Thursday, April 18, 2013

Journeys Through the Scripture with some Sisters in Christ...

Since the start of the school year I have been participating in a wonderful group bible study with the Women's Ministry of Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church.

We have been journeying through the often confusing book of Deuteronomy through the study book  More Grace, More Love: Living in Covenant with God by George Robertson, with Mary Beth McGreevy.  Talk about an intense book!  The authors of our study, all the speakers in the women's ministry, and our amazing small group leader have all helped crack open the depth of Old Testament Law for us and have made Salvation History make sense. 

Every week I have plucked along with them with my little Kindle edition ESV, or when I'm at home my New Jerusalem Bible. We worked through the study questions together weekly, and discussed our answers as a group when we met.  Some weeks I was on fire for the lesson and to get into the Word.  Other weeks I putzed through the lesson and wanted to skip it, but knew that keeping the routine was good for me.  Some weeks I had to look up the Catholic response to some Protestant theological idea, but most weeks I was keenly aware of our strong joint understanding of the same redemptive drama (We use mostly the same bible, after all).  This was a lesson in perseverance too, it seems.

What's a good Catholic girl like me doing in a Protestant bible study anyway?

I have always had an ecumenical heart....otherwise I never would have married a good Lutheran boy!  I have always struggled in finding good Catholic Bible Studies, even though I have found other ways to live out my Catholic faith in my own parish.  Also, us Catholics tend not to know our Bibles as we should, considering it IS one of the pillars of our faith (the other being Tradition).  I have often admired just how well Protestants are able to memorize and quote bible verses with seemingly no effort.  There is something to be learned here.....  Besides, how much better would my own witness become if I could give a biblical reasoning behind what I believe?

It's a funny story how I wound up there, actually.  My often-Baptist-leaning Lutheran sister-in-law invited me last spring when I was struggling with depression and needed to fill a routine-type void when my day-treatment program was coming to an end.  Her and her Aunt had been a part of this community for years, as the resident Lutherans in a group of wonderful ladies whom I have come to know. I jumped at the chance, with clear knowledge that if I was to develop a healthy relationship with my sister-in-law it was going to be through God and his Grace. This was a means to develop deeper relationships with this family I married into.  And what harm is a bible study anyway, especially for a Catholic who tends not to read the bible as much as I ought?  Turns out the relationship roots grew deeper than I had imagined, as my husband's grandmother used to babysit for our small group leader long ago.  It was almost as if family was waiting for me before I even entered the door..... talk about the relational nature of Christ and his church, no?  And they welcomed me in, despite me being the Papist that I am.  Today I have been cultivating my relationship with these ladies, many of them of a generation who can teach me quite a bit as a younger woman.

I feel so blessed to have been spending my Tuesday mornings with such wonderful women of wisdom, and have been realizing just how much I am going to miss them when the semester comes to a close.  It was luck, God, serendipity.... that my schedule was such that I could join them.  I fully acknowledge that I might not be so lucky in the autumn either, especially as I continue on my search for a full time job in my field. 

As the end draws near I have been meditating on how to continue the healthy bible study habit.  I am the kind of person who needs a structured pre-prepared study to crack open the meaning behind the Scriptures.  I tend to fall away from the habit of reading them if I'm reading them free-form.  For this reason I often will just read the Gospel reading from the Daily Office, but the challenge of a long term in-depth study such as the one I am about to finish makes me feel more fulfilled in my understanding of Christ.

I've been looking at Edward Sri's A Biblical Walk Through of the Mass: Understanding What We say and Do in the Liturgy as one possibility.  I was also looking at Stacey Mitch's Courageous Love: A Bible Study on Holiness for Women.  Both looked promising.  Would any of you have any suggestions? 

No comments: