Fr. Vincent Serpa offers some pointers to a caller who is reading the Bible every day for Lent.
Host: And we go now to Joan in Mount Vernon, Indiana, listening on 88.7. Joan, you’re on with Fr. Vincent Serpa, what’s your question?
Caller: Hello Fr. Serpa. For Lent I’m going to try to read a little bit from the Bible each each day, and my question is, where do I start? Like what, do I play Bible roulette and just kind of pick a book, or do I maybe start with Matthew and just move on through, or…where should I start?
Fr. Vincent: Well, since it’s Lent, I would… something I’ve been meaning to do myself, I would read the Passion narrative in each of the Gospels and then notice how they differ, what they emphasize, what each one emphasizes, focus on the Lord’s Passion and on what He was willing to do for us, since it’s Lent. Or you can just start, you know, with the first Gospel, I guess it’s Matthew, and just work your way through.
Scripture is Scripture, you know, wherever you read is good, so long as you’re into it. So it’s not something you can do wrong, you know what I mean? You just start reading. Pray before you do it, and read a little bit, think about it, enter into it if you can, you know, ask the Lord or tell the Lord how you feel about what He did, what He endured, or what He said. You know, get into it if you can; and you do that by just doing it, just opening it up and doing it. It doesn’t matter whether you start with Mark or John or, I mean, whatever, you know?
Host: What do you think, Joan?
Caller: Well I–that sounds very good, I…when I thought about that originally it was like, well the Bible is good, yeah, wherever you can start. I like the Old Testament a lot.
Fr. Vincent: You like the Old Testament? You want to read Old Testament, go read the Psalms, that’s good too. Reading the Gospel of John is very good. I mean John is…he has a lot of things the others didn’t mention, and he’s very close to the Lord. You know, he was the only Apostle at the foot of the cross, and the only Apostle who was not martyred, although it came close to it, but it didn’t happen. So there’s…I can’t tell you that there’s just one that you should do. Do what appeals to you. Pray before you do it and then just start reading.