I think you might still be not understanding me.
First, thank-you for explaining this for those who might not have known what I met by the missal. I do know what it is. It will have the day's readings from the Psalms, the Old Testament, the Epsitle, and the Gospel -- one from each. And as you said, by printing it in this fashion one does not have to flip through pages in a Bible to find the passage.
What I think you missed in my referencing of the missal, or maybe are not aware, is that even if one was to read the missal every day of one's life for 100 years, and read all of the scripture passages that are printed in it, one would still not have read the entire Bible. The reason is that neither the missal, nor any lectionary, even tries to present the entire Bible through the use of it. Rather, they present a significant portion of the Bible, they include what are generally considered all of the highpoints, but there are also stories and passages that one would never read if one only knew as much Bible as one read in the missal or heard proclaimed through lectionary based preaching. Check this website out to learn
How much of the Bible is included in the Lectionary for Mass? Not as much as you might think, yet far more than was included in the Roman Missal before the Second Vatican Council!.
Just as this Roman Catholic Lectionary website states,
"since many parts of the Bible (esp. the Old Testament) are still not included in the Lectionary, one must go beyond the readings used at Mass to cover the entire Bible." Thus, in my opinion, there really is no substitute for sitting down with the Bible itself and reading through it.
I didn't use the figure of 50% to say that Catholics read the Bible less than Protestants. I can only report on what I know. I have not seen what I would call a scientifically valid survey on the frequency of Bible reading. Some years ago, I attended a seminar where it was said that only about 15% of any congregation are involved in any given activity beyond worship. But, they weren't speaking specifically of Bible study, and it was made as an off-hand comment that happened to catch my attention. So, I don't know if there was any real documentation done on arriving at it. But, in discussing it, to move from mere opinion to something that might be at least close to fact based, one must deal with actual numbers. You will note that I began with numbers based on my own experiences in churches, protestant churches. In doing so, I showed that less than 60% of my active worship attenders were involved in any form of group Bible study. And my active attenders represent less than 2/3 of my membership. So that translates to about 20% of my congregation involved in any form of group Bible study. And then I shared my experience as a pastor is that while not all those who are involved in group Bible study will do the "comprehensive reading and studying from beginning to end" that MustafaMc spoke of, that none who do not engage in the group Bible study will take the time to do the comprehensive persoanl study on their own. I have been a pastor at more than one church, and I find this trend is pretty consistent through-out, though perhaps a little higher at my present church than others I have served. The net result is that I am certain that well less than 50% of Protestant Christians, my guess, probably less than 10% of Protestant Christian take time to do the comprehensive beginning to end study that we are speaking of in elsewhere in this thread.
Now, do more Catholics than that do so. Based on what I have heard and experienced in life, I don't think so. But I did cite the only real numbers I had on Catholics, and in it as much as 80% said they did, and I said so. I also said that I doubted that I could find a Protestant group where the figure would be that high. I do find that figure high and don't think it really reflects the frequency of Bible reading among Catholics. Not that I think those individuals are lying, but rather that they represent a rather unique subset of Catholics, much like yourself, who are more active in practicing their faith than the average Catholic. That is an assumption of mine based on life. I may be right. I may be wrong. And I own that it is just an opinion, not a proven fact.
With respect to the actual 50% figure that I cited and you appear to have taken exception to. Again what that was in reference to is NOT whether or not Catholics read their Bible daily, but the self reporting of a different small group of Catholics who admitted to never reading their Bible at all, but who maintained their faith only through prayer and worship. I don't think we can extrapolate from either of these groups to all of Catholicism, but they are the only hard stats that I had.
That is great news!!! I too see in it some quarters this increased interests. In others I still see stagnation. But let us celebrate the vibrancy of faith and increase in seeking to nurture and express one's spiritual life that you are experiencing in your local congregation. Would that it were true everywhere.
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