This is part four of a collection of short instructions published by The Catholic Press, Inc. in 1951, edited by Reverend John P. O’Connell, M.A., S.T.D.
A Companion For Our Journey
But there is one person who sums up in Himself the whole of God’s message–Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary. In reading about Him, we come to know all that God has ever told us about Himself, all that He has dreamed of giving us. For in Christ Jesus, His Divine Word, God utters Himself whole and entire; in the Christ of the Gospels we recognize the very features of the kind Father who is waiting for us in our heavenly home, and our heart thrills with new hope. At the same time we find in Him a perfect companion. In His abounding love, God has become a man like ourselves. He has come down from heaven to be with us and to trace with bloodstained footprints the path we must follow. He is both the goal of our journey and our fellow traveler along the way.
The Gospels tell His story–all that He said and did, How He lived and died. It is to the Gospels, then, we must turn if we would become familiar with Him. We shall truly know Christ only when we have read and re-read these golden pages. Only when we have understood with our heart the scenes of Bethany, the Prodigal Son, Magdalene, the bruised and bleeding Outcast nailed to a rough cross–only then shall we come to a great appreciation of Him who is both our God and our Brother. Saint Jerome has said that “To be ignorant of the Scriptures is not to know Christ.” How often we lament the falling away of erstwhile friends of Christ. May it not be that, through neglect of the Scriptures, they never really knew Him?
Excerpt from The Holy Bible, p. xxiii. The Catholic Press, Inc. Chicago, Ill. Copyright 1951.
Catholica Scriptor: The Catholic Writer 