Have you ever read a Gospel from beginning to end? Whether you have or not, why not give it a try? We can read a portion each day, which is a worthy goal, but the challenge will be to read it straight through, no matter how long it takes.
We are accustomed to hearing short passages from the Gospels every week at Sunday Mass. Sometimes, however, it is hard to remember that each of the Gospels is telling a story, a full story, from its own point of view — the story of the life of Jesus Christ. And we need to know this story in its entirety, don’t we? In the life of Jesus, we can discover the life that He wants each one of us to live.
If you take on this challenge, be sure to read prayerfully. Simply ask Jesus to speak to your heart through the words on the page. Ask for the grace to feel the excitement of being near to Jesus, and sometimes the sense of tension and danger. We can be in the room where He is speaking, or follow Him in the streets, or listen to Him on the plains and hillsides. We can be seated alongside the Apostles in a boat next to Him. We can open ourselves to growing in friendship with Him — by opening the pages of the Gospels to both see and hear.
Ponder this: If we open our hearts to Jesus every day in the Gospels, over time He will help us come to a deeper understanding of ourselves. We can ask for the humility to allow Him to question our assumptions and motivations, to challenge us and make demands of us. Reading the life of Jesus every day, we can come to discover our story in His story, we can find ourselves living the life of Jesus. Imagine that! This is how He forms our characters and shapes our souls in His divine image. That’s “good news,” isn’t it?
