Via Pulchritudinis
"... beauty has the power to claim us. The beautiful does not merely entertain; rather, it invades, choses, and changes the one to whom it deigns to appear. It opens the mind to a consideration of ever higher forms of the beautiful, conducing finally to the transcendant source of beauty itself."
"How can we recover the depth and power of the Bible in the twenty-first century?"
Publish a sumptuous bible with multitudinous commentaries providing "a chorus of voices from the great theological and spiritual tradition", lavishly illuminated with the great masterpieces. All "designed to appeal to nonbelievers, searchers, and those with far more questions about religion than answers."
"When we consult the numerous studies of the ever-increasing army of the religiously unaffiliated, we discover that the Bible is often a prime reason why people, especially young people, are alienated from the Christian faith. We hear that it is nonsense written by prescientific people who knew nothing about the way the world works; that it is bronze-age mythology, that it encourages genocide, violence against women, slavery, and militaristic aggression; that its central character is, in the language of one atheist provocateur, like King Lear in Act Five, except more insane."
"The church has realized from the beginning that we need assistance if we are to read the Scriptures with profit. We require precisely the interpretive lens provided by the great scholars, saints, mystics, popes and prophets who have gone before use - those who have, in the course of time, been recognized as masters of the sacred writings."
Bishop Robert Barron argues that:
The bible is a library of books and it makes little sense to ask if a library should be taken literally.
The bible is telling one great story (or unfolding one great drama)
Jesus alone truly explains the meaning of the bible; many parts of the Old Testament so offensive to modern sensibilities were read by Origen as allegories of the spiritual struggle against evil.
There are many out-of-date and morally objectionable things to be found in the bible, but they are not what the bible teaches and are not part of the overarching themes and patterns within the Bible as a whole.
The books of the bible were assembled by the church, for the church. The proper framework for reading the Bible is ecclesial and evangelical, not as Middle-Eastern history or literature.
Caravaggio, "The Calling of Saint Matthew"
The Calling of Matthew
"Across from the tax collector stands the mysterious figure of Jesus wrapped in shadow. He stretches out his hand and indicates Matthew, who points a finger at his own chest and gazes incredulously at Jesus, as if to say, 'You're calling me?' "
