Many Catholics want to have a deeper understanding of the Bible, but are intimidated to just dive in. Father Dave welcomes back friend of the show Meg Hunter-Kilmer to discuss her method of reading the Bible in her new book, “A Year in the Word: Catholic Bible Journal.”
Meg is a Catholic speaker, author, retreat leader, and itinerant missionary who has lived out of her car for the last 10 years. She has also read the Bible 20 times, but notes that it was not smooth the first time she read it at age 13. “I started at Genesis and I read through to Revelation, and it took me six years. I kept trying, I kept going, but you just get bogged down and I didn’t understand any of it,” she says.
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“The amazing thing is the Word of God is living and effective. So whether you understand what’s happening or not, the Holy Spirit can work in that,” Meg says. She wanted to read the Bible again, but explains that she needed to find a new tactic, especially for the books that took her longer to read.
In her subsequent readings, she found a “perfect recipe” for her to read the entire Bible in one year. Meg says she reads, “half a chapter of a Gospel every day, a couple chapters of the Old Testament, then a chapter of something more poetic that you want to soak in and spend a little more time in.” This process takes her only 15 minutes each day.
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This discipline has deepened her appreciation of Scripture, and she wants to share that love with others. “I’m like, God is telling me right now about his wild and unceasing love for me. And he’s calling me to holiness in a passage of Scripture that I would just have never opened up again,” Meg says. “Because it is the actual Word of God, He is always at work.”
Meg lists this schedule in her new book, and also includes daily reflections and space to journal for each day. “There’s a reflection each day, so when you’re reading [Scripture], it’s like okay, you might not understand this. But when Jesus uses this phrase, it’s actually harkening back to when Pharaoh says that in Exodus,” she explains. “Or [about how] this section is really hard, and it’s okay if you’re having trouble reconciling what you’re reading here with what you know to be true about God, so let’s sit in that tension.”
“I just want people reading Scripture,” she says. “The purpose of the journal is to give people those reflections to help you enter into Scripture in various different ways.”