What would it mean to read Scripture well? At minimum, it would mean reading it as a whole. That sounds like a tall task when you think about it, because there are a lot of pages and many of them feature seemingly uninteresting prose. We might prefer to pick-and-choose our favorite passages, while avoiding other passages or entire books all together. But when we do that, we hear and see far less than is actually there––not merely in terms of just encountering fewer words, but in terms of encountering less of the mystery of Christ on each and every page.

My colleague Josh McManaway both teaches people how to read Scripture well and forms preachers to preach on Scripture well through his Savoring the Mystery program. He joins me today to talk about how to approach the Old Testament, how to read the New Testament more fully, and how to begin to regard the Psalter in all its wondrous variety.

Follow-up Resources:

• Learn more about the preaching program that Josh runs called “Savoring the Mystery”
• “The Depth of the Creed, with Josh McManaway,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “What are you doing here?!?! Pontius Pilate in the Creed, with Josh McManaway,” podcast episode via Church Life Today

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

The saints reveal the fulfillment of Christ’s promises. As I promised a couple episodes back, we want to treat you to a series of reflections on the particular witness of particular saints through a series of episodes on our podcast. These episodes follow from the wildly popular “Saturdays with the Saints” lecture series we host each year on Notre Dame’s campus. For one hour on the morning of Notre Dame home football games, a scholar typically from Notre Dame delivers a public lecture on a saint. We’ve been hosting this series for 15 years now, and this year we focused on “Saints of the Sacred Heart.”

I myself delivered the first lecture this year on St. Margaret Mary and the rebirth of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The lecture that followed was delivered by friend and colleague, Tim O’Malley. His lecture was on St. Claude de Colombiere, which is especially fitting because St. Claude is the one who made St. Margaret Mary’s visions of the Sacred Heart known to the world. But as Tim taught in his lecture, it matters very much that St. Claude was himself a Jesuit, as was our late Pope Francis who dedicated his last encyclical to the Sacred Heart. And so our conversation about this saint is also about the Spiritual Exercises, daily obedience to God’s will, and the shock of Christ’s personal and particular love for each of us.

Follow-up Resources:

• “Providence and Obedience: Colombière, the Jesuits, and the Sacred Heart,” by Tim O’Malley via Church Life Journal
• “St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Devotion to the Sacred Heart,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• Learn more about the “Saturdays with the Saints” series: https://mcgrath.nd.edu/events/saturdays-with-the-saints/
• “Dilexit Nos – Part 1, a conversation with Joshua McManaway and Melissa Moschella” (about Pope Francis’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus), podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Dilexit Nos – Part 2, a conversation with Brett Robinson and Abigail Favale” (about Pope Francis’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus), podcast episode via Church Life Today

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

I’m really tempted to open by saying that this episode it is about teaching your children how to die. Now I’m not saying that; all I’m saying is that I thought about saying that so you know it was an option. Why might I have said that? Because, as my guest will share, guiding your children toward the rest and surrender of sleep is, in the grand view, a preparation for death, and even more, of placing your whole self into the hands of God.

So maybe I should start again by saying this episode is about teaching your children to place themselves into the hands of God. That sounds nicer. It is also true because this episode is about introducing children to the basic rhythm of the Church’s night prayer, known as compline. And my guest has written for us a profoundly abbreviated and developmentally appropriate little book for just that purpose.

My friend Bo Bonner is a teacher, speaker, radio host, poet, husband of one and father of five, but he is also a Benedictine Oblate at Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma. What he and his artist collaborate have created is a book for children to pray with that brings them into the wisdom and the discipline of Church’s life, as it is mostly subtly and brilliantly expressed in the monastery, in the keeping of liturgical hours. That’s what this episode is about … but it is also really does have to do with teaching your children how to die because it is shaping them in how to live in Christ.

Follow-up Resources:

• A Very Little Office of Compline: Night Prayer for Children, by Bo Bonner, illustrated by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs
• “You Gotta Confront What You Are!” by Travis Lacy, article via Church Life Journal
• The Church Communications Ecology Program (CCEP) from the McGrath Institute for Church Life, where Bo was a participant in 2022

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.