ISA Co-hosts Lecture Series with Parish Run by the Carmelites

Dr. Carmen Alviar, ISA officer- in-charge for External Linkages, introduced Fr. Cris Pine, OFM (Biblicum, Roma), speaker-facilitator for the topic Introduction to the Word of God.   

Introduction

Fr. Pine started with the geography of the Holy Land and pointed out that the Bible is the product of long years of dreams, sufferings, living lessons, loss of power and drawing close to God.

He added, “There is value in studying the Bible and so, research and studies are going on. But it seems that these efforts of our Bible scholars are being wasted because hardly anybody seems to be reading it. Most of us would rather enjoy Facebook at home.  Pope Francis once asked, `Where are we in terms of our convictions? Has God disappeared?’ ”

According to Fr. Pine, part of the solution is adapting to the language of the young and also knowing the history behind the access of the laity to the Bible.

For centuries, Church authorities did not want people to read the Bible, especially after the Reformation 500 years ago. But this changed with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and its aggiornamento (opening the windows to let fresh air in).  

Fr. Pine suggested, “Let us go back to the sources of the revelations in Bible; this was what Dei Verbum said after the Council. Since then, there has been quite a number of advances in technology which can make Bible reading easier but generally, people still do not want to read it.”

Why the problem; how to solve it

Fr. Pine told the Sagrada Familia parishioners that he has had to ask schools to change their Bible-reading programs which seemed to be confusing students.

“Part of the problem is methodological,” he said. Some compilers of the Bible had to work on translations from the Greek and not always from its original language.”

Fr. Pine suggested a solution to the confusion which may arise: Read the sentence before and after the line in question, and all the text, the chapter, the entire book plus the notes and the introduction offered by the Bible one is using.

He then cited a number of Biblical texts which may thus be clarified. One is Luke 10:38 on Jesus visiting the home of his friends Mary and Martha, and Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus instead of helping Martha prepare their meal. 

Verse 42 says: “But one thing is mindful, and Mary has chosen the good part.”  

Fr. Pine asked, “What is not being said? It may be that Mary wanted to be a teacher like Jesus and thus focused on listening to him that day. Or it may be that she – an unmarried woman – sat alone with Jesus – a bachelor – and was worrying her sister Martha (aligaga) about gossip. Bethany was not a city.”

Fr. Pine also cited a set of Biblical texts which may be confusing, Verse 4 of Psalm 27 reads: “One thing I asked the Lord is to dwell in his house all the days of my life and to behold the graciousness of the Lord and to visit early in his temple.”

But people have also read of Jesus driving out vendors and money changers from “my Father’s house”.  Compared to King David’s offering of sacrifices at the Tabernacle “at trumpet’s sound”, Jesus’ anger over the defilement of the same temple was a problematic way of honouring the sacred site but it had a context.

“Contextual understanding is better than literal reading,” Fr. Pine told the parishioners.

In the Letter to the Galatians 2, James had sent some of his brothers to help build up the struggling community led by Peter, who initially ignored them. But he also welcomed them, as shown by later chapters.

 “This story contextualizes Paul’s epistle `Love is patient, love is kind,’ ” explained Fr. Pine.  “We may have different talents but they are all for building up the Church, which we can do by starting here at the parish. The challenge is `That they may be one as we are one.’”

Another problem: redaction with an “e”

 Fr. Pine also explained the process called redaction whereby an evangelist would add events absent from those written by the others. For example, in the Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent, Jesus has managed to spurn the tempter despite being weak from forty days and forty nights of fasting.  The devil then left for new opportunities to tempt others, according to Luke.

But Matthew wrote that the devil stayed with Jesus going from Galilee to Jerusalem.

“Be gone, Satan,” Jesus commanded when he was questioned by Peter why he should suffer and die when they had worked so hard for him.

“This is the context of the unexpected name uttered by Jesus,” said Fr. Pine.

Fr. Pine also spoke of what he called “sandwich style” whereby there would be two accounts of Jesus healing the blind would be interspersed with unrelated ones.

“It is complicated and so, let us take advantage of the technology now available and make the Bible relevant to us.”

Closing

Dr.  Alviar, the emcee, thanked Fr. Pine “for making time to be with us on this orientation” and then called on Fr. Perfecto Adeva, Jr. O.Carm, the Administration and Finance director of ISA.

“Last year we attended to the needs of the youth through Spirituality Forum 18,” said Fr. Adeva. “We heard from them and from those who minister to them about their hopes, dreams, concerns and needs. This year we continue the conversations with the youth through the next Forum and through lectures like this.”

He added, “God wants to say something to each of us and so, we thank and applaud all of you for coming. We also thank Father Pine for sharing his knowledge and becoming one with us here. See you again on June 22 for Part II of these lectures.”

Perla Aragon-Choudhury