“The Barbie Watch” by Brian Flanagan

“The Barbie Watch” by Brian Flanagan

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

For most Catholics, the struggle isn’t finding where something is in the Bible. For most of us, the struggle is finding our Bible in the first place.

And then once we’ve found it, we open it up and exclaim, “It’s all Greek to me.” Well actually the New Testament was written in Greek…

This week’s Gospel passage contains arguably the most popular or at least the most often quoted verse in the Bible. John 3:16. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” People usually have this verse on posters behind home plate at a baseball game or other public places in the hope that people might look it up and read the verse. They choose this verse because it’s one of the most concise presentations of the Gospel’s message.

It’s probably not a bad idea for us all to memorize that verse. Many Christians spend lots of time memorizing verses. For Catholics, it’s the Mass and the Sacraments that are primary, but sometimes we are too much on the other end of the spectrum and we neglect Scripture.

The first time I ever memorized anything from the Bible was in college. About ten guys from the Catholic Student Association would get together every week to discuss living out our faith and to support one another in living out the Christian life. Every week we would memorize a paragraph or so of Scripture, and the following week we would each get a blank index card and have to write out the verse, punctuation and all.

And nobody wanted to be the guy with the most mistakes. He, for an entire week, had to wear a Barbie watch. Whenever someone asked him for the time, he had to respond, “Barbie says it’s 3:00” and he wasn’t allowed to give any explanation. I never had to wear the Barbie watch for the record 😉

The purpose of memorizing verses, however, isn’t to win a competition or even to write them on posters. When we really begin to know what it says in the Word of God, we begin to internalize it. It doesn’t even matter if you can quote chapter and verse, but it’s great to have a general idea of where some things are; or even just to know that they’re in there!

For example, when you’ve sinned or you’re ashamed about your past, you can remember, “With the Lord, there is mercy and fullness of redemption” from Psalm 130. When we feel like giving in to despair about something, we can remember that we have our hope in Jesus “…as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…” Hebrews 6:19. When we doubt whether we are cut out for this life of faith, we can remember, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13.

When we are overflowing with joy about what God has done in our lives, we can remember my personal favorite Scripture verse, John 21:25. “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.”

So start with John 3:16. “God so loved the world…” That’s great stuff right there.  Go so loved the world. He loved each of us into existence and wants nothing more than for us to know, love, and serve him in this life and to be with him in heaven forever. “…that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Short, sweet, and to the point. The Gospel in a nutshell.

If you can memorize that, great. But much more important than quoting Scripture is living it!