"Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it."

Saturday, 10/10/15

“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

The idea of hearing the word of God reminds me of a conversation about the Bible that I got into yesterday.

I was waiting for the bus when a young lady who recognized me sat with me for a few minutes. She started telling me that Catholics don’t know the Bible. She said we were always just talking about the saints.

She was saying that she particularly liked Chapter Eleven of The Letter to the Hebrews. She said that it gave a list of all the Old Testament’s great people.

That gave me an opening to justify our Catholic approach, but the bus came, and I didn’t get my chance to show. So, let me do it here.

After Chapter Eleven’s litany of Old Testament heroes, Chapter Twelve gives us a chance to boast about our saints and about Jesus. I memorized that passage years ago, and I think it goes something like this.

“We therefore, having such a cloud of witnesses over us, let us set aside every sin entangling us, and run with patience to the fight set before us; looking forward to the author and finisher of faith: Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured a cross, despising shame; and now sits at the right hand of God.”

When I recall that, I make a stab at observing it.