The Bible before bedtime

There are two pieces of advice in regards to a healthy spiritual life which my confessor loves to give before bestowing absolution — pray regularly and take a little time each day to read from a piece of spiritual literature. He suggests the Bible. After hearing this, I return home with renewed zeal, eager to put this w h o l e s o m e advice into practice.

At first all goes well. This is easy, I think, as I settle into bed that night, laying my novel aside and picking up the Bible. How hard can it be to read a chapter or so every night? But after a few sentences I can already feel my thoughts leaving the text and slipping longingly back to the novel sitting beside my bed. Let’s get this over with, I think, and suddenly spiritual reading becomes just another chore. The next night, it is the Bible that sits, untouched, as I read my novel, guiltily trying not to remember the resolution I made and broke so quickly.
This hasn’t just happened once, either. Every time I make a resolution to begin reading the Bible, I find myself abandoning it within the week. It seems rather terrible to say, but I almost find it boring, and the beautiful words lose the potency I know they should have.

Last school year, my entire religion course was focused on biblical studies, and thanks to what I learned, I know the Bible isn’t boring. On the contrary, it is a wonderful book, not only full of history and holy wisdom, but also simply wonderful stories. The Bible contains adventure, action, romance, tragedy, comedy — almost every literary genre one can think of can be found in its tales.

Perhaps my disinterest is born of the fact that I never allowed myself to read far enough into the Bible. Perhaps it’s the version I’m reading — the eloquent verses of the Douay-Rheims edition I have can become a little laborious for reading in one’s spare time. I did find an edition written in English that was slightly plainer made for an easier, more engaging read.

Another good solution to this problem came in the form of a wonderful book called Take 10, which has a Bible verse for each day of the year along with a short meditation and suggested further reading.

But perhaps the best remedy I have come across in reading and truly enjoying the Bible is the understanding to which I have slowly come — that the characters of the Bible, save for Our Lord, were ordinary people, like me, who needed God’s grace to go through with the tasks He gave them.

Like these people, I need His help, and that of His Church, to persevere in the reading and understanding of the Bible. I trust He will guide me, as He guided the Israelites through the desert, on my journey to know Him better through this greatest piece of literature.

(Nundal, 16, is a student of Traditional Learning Academy in Coquitlam, B.C.)