By Dr. Scott Hahn

My year started off on a very exciting note - and it has just been building from there. 

In January, I was honored to lead a retreat for more than a dozen American archbishops and bishops.

In the breaks between talks, I had my first chance to share with many of them the vision of the St. Paul Center. I talked about the individual programs - the highschool textbook, Understanding the Scriptures, the on-line studies, this newsletter, our parish-based Bible program, and more.

I was excited. But I never imagined that the bishops would be as enthusiastic about this vision as I was. The Center's purpose - to impart biblical literacy to lay people, and biblical fluency to clergy - struck a chord.

These are pastors who are painfully aware of the needs of the Church and the world. And a retreat is always the occasion for rediscovering something Blessed Mother Teresa always said - that we should be more aware of God's power than our human weaknesses and crises. Soaking in Scripture, and celebrating the sacraments while we soak in Scripture, is the best way to remind ourselves of that.

And that is the foundation of our work - a liturgical vision of reading sacred Scripture. Scripture is given to us by our loving Father to illuminate the sacraments. The sacraments are, in turn, celebrated to "actualize" the truths of Scripture.

This is not a new way of understanding the Scriptures, as I reminded the bishops. It's as old as the Church. This is what the Church has been doing with God's Word since the upper room.

Unfortunately, as they're well aware, it's not how our priests and lay people have been trained to read and study Scripture. But I am confident that we're starting to change that.

If I needed proof, I had it in spades at our third West Coast Biblical Studies Conference. Over the last three years, we've had more than 2,000 people attend these conferences. And this year's conference was again amazing - hundreds of highly motivated lay people on fire to learn how to read the Bible for all it's worth.

I went to that dynamic West Coast conference straight from that exhilirating time spent with the bishops. What a way to start a new year!

And with your prayers and support, we've since launched two new initiatives - a "Breaking the Bread" radio program and a Spanish language edition of our biblical reflections on the Sunday Mass readings. This liturgical vision of Scripture is what goes on in every Sunday Mass. Knowing that doesn't make it more real, and not know it doesn't make it any less real. But knowing it will bring us to a deeper and more fruitful connection with the Lord who comes to us in the breaking of the bread. 

March 2006

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