You cannot understand the Old Testament without the Temple.
You cannot understand the New Testament without the Mass!
The Bible is above all a Liturgical book! Catholic cult is the key to understanding the Bible. You cannot be expert in Sacred Scripture unless you go to Mass and experience the living Word.
Go to Mass. Don't be afraid. No one will bother you. And you will surely encounter Christ in the most direct way possible on earth.
A Jew who has never gone to Mass will never properly understand Judaism.
A Protestant who has never gone to Mass will never fully understand what it means to be Christian.
A Catholic who does not love the Mass is the greatest of fools and a hypocrite!
Go to Mass, especially the Traditional Latin Mass! And do all in your power to understand and participate interiorly. And go again and again and again. You will get it and will go infinitely deep in the mystery of the living God.
The Mass works! It is opus Dei: God's work.
The Catholic Liturgy is Divine historical action, God's direct and immediate intervention in the world! Scripture is a record of a part of that Divine action, which continues even today, in the liturgical proclamation and worship with the sacred texts. The texts are alive in the Liturgy: the Holy Spirit is doing the action through the ministry of the Church.
Faith comes through hearing, principally at Mass!
Romans (Douay-Rheims Bible)
10:1 BRETHREN, the will of my heart, indeed, and my prayer to God, is for them unto salvation.
10:2 For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
10:3 For they, not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God.
10:4 For the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth.
10:5 For Moses wrote, that the justice which is of the law, the man that shall do it, shall live by it.
10:6 But the justice which is of faith, speaketh thus: Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down;
10:7 Or who shall descend into the deep? that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.
10:8 But what saith the scripture? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart. This is the word of faith, which we preach.
10:9 For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10:10 For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.
10:11 For the scripture saith: Whosoever believeth in him, shall not be confounded.
10:12 For there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek: for the same is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon him.
10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.
10:14 How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?
10:15 And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!
10:16 But all do not obey the gospel. For Isaias saith: Lord, who hath believed our report?
10:17 Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ.
10:18 But I say: Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world.
10:19 But I say: Hath not Israel known? First, Moses saith: I will provoke you to jealousy by that which is not a nation; by a foolish nation I will anger you.
10:20 But Isaias is bold, and saith: I was found by them that did not seek me: I appeared openly to them that asked not after me.
10:21 But to Israel he saith: All the day long have I spread my hands to a people that believeth not, and contradicteth me.
11:1 I SAY then: Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
11:2 God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Know you not what the scripture saith of Elias; how he calleth on God against Israel?
11:3 Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
11:4 But what saith the divine answer to him? I have left me seven thousand men, that have not bowed their knees to Baal.
11:5 Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.
Cf. The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, Emery de Gaál, p. 119
"As a student, Ratzinger learned from Romano Guardini that liturgy is the proper context to understand the Bible: it is the product of the Church celebrating the Eucharist and proclaiming the gospel. Church, scripture, and liturgy form one hermeneutic unit. A person cannot understand one without the two other elements. Famously, Kant had argued that the voice of being itself cannot be heard by human beings shackled to contingent, phenomenal reality. Only the postulates of practical reason access God. In contrast, John the Evangelist holds that the Spirit-inspired memory of the 'we' of the Church brings about a remembering of the reality underlying scripture. Divine initiative is not constrained by a Kantian perspective. Only with the Easter Kerygma (preaching) does the integrity of scripture become apparent. All else evaporates into private musings or even ideologies. Good exegesis 'is rooted in the living reality...of the Church of all ages.'"
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