholic schools (All taught by the nuns), etc. All that ‘Catholic-y’ stuff. I stopped going to Mass when I was 16 years old. My own choice.
I’m no longer affiliated with Catholicism, or any other religion, for that matter .
I’ve never read the Bible, though. Not cover to cover, anyway. I’ve only read a few choice selections that I was required to read back then.
My husband, the pagan, has read the Bible. He says it’s a great story! It’s got all the makings for a good read.
The old joke was that we don’t have to, the priest gives us a book report every week.
I read very occasionally. I have some favorite parables that I like to read and sometimes a Sunday reading inspires me to get the rest of the story but in an average month I don’t pick it up at all.
Always by myself, though. It never was something for discussion or analysis. I did the cover-to-cover thing a couple of times. Also a few Daily Reading guides. In the end, it was just me going over my own choice of personal favourites or using a “Where to find it” guide to find passages applicable to certain situations.
Now that I don’t consider myself a Catholic, I don’t really read it anymore. No good reason for it, really. I think I feel like I got the general message and don’t much care for the particulars anymore. On my recent house reorg, I unearthed my old Bibles (lost for over 4 years) and placed them in a good spot on my library. Maybe some day I will pick one up and read it.