As I was praying over this weekend’s Scripture readings, one passage just kept sticking in my mind.  It is in our first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy; “Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, … lest we die.”  Why would the Chosen People not want to hear the voice of the LORD?  It almost seems that they are asking to do the opposite of what we hear the Psalmist ask, “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”

    In our first reading, Moses is recounting to the people their experience when they first arrived at Mount Sinai.  After escaping slavery in Egypt, Moses led the people to the mountain where he first encountered God in the burning bush.  After going through a process of purification, Moses leads the people to the foot of the mountain to meet God.  There is an earthquake, lightning is blowing up boulders, and the mountain seems to be on fire as God speaks to them.  Even though Moses invites the people to come closer, the people refuse, telling Moses that he should be their intermediary between God and them.  They are too terrified to have God speak directly to them.  They prefer that God speaks through someone else to them, so God promises that He will always raise up a prophet, like Moses, who will bring God’s words to them.  And as today’s reading indicates, God thinks that “this is well said.”

    But why?  Why wouldn’t people want God to speak directly to them?  And why wouldn’t God want to speak directly to His people?

    I think today’s Gospel gives us some insight.  Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Capernum, and we hear that the people were amazed because he spoke with authority.  All the other rabbis during Jesus’ time would have taught by saying things like, “As the LORD said through the Prophet Isaiah” or “As Moses taught us.”  They would cite what the prophets and other rabbis whose sayings had withstood the test of time would say.  They would not give their own interpretation.  

    We do the same thing ourselves.  We say things like, “As my professor taught me….” Or “I read this in the Philadelphia Inquirer….”  We refer to other authorities to justify our opinions and thoughts about things.  There is nothing wrong with that for we certainly aren’t experts in everything.  We have to rely on the expertise of other people.

    Perhaps that is why God thought it was “well said” when the people said that they did not want to hear the voice of the LORD.  They had the humility to recognize that God is God and they were not.  That while human beings through the use of our reason can come to know that there is a God, we cannot KNOW God.  God has to reveal Himself to us.  The LORD is the only expert on the divine.

    Jesus, however, does not make an appeal to authority when he preaches, for he IS the Divine Word.  The fullness of time has come, and God is revealing Himself in a definitive way by the Word becoming Flesh and dwelling among us.  Jesus says and does only what his Father wants him to say and do.  He is perfectly revealing God to us because he is God.

    While the people listening to Jesus recognized that he was teaching with an authority that the other rabbis never taught with, they are so astounded that they do not fully understand who Jesus is, but as St. Mark makes clear throughout his Gospel, the demons do.  As the demon possessing the man in today’s Gospel exclaims, “I know who you are -- the holy one of God.”

    What about God’s Word today, for us?  Should we be like the people standing before Moses, “Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, … lest we die” or should we strive to harken to today’s Psalm to hear the voice of the LORD without hardening our hearts?  Some of you may remember being told by the nuns, or brothers, or priests in school not to read the Bible.  Sadly, that was an overreaction to avoid “private interpretations” of the Bible.  It is true that St. Peter writes in his second letter, “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation….” (2 Peter 1:20), but that does not mean that Catholics should not read the Bible.  In fact the Church has always encouraged the Faithful to read the Sacred Scriptures.  As it says in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful … to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ,’ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’” (CCC #133)

    So, how do we guard against “personal interpretations” while also learning “the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ” by frequently reading the Scriptures?  The key is to read the Bible with the Church.  That means to read it according to the Tradition of the Church.  Today that is much easier because many good, Catholic commentaries on the Bible are available, and some are integrated into translations of the Bible.

    A good place to start is to learn about the traditional “senses” of the Scriptures.  From the earliest Church Fathers, there have been two “senses” for understanding the Scriptures:  the literal, and the spiritual which is subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses.

    The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”  (CCC #116)

    Through the allegorical sense we can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.
    The moral sense of Scripture teaches us how ought to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction.”
    The anagogical sense helps us view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

    A simple way to remember these senses for understanding the Sacred Scriptures is a A medieval couplet:

        The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
        The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.

    So, take up with the Church and read the Bible everyday.  Christ is waiting for you there.