Sunday, July 25, 2010

A Work of Love-- Copying the Scriptures

A columnist on the opinion page of the Catholic Times tells us of her time on the Internet. Each day she goes to the Seoul Diocesan Catholic Good News site (www.catholic.or.kr) where the whole Bible is online and available to copy, but any mistake made, and you cannot proceed until it's corrected. She was thankful to those who developed such a wonderful program.

It is helpful, she realized, not only in studying Scripture but also in language study. More than 20,000 have used the program, with 500 being less than 15 years old, surprising her that so many young people were involved with the program.

She mentions that she has set aside time both in the morning and evening to continue writing. Depending on what she is writing, she experiences joy or sorrow, hope or consolation.

Recently, when she finished writing the last sentence of the Apocalypse: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen!" she received words of congratulations and was told that she started writing on Jan.30, 2008, and finished on June 18, 2010. One person copied the whole Bible in 15 days; one person did it 17 times.

The very next day she went back online to begin writing again and has progressed to Abraham. Many parishes invite their members to participate in these programs by using their own parish websites. There are four ways to participate: copying the Gospel of the day, copying some or all of the Bible as an individual, copying by different groups, each participating as a community, and copying as a member of the Good News group that works as a community.

The Bible sold in all Catholic churches, and bookstores is the one used in the liturgy. Having a number of Bibles to compare is a plus but using one Bible also has advantages. In many of the parishes, parishioners come to the pastor after finishing their hand written copies of the Scriptures to be signed by the pastor, including the occasional parishioner who has copied the whole Bible. It is a difficult task but many receive blessings from the undertaking, a sign of the devotion of many Catholics to live their spiritual life on a deeper level.