​Music became my passion when I picked up my first instrument as a young girl. However, in a more hidden manner there was another great love developing, a fascination with the Bible. I attempted to read Bible commentaries to understand better what the Scriptures contained, but honestly, I did not really understand the commentaries all that much. However, my searching did foster continued reflection on Jesus and on His words. There was one particular section that drew me in, the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5-7) I still find it to be the one of the most powerful (if not challenging) teachings in the Gospels.* The best part, however, is that the Bible had helped me to know and love God better, and I began to understand that in reading it, I was actually hearing His words, His message. Therefore, to those who say they long to hear God speak to their heart, or that they wish they could hear His voice, I say, “Pick up your Bible.” Through the Bible we always have the voice of God speaking to us. We hear His voice every time we read it or listen to it being proclaimed in our churches: indeed, that is God speaking to you. No one who has ever attended even one liturgy can claim that they have never heard God speak. He has spoken throughout history and His voice remains as strong as ever.

Just before the Gospel is proclaimed at Mass, Catholics engage in a meaningful gesture. When the deacon or priest says, “A reading from the Gospel according to…. [Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John],” we trace the sign of the cross with our thumb on our forehead, lips, and heart. Simultaneously, we silently say the prayer that accompanies that gesture: “May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.” ** It is important that we do say the prayer because it is a reminder that what we are going to hear is indeed the Word of the Lord. In word and deed, it was to speak the Word of God that He came: Jesus, the Son of God, the Word incarnate, entered our world to fulfill all God promised, to express the love and mercy of the Father, and therefore, to offer the gift of salvation to all people. In doing so, He wanted to make disciples who would assist Him in this work. Therefore, if we do not listen, and if we do not open our minds and hearts to His word, then we will not be able to speak them on our lips. In this light, His words spoken through Scripture ought to move our hearts to always invite Him in, focus our thoughts upon Him, and reveal that we are His in our words and actions.

While the Gospels are the heart of our Christian faith, we should be familiar with the entire Bible. If we have some understanding of the Old Testament, we will more fully appreciate what it means when Jesus is referred to as the fulfilment of prophecy, or the significance of his ancestry, for example. We will also better understand why and how the Jewish people were oppressed by the Romans; that is, the thousands of years of history that got them to where they were at the time of Jesus. Of course, studying the Old Testament also provides great insights into who God is, how He revealed this, and how the understanding of the Jewish people developed over the centuries. Without familiarity with it, we would lose the stories of the great heroes, the poetry of the Psalms, the significance of the Law, and the Wisdom of the holy ones carefully passed down, generation to generation. The same is true for the books of the New Testament after the Gospels: these writings describe what the early Church was like, offer the foundations of our theology, false teachings to avoid, and prophecy about the return of Christ. In truth, we should keep all the Scriptures in our minds, on our hearts, and in our lips insofar as we participate in it through our reading, study, reflection, and prayer with it. 

Many people do read the Scriptures daily, and through this practice discover that the Word is ever new each time it is read and reflected upon. But what is most important is that we let it penetrate our hearts and minds. The Word dwelling in our minds will help us to discern between what is really from God and what is actually deception as we face challenges and difficulties in our daily life. The Word dwelling in our hearts will allow Him to reveal His desires for us, ways we might be healed, areas in which we need to let go of attachments, ways to put Him first in our lives more consistently, and to disclose more deeply how much He truly loves us. During these times there is much division and so many voices competing for our attention, often making it difficult to know which to listen to. But there is an answer, there is one Voice of Truth to which we can always turn and in which we can always trust: Jesus. If we learn to recognize Him, to hear His voice and respond to it, we will have peace within our hearts even when everything around us seems to be falling apart. With the Word of God in the forefront of our minds, always on our lips (and in our actions), and thus, deep within our hearts, we will be safe in the midst of storm, and we will glorify Him by our lives.

May we keep the Lord in our mind, on our lips, and in our heart! May we be drawn ever deeper into the Scriptures, the Word of God, so that we may hear His voice always! And in living the Word, may we glorify God! Let us meet in the Heart of Jesus! Peace!

                               ©Michele L. Catanese

​* For more, see my post from June 2023, The Gospel Within The Gospels. https://www.catanesesd.com/micheles-blog/the-gospel-within-the-gospels
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** https://mycatholic.life/catholic-question-and-answer/q-signing-head-lips-heart-at-gospel/#:~:text=The%20answer%20is%20simple.,His%20sacred%20Word%20is%20proclaimed.
The Jews used to practice something along these lines by wearing tefillin or phylacteries: men would wear the Law (Torah) on their foreheads, inside leather pouches held by cords, and the phylacteries were held in similar pouches worn on their arm. This was meant to keep the Lord in their mind and close to their heart. Jewish houses had a mezuzah on the door frame (many still do this) so that as they entered or exited, they would touch it in a gesture of prayer. What is contained within all of these are verses from the Law, most important of them the Shema prayer, that greatest of all commandments that proclaims God as One and that we are to love Him with all our mind, all our heart, and all our strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4) While Christians do not wear these particular reminders, we do wear crosses and medals which are worn not only to proclaim our faith, but as reminders to ourselves of Whose we are. As in all things we should honor the wearing of them by our behaviors so that we do indeed have the Word in our mind, on our lips, and in our heart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin

Images:
1. My photo; The Bible.
2. Icon; Cristo Pantocrater by Fr. William Hart McNichols. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, or in any of his other images and icons, you can find this at https://fineartamerica.com/featured/cristo-pantocrator-175-william-hart-mcnichols.html
3. Drawing; Solomon's Temple, https://bible.fandom.com/wiki/First_Temple. I chose this to give an example of something of the history of Israel that was quite important and highly described in many books of the Old Testament.
4. Painting; First Steps (After Millet), by Vincent van Gogh. Let us run to the Father!
5. My photo; On the Snake River in Clarkston, Washington.

Note: In compliance with GDPR rules, I wish to make it clear that I do not gather any information on any of my readers at any time. 

It is good to read the lives of the Saints, but I have to be clear that many existing hagiographies are simply not appealing, written with flowery descriptions that present the saint as perfect in every conceivable way. Other than the Blessed Virgin Mary (and Jesus), there are no perfect human beings and thus, no perfect saints. Everyone has weaknesses and is prone to sin, but what sets the saints apart is how well they have worked at combatting their weaknesses, and simultaneously, how well they have grown in virtue. When a hagiography presents a saint as perfect and almost too good to be true, they become difficult to relate to. This type of writing can lead to discouragement since sainthood is presented as almost impossible to attain, and it can influence us to believe that somehow these people were born to be holy and we were not. We cannot live up to what seems impossible. Accurate hagiography, however, does appeal to the reader since these accounts portray what is possible. We can see that the struggles with weakness of the holy are not unlike our own; similarly, we can see that their giftedness is something of which we are capable. These works provide the evidence of how a particular saint grew into their call to holiness, something definitely attainable and which therefore can ignite our response to God in pursuing our own path to holiness. We are all called to holiness, and therefore well written hagiographies can offer a pathway to that end.*

Scripture is also a good place to discover what it means to be holy. We will find that despite their great deeds, some of the ‘heroes’ were quite broken and had what we could characterize as debilitating faults. These people loved God and desired to do His will, but sometimes they really mucked things up due to their human weakness. Others were called into ministries to which they never aspired, excelling even at the cost of suffering because they came to trust in the power and promises of God through an intimate relationship with Him. All that said, the Scriptural figures who tried to serve the Lord can be revered for the good they did; their failings can teach us not to seek our own council, but to turn to God always, and their strengths can show us that obstacles can be overcome with love and total trust in God.**

We can read about any saint in the two thousand years of Christian history and see that in addition to their wisdom and perhaps even the power of their prayer, they also made mistakes, struggling with personal areas of weakness and quite visible flaws. Some had incredible conversions which taught them to overcome their greatest weaknesses with the help of grace; others seemed to be drawn to holiness from an early age, yet also had issues to overcome. They all teach us that struggles do not diminish sanctity: as they relied on God their understanding grew concerning their weaknesses, as well as in the ways God worked within their hearts. They grew so much that they continually made a response of selfless love to God, giving witness to the power of grace; their love enabled them to supersede even their greatest weakness or sinful tendency. This is a sign of hope that we, too, can grow in holiness since these stories reveal that God does not choose His special servants based on perfection, but on something He alone sees within their hearts.

As an exercise, imagine if someone were to write about you after your death. How would your spiritual biography or hagiography read? How would your hagiography read if you wrote it about yourself? And most importantly: how would your hagiography read if God were to write it? These are questions we all should reflect and pray upon; if we are honest this exercise will reveal our attachments and our weaknesses, yes, but it would also reveal how grace has already worked within us, how we utilize that grace to overcome our weaknesses, and how beautifully we have already used our gifts. Our hagiography will not be generally negative unless we focus only on weaknesses and refuse to see our own goodness. With thorough, balanced reflection under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we will see both our goodness and the areas that are in need of growth. I suspect we will be surprised by what we discover. Of course, we all have a lot of work to do, but it would be fallacious to think that we have not already shared the wealth of our gifts through service and witness to others, along with the desire to love God better, even if we find that we need to grow in some areas.

The important point is that we must always pray to discern our call to truly follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit so that we continually respond to God’s desires for us. Similarly, it is essential that we are aware of our greatest points of vulnerability to temptation so that we can build up spiritual defenses against them as well as to grow in virtue. We must never stop praying to come to know and love God better, to receive from Him all He wants to offer, and for spiritual strength and protection against all the forces that want to thwart our growth in holiness. If we work at this every day, our hagiography will end in Heaven with Jesus saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant…. Come share your master’s joy.” (Matthew 25:21)

May we be inspired by the lives of the saints! May we call upon the saints to help us grow in holiness as they did! And may we turn to the Lord for the graces we need that we may make a loving return to Him for all His goodness and mercy! Let us meet in the Heart of Jesus! Peace!

                   ©Michele L. Catanese

* The root of the word hagiography is from the Greek word hagi meaning "of a saint, saintly, holy; from Greek hagios "sacred, devoted to the gods" (of things), "holy, pure" (of persons), in Ecclesiastical Greek,’ "a saint.’” https://www.etymonline.com/word/hagiography

** For example in the Old Testament Abram (Abraham) had a tendency to interpret what God said by taking matters into his own hands, such as when God promised him an heir. (He lied about his relationship with Sarai twice, first in Genesis 12:10 ff, then in Genesis 20; and he ‘used’ Hagar for an heir in Gen.16.) David became envious of another man’s wife and then tried to cover up his deed with worse sins. His behaviors also led to disastrous problems with his sons. Through his need to attain many wives, Solomon fell into the worship of false gods which led to the demise of Israel. In the New Testament we see that the apostles had their many weaknesses. Peter not only denied Jesus, but even after he was leader of the Christian church, he struggled at times. The best example was when he acted hypocritically in siding with the Jewish converts during the Council of Jerusalem, having recently acted completely contrary to his argument with some Gentiles. (Acts 15) St. Paul had a wonderful conversion, but even after that he grappled with a fiery temper, such as when he refused Mark in accompanying him because on the previous voyage the young man had left due to homesickness. His decision and a subsequent argument led to estrangement from his friend Barnabas for many years. (Acts 15:36-41).​

Images:
1. Icon; All Saints.
2. My photo; Mensa Christi, at the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Tabgha, Israel. (Tabgha is southwest of Capernaum.)
3. Painting; St. Jerome, Penitent, by Caravaggio (1606). St. Jerome struggled with his temper all his life, even though he was a holy, prayerful man. (Remember that he translated the entire Bible from Greek into Latin; that is, he gave us the Vulgate.)
4. My photo; hagiographies on my bookshelf.
5. Icon; Christ All Merciful, by Fr. William Hart McNichols. You can purchase a copy of this in one of many different mediums at fineartamerica.com/featured/christ-all-merciful-022-william-hart-mcnichols.html
6. My photo; pilgrims in prayer procession at Lourdes, France.

Note: In compliance with GDPR rules, I wish to make it clear that I do not gather any information on any of my readers at any time.