The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - BONUS: Bringing the Bible Back to Catholics (with Jeff Cavins) (2024)

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and I want to welcome you to the Bible in a Year podcast. With me today is Mr. none other than the illustrious, the inimitable, the incomparable, the infamous Mr. Jeff Cavins. Hey, good to be with you. Jeff, I'm so grateful. Actually, we're going to, as we kick off off this podcast, this Bible in a Year podcast, one of the things that I think needs to be said before anything else is that this Bible in a Year podcast is following basically a template that you

designed, that you came upon when it came to the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, which has probably, I don't want to just start this whole thing off by going over the top, but for me, I've said this many times, I've told this to anyone who asks or anyone who will listen, that Great Adventure Bible Timeline was the most significant tool that I've ever encountered, that I've ever used, that has gotten me more—nothing has been better to get me more deeply into the Bible than the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. And I'm just really grateful, not only for you and for that, but also that here you are now, as we begin this Catholic Bible—or the Bible in a Year podcast, that we get to use this thing that has changed my life maybe more than any other study

I've ever done in my entire life. So thank you. Wow. Well, I appreciate that very much. And you and I have known each other for quite a while, and it's a lot of fun getting together because we talk about the Word of God constantly, and we're always sharing insights. And myself included, you mentioned the tool as far as your own life, mine too. People come up so often and they say, wow, that really changed my life, the Bible timeline. I said, well, not as much as mine. I had no idea. And we can talk about that a little bit later, but I had no idea that when I was 25 years old,

that a 48-hour period was going to define the rest of my life, and I was going to live in it. But it speaks of the story, really not us, but the story of salvation history, and that's what you're going to be bringing people through. So it's going to be exciting. Yeah, I'm overwhelmingly excited about it, not only for anyone who's going to be listening to this and going to be journeying with us, but for even the people that I know that are in my life, so I have a sister and a brother-in-law, I have a couple of sisters and brothers-in-law, but one in particular who got the Great Adventure Bible maybe, I guess, maybe three or four months ago now. And maybe a little longer than that. I think it was April. Who knows? Time just all happens. But she not only got the Great Adventure Bible, but she also was like, hey, what's a good Bible study?

I'm like, okay, the Great Adventure Bible timeline, you need to do it. So she and her husband started it. And I was over at their house a couple of days ago and I picked up her Great Adventure Bible and I saw that that ribbon was still somewhere in the book of Genesis. And I'm like, oh, I'm so grateful

because the podcast is going to help people who are trying to get through, who just like, you know, you kind of bottom out sometimes, or you just kind of get the log jam becomes so much that it's like, oh, how do I break through to the next book and keep on moving? Because that's one of the things that I found when it came to reading the Bible and when it came to doing the Great Adventure Bible timeline is that sometimes it was like, oh shoot, I can't sit down right now, or I'm not finding the time or making the time to sit down and reading through the next section. That whole idea behind the podcast is like, okay, no, you just get to let the Word of God kind of wash over you in a different

way. And to be able to not just get through it, that's not the point, but to allow it to get through to you really by the Word of God being proclaimed. So not only for the people who will be listening, but also for my family members who, you know, all of us at times can struggle to, like, let's keep on going. Let's keep on moving through the Word of God and let it keep changing us and let it keep shaping our lens. keep shaping our lens. Well, in a nutshell, Father, it's probably good to share with those who are joining us. In a nutshell, what are you going to be doing over the entire year? And then be fun to go kind of deep into that and look at the Bible in our lives as Catholics and also in our lives individually. Personally, what does the Word of God mean to us? And I'm curious what it's meant to you. And I know it's meant the whole world to me. Yeah. Yeah. No, well, the idea behind the whole thing was,

so what I found myself doing is I found myself listening to a lot of, you and I have talked about this in various phone calls over the last six months. But one of the things I found myself doing was I was taking in all this input. I was listening to a lot of different voices when it came to different podcasts and YouTube videos, people who are teachers who I think like, you have something good to say, you have something wise to say that is enlightening and is informative. And it's actually forming me. But what I found was that there were times when I would listen to some of these people who, again, I'm grateful for, but I wasn't thinking with the mind of Christ. And so then what I would do is I would listen to scripture because I love audio books. And so one of the audio books I have

is the Bible. And I found that when I would listen to the Bible, I wouldn't just get more information. I wouldn't just be reminded of a story or introduced to a new story that maybe I had forgotten or whatever the thing is, a new element. But it was that my lens, my worldview was being shaped. And I don't know if you, I'm sure you've heard the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola when he had broken his leg and he was convalescing in, I think, his sister-in-law's house or something like this. And he used to read romance novels or stories of like the glory of knights and whatnot. And he'd also read stories of the saints and life of Jesus. And he said that after he read those stories of those knights, he said, during, while I

was reading them, I felt like charged up. I wouldn't want it to live like that. But afterwards, I had like a sugar crash. It was kind of like this disappointment he experienced versus reading the life of Christ. He was lifted up, but then afterwards he was sustained. It was like the sense of like, this was something not just inspiring, not just powerful, but it was something that was good and true and beautiful that had lasting effect. And that's what I found was I found that when I listened to scripture, that it had this lasting effect in me that, um, because it had shaped my lens of looking at the world. Um, and it reminded me of like, I just, here's an example.

Um, I was reading a book of judges and you know, that, that sense of the last line of in those days, there was no King in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes in that sense of man, the lawlessness kind of a sense or people who are striving after the Lord, but then unfaithful to him. And this, how God continued to work with their brokenness was one of the things that just, again, it kept reminding me as a touch point. It kept shaping how I was living through, I don't know, pandemic times and living through just trying to be with others in the midst of their brokenness and their crises of their lives.

And it just, again, it wasn't just like I got a nugget of, here's a nugget of truth, or here's a little kernel of something good. It was more like, again, my lens or the way I was looking at the world and really interpreting what I was going through, living through, was being shaped. It was being fashioned. And so that was a really big conviction of like, I think we need to do this from a real solidly Catholic perspective.

And I don't think of a more powerful perspective than to go through it via the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. Well, it's going to be so exciting because, you know, in the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, it's basically taking the entire Bible, and I've got, my office is filled with Bibles. I've got the Great Adventure Bible here, but it's taking the Bible that is, some would argue, it's the most complex book in the world. You know, it's going way back into creation, all the way to Revelation. And for some people, it's very difficult to read. They don't know how to read it. And what you're going to be doing, and I'm going to assist in any way that I can, is that you're going to take people through that entire journey from Genesis to Revelation, not just reading it like it is in the Bible,

but you're going to read it in chronological order so that they basically get the story. And I think that that's what's going to make this so different and so unique is that for a year, people are going to soak themselves in God's word and really get a hold of the story, not just the stories, which you and I could talk about the stories day and night, not just the stories, which you and I could talk about the stories day and night, but it's the story. And that story is really going to illuminate people's lives and give them direction in their life and correction, and it's going to give them hope and a foundation on which they can really trust the Lord. And let's admit it, most Catholics that we know of, I'm not talking about people who would follow you on social media or people who have gone through the Great Adventure, but Catholics in general in the country, they don't have that real personal relationship with the Word of God. And I think you're going to be bringing that to them.

Well, I think that you nailed it when you said that one of the things the Great Adventure timeline does, and I this podcast is is is shooting for is to get the story not just the stories and and i i love that because um so we were talking before we started recording about like our original our first bibles um and i went to get my first bible and i saw next to it my actual kind of first Bible, my first Bible is this one. It's the picture Bible, which is like a comic book Bible. It's awesome. It is this, like every page is, here's the- Did you underline? Did you highlight? Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. So I've underlined, highlighted notes. But this was, I mean, I got this for my first Holy Communion. So when I was in second grade, still have it. And I lent it to my little sister when her first Holy Communion, I lent it to my little brother, took it back after he got done with it.

And now what I do for all of my nieces and nephews is there is a new version of this called the Action Bible that they know, their parents know, that Uncle Father Mike is going to give them an Action Bible to all the second graders when they get it. Because part of it is, like you said, it can be so daunting for us as anyone, as Christians, specifically as Catholics, because I don't want to get it wrong. I think one of the things that as Catholics we have is going for us and kind of going against us is we don't want to get it wrong. We don't want to read it and

misinterpret it. We don't want to read it and misunderstand it. And so it's kind of like there's hesitation. And so what I've always wanted to do with my nieces and nephews is get them started by having something that's accessible. And then the really cool thing is my oldest nephew, I think he was the first one that I ever gave the Action Bible to, he went to one of our camps for engineer high, so sixth grade. And at camp, we said, you know, all campers, what we want you to do is we want you to get your Bible, your actual Bible, and read 10, 15 minutes a day. And Max is his name. Max just, he started doing it. I mean, he would have it in the car when his parents were driving him to this and that, and he'd just read the Bible. I remember being so struck by a couple things. One was years later, he's a senior this year,

so a couple years ago, one of his cousins, one of my nieces, second grade, got the Action Bible, and then her parents got her like a pack of trivia cards based off the Action Bible, just kind of like, and it was things like this. The first question was, who am I? And it had a list of identifiers. And the first identifier of this person, guess who I am, was son of Cush.

And Max, here he is as a, probably at that point, maybe 15 or 14 year old, maybe 15 year old. He was like, oh, King Saul. I'm like, what? Oh my gosh, how did you know that? He's like, well, it's in the Bible. And I, you told us that camp to read it 10 to 15 minutes a day. So of course I do. And I was just like, man, oh man. And even just last weekend, I was talking with him and the way that even just starting at sixth grade, and now he's in 12th grade, those six years of regular, not perfect, but regular

exposing himself to Scripture, he just knew so much. We just came out in a normal conversation of just, oh, this is such and such about Scripture. And that's the thing is like, that's the goal, right? That's one of the things we want is for all Catholics, not just those who've gone through the Great Adventure and not just those who, as you said, social media or here on our campus, but all Catholics to be able to say, this is accessible to me and I know it, like it gets in my bones. So my question for you, I'm gonna throw this back to you,

is when did you first let the word of God, when did it first impact you and get in your bones? I know exactly when it was. Exactly. Give me a moment here. I'll tell you exactly when it got a hold of me. And I got a picture of it. Seriously? I got a picture of the time.

Yeah, I got a picture. It was 19... And it was my first communion. It was 1971, May 1st, 1971. I was confirmed and I received two Bibles for my confirmation. And that night when I got home, absolute... I'm telling you exactly what happened here. I took that Bible and I was just like, whoa, the Bible. And I put it on my end table and I looked at it and I thought, how do I read it? I want to read this. I was just drawn to it.

And so I came up with this amazing plan. And that is I would open it up in Genesis, and I would read one verse a night. And then by the time I was old, say 30, I will have read all of it. Well, that lasted about two weeks, and the Bible still sat there all of those years. And here's a picture of me and my mother and my Bible the night of my confirmation. I don't know if you can see that. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. So I actually got a picture of it. And from that point on, I was always attracted to the Bible, but I didn't actually read it. And I think part of it was that nobody expected me to. I was really

never invited to. And for sure, nobody ever taught me how to read the Bible. And I personally think that's one of the biggest problems that we face is that we don't teach our children how to read the Bible. But then it was when I was 18 years old, I was a college student and I was attracted to Emily, who had become my wife one day. And I went over to her house and her mother was a real strong Bible Christian. And I went into the kitchen and there was a Bible opened up and she sat there with this 18-year-old kid, long hair down to here and bell-bottom jeans and everything. And she sat and she started talking to me from the

Bible that God loved me and that God had a plan for my life. And I'll tell you what, I mean, you're 18 years old. You're not attracted to just middle-aged women teaching religion, you know? But it was that Bible. It was her relationship with the Bible that it just drew me in. And I wanted to know this Bible. I wanted to know the God of the Bible. This is my mother-in-law's Bible, the Bible she had that day. I first met her, she passed away last year, but this is Alice's well-worn Bible that she read to me. And so this is very, very important. And you've got different Bibles, I'm sure too. And I've got, this is my grandfather's Bible. And it's probably my most treasured possession

because it still has in it the bulletin from the week he died right in that place. And he underlined verses. He wrote things in the column. And this is near to my heart. So yeah, that's where the Bible really came alive to me. Well, your grandfather, so he was a Catholic Bible reader? No, he wasn't actually. And I didn't know. When it came to my dad's side of the family,

I really didn't know their faith that well until after they had passed away. And then all of a sudden we realized, wow, he was deep into scripture. And he could have just passed away and without the Bible, I wouldn't have known much, but the Bible left me a legacy. That's the word, legacy. It left me traces of, what's that? That word legacy, it's been kind of turning around in my heart and my mind lately and what you're describing. I was just thinking of that, both with your mother-in-law and your grandfather here. Yeah, yeah.

The touch points to me were my mother-in-law, my grandfather, my confirmation night. And then at 18 years of age, when I really got serious about serving the Lord, the Bible really became the focus of my life. And I couldn't even return to my college classes, literally. And my parents were not real happy about that. But I would sit outside the classroom with this Bible that I bought and I just read it and read it and read it. And it has really become my life. And for me,

the Bible is, it is my life. Now, I don't mean that in the sense of the sacraments are not, you know, or anything like that. But, you know, when you're going through tough times in your life, like now with so many people who are struggling with, you know, worldwide pandemic, election results, whatever it might be, you know, have health problems, just literally walking into my living room and seeing my Bible on the counter or on the coffee table, it just brings hope to me knowing there's someone who doesn't change. There's someone I can build my life on, that is Jesus Christ. And he actually wrote me letters to guide me and direct me and to comfort me and correct me and show me who I am and what his plan is for my life. And so I've never left the Bible. And I get excited every

time someone picks one up and says, I'm getting it. I'm getting it. I love it. That's awesome. You mentioned you had your first, I had my picture Bible, but at one point I knew I was in high school and it was probably 1991, I think was when it was. So 30 plus years ago or 30 less, I don't know, 29. I'm not sure. I'm not good at math. Let's read the Bible. I had asked my parents for Christmas for a Bible of my own, like an adult Bible. I remember specifically saying, own, like an adult Bible. I remember specifically saying, can I have an adult Bible, like a big kid's Bible?

And it was this New American Bible that has been, I've duct taped it. This is like the, I think the fourth of duct taped together. But just like, even I look back through this and I think like, here are not just my markings, like just my notes inside the Bible that I'll go back to when I was in high school. And reading is particularly,

you mentioned like when it came to like having that word of hope that you know is inside. You don't even have to necessarily even pick it up sometimes just to be like, nope, there it is. That's God's word to me. I remember just how many times

going to confession, even in high school, and having the priest say, okay, go home and read Psalm 51. And so just like, this is the Bible that I got to know, Psalm 51, this Psalm of David in his repentance and asking for forgiveness and being forgiven. The Lord washed me more and more from my sin.

And it's just like, the Bible almost falls open to that page in so many ways because it's like, even back in high school, these priests would direct me to read the Bible even after confession as that sense of like, not just as your penance, but also get back to the Lord's word. Let him speak through you words that you don't even necessarily have in you. And that's the thing too, is like right when we read the Lord's word that he's giving us words that we don't even have sometimes. That if I could say,

if I could pray a prayer of repentance, it would sound like this, but I don't have those words. And so I can pray them because God has given us the words. It's just so incredible. You know what some people do with their Bible, which you're explaining it in your Bible right there.

You're going back to high school and you can look in there and you can actually see evidence of where your heart has been. Yeah. And that is that legacy. When you pass away someday, let's say 100 years from now, your nieces and nephews are going to want that because that's where uncle mike lived that's where father mike lived and they're going to want it you know and i bought this bible my first one right here i got a leather cover on it now but in the blank pages at the front and back here i literally wrote down personal stuff that was going on. And like, for example, listen to this. This is before we were engaged. Emily and I agreed that God would show us what he wanted us

to do for our lives. And then I give the date when we were engaged. And then after that, I talk about first week in July, we found out we're going to have a baby. This was big news for us. It was just unbelievable. I wrote this in my Bible. Emily felt the first move of the baby, November 10th, 1984. And I have on the whole page, all of the movements all the way to when Carly was born. That's in my Bible. I have so much like that in here. And then, you know, I spent so much time in the Bible just writing. And you can see it's kind of messed up these days, though. And so I had to get my Great Adventure Bible and start on that now as well. Well, let's talk a little bit about what exactly we're going to be doing.

I should say you because you're going to be on every single day. Maybe the best thing is just to speak of the structure of the entire year, which the great adventure, I'll kind of build that structure, and then you fill in what you're going to do, because I think it's going to be exciting. If you're going to read through the Bible in chronological order, you have to know how to do it, because if you go from Genesis and then hope to go all the way to Revelation, you're not going to get it. Trust me. Nobody's going to get it if they just do that. They're going to be like, okay, I'm starting in January, Genesis,

February, Exodus, March, Leviticus. I quit. I'm done. Right. And so what we're going to do is follow the structure of the Bible timeline, and that is we're going to go through 12 periods. In other words, the entire Bible is divided up into 12 color-coded periods, and that's what the Bible timeline chart is about, which people certainly can get. And then out of the 73 books of the Bible, we're picking the 14 narrative books. That is the books that actually take you through the entire story. So you've got Genesis, and you've got Exodus, and you've got Numbers, and then you've got Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Luke, and Acts. And those are the 14, and you're going to be reading through those. But then what about the other 59 books?

Well, you're going to be, and I think this is brilliant, you're going to be sprinkling those other 59 books into those 14 books. So they're going to get a taste of, I don't know what a prophet sounds like in the midst of kings. And I think that that's going to be a lot of fun. So that's kind of the structure. You take it from there. Yeah, no, and thank you for that because that was the whole, it was kind of the revolutionary part of this. There are, I think, a number of Bible in a Year reading plans. There are probably even a number of Bible in a Year podcasts that exist. But I don't know of any that, A, follow the narrative

books, and B, have, like you said, the sprinkling of those other books and trying to have them as much in context as possible. Because, I mean, gosh, think about, like you said, here are the prophets. Well, just to kind of dive in, that's kind of what we about, like you said, here are the prophets. Well, just to kind of dive in, that's kind of what we do at Mass, right? We have the lectionary, and all of a sudden, in the first Sunday of Advent, we're, here's Isaiah 63, 64, and then the second Sunday of Advent,

we have Isaiah 40, and like, okay, well, what is the context for this? And so the idea behind this whole thing that we wanted to do was contextualize the entire Bible, right? To have that, here's part of the story and here's Isaiah speaking into this problem that's going on with, you know, the kingdom of Judah. And that sense of like being able to say, here's the call to repentance is now specific to these people, but also obviously timeless in the sense that it's our call as well.

So right off the bat, if anyone's downloaded the Bible in a Year reading plan, you can see that after day 11, we have, you know, Genesis 1 through 11, or day 5, Genesis 1 through 11, with some Psalms in there and Proverbs and whatnot. And then we kick off, here is the story of the patriarchs or the era of the patriarchs. And you have Genesis 12 and we start at the beginning of the book of Job as well. That's the kind of like this, okay, this parallel track of not only the unfolding of the patriarchs, but also here's the story of this man, Job, who asks the most ancient of questions, if God is good, then why do I suffer? If God is good, then why am I going through what I'm going through? And so it's just this remarkable, I think it's really cool. And also when we get to Exodus, that's when

we begin Leviticus, which would be then kind of this, again, simultaneously as we unfold the law in Leviticus, we also are hearing the story of God setting his people free in Exodus and saying, okay, I need to give you some structure to your lives as I begin to build you up into a new people. And just, I mean, really excited about that, how that all will fit together. So we'll be reading every day, as I said, something from the narrative books until we get halfway into the year, give or take, we're going to be really living with the prophets because there's more prophets than there are narrative books. But up until then, we have like some narrative and then we have those, I don't want to say

ancillary books or supplementary because they're all still verifiably the Word of God. It's all the Word of God. Exactly. With some commentary and not a ton of commentary in the sense of it's not necessarily a study every day, but it's meant to kind of pull out some nuggets every day of just, here's something that might be difficult to understand, or here is something that just, it's worth reflecting on, or it's worth like, let's just underline and highlight this phrase or this idea in this particular section that God is trying to

communicate to us. And so it's meant to be in some ways a guided tour as well as it's just proclamation. And that's one of the things I love about the idea of the podcast is here is the word of God proclaimed out loud. And I think in so many ways that I know for myself, I learn best through my ears. And especially the word of God, what I've found is it gets to my heart more quickly when it goes through my ears. I don't know why, but maybe it's because the word of God meant to be proclaimed. Well, scripture says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's why. So yeah. Well, what do you think, what's your hope? What's your hope for, you know,

we have so many friends around the world that are on this journey with us. What do you hope they will get out of this? I mean, this is a year. It's a few minutes a day, but it's a year. We're promising some things. One is we're going to go through the whole Bible. We're going to go through the whole story. You're going to get some commentary, but what do you hope for them personally in this journey? Yeah, no, thanks. That's a great question. Because my hope originally was this vision of changing one's vision. Like really was that, was allowing oneself to be like shaped, fashioned by the word of God. So that was it. I mean, that was my first, that's all I can see this as, as just like we're allowing God himself to fashion us with his word.

So we're looking at the world differently. But then I was thinking more and more about it and thinking, you know, there's a certain rootedness as well that I just would love for more and more Catholics to become more deeply grounded, not just in, not quote unquote, just in the word of God, but in God's will itself. I think a lot of times, not only do we struggle to know how to read the Bible, I think a lot of us struggle with knowing how to pray. And so not just here's a fashion, my worldview, but also this is now allowing me to find myself and my rootedness in hearing God's word proclaimed and then meditating on God's word. Like really, truly to be able to turn that, transition this, not just from information,

but to real transformation by the power of prayer. So I'm meditating on God's word and it's actually changing not only the way I see the world, that's the vision stuff, but it's changing how I now relate with the Lord. Like I really talk to God in a new way because his heart has been revealed to me by what he's done through these narrative books, what he's done through his word, what he's done through his prophets. And then thirdly, I have the sense I'm becoming more and more convicted as we get closer and closer to this kind of the start off, kickoff date, is the community that I believe this will form online.

I think the online community of people going through, that you've experienced this when it comes to the Great Adventure, well, all of your Bible studies, that you have a group of people coming together. I just got a picture just yesterday from a group in China. Really? Studying, yeah.

That's phenomenal. And so that sense of like, they're probably together, but there's that certain element, I think of all the people who will be listening that there's a sense of like, okay, I'm not doing this alone. Here I am on day 63,

I'm gonna continue not only because I'm getting formed and I'm getting more deeply related to the Lord, but also because I'm going to continue not only because I'm getting formed and I'm getting more deeply related to the Lord, but also because I am not alone. And that my hope is that there's a community of people that are praying with each other and praying for each other as we're listening to the word of God and journeying through the word of God. Yeah, that's my third hope. So there's three things, that vision, that rootedness in prayer, and then that there's a community of people that comes out of this that's willing and able to support

each other in prayer and intercession and brotherhood and sisterhood. I do have a hope, I guess myself too. I would piggyback on what you're saying there. Over the last, I don't know, five years or so, the Lord has really impressed on me that I'm not just a Christian, not like that's bad or anything, but I'm not just a Christian. I'm a disciple of Jesus. I'm committed. He said, come follow me. I'm chosen.

You're chosen. And I'm chosen not to just study. And I'm chosen not to just study. I'm chosen to follow him, to pick up his worldview, and to do his word, to accomplish his kingdom and what his will is. And one thing I've learned, Father, and I know you have too, is that Jesus said, do not be afraid more than anything else combined. Do not be afraid. And I ask, well,

what's there to be afraid of if I'm going to be following you? I mean, everything's taken care of. It's going to be great every day. Why would I be afraid? And the answer is, is because if you follow Jesus as a disciple, you aren't going to go and meet people you never thought you would meet. You're going to be in situations you never thought you would be in, and you're gonna do things and say things that you never, it's not my gift. And one thing I've learned, Father, is that in the kingdom of God,

to be a disciple doesn't have a lot to do with giftedness. It has to do with passion and relationship. And so for me, to get in deep into scripture is to really get close to Jesus, our Lord, and to find out what do you want me to do? And then to know I've got the power to do it. And so my hope is that there'll be thousands and thousands of people who will go beyond

reading, listening, and they'll do it. And we'll see a movement in the world of people are saying, you know what? I wanna enter this story. I don't wanna just read about it. I want in, which is through the sacraments. I want in, I wanna be empowered. I wanna start living the great adventure in my life.

That's really, I guess, what my hope is on top of what you're saying. Oh, that's incredible. Because it is that sense of here is the story, but I'm finding my story in the story and I'm finding myself. So it's not just an ancient book, well, full of wisdom, but it is speaking to me right now

and calling me to act in a certain way right now. Like that sense of, I think, again, we both have experienced that when it comes to, I know that when I first started reading the Bible, a lot of what I was looking for was answers. I was looking for answer, not just into some of the big questions of life. I was looking for answers of like, what should I do?

What can I do right now? God, are you calling me this way or that way? And I wanted to play the Bible roulette, you know, where it's just like flip open the book and I put my finger down the page and it's like, go be a priest now or don't go be a priest, marry Karin. You know, like the sense of like, I didn't find that to ever be to be the case. What about my life, Lord?

Jesus wept. But in that, over the course of time, realizing just because I wasn't getting an answer to that specific question in the specific way that I wanted, every time I went back to the word of God, God was calling me forward. Not just like, here's another thing to know, but here is my voice. And gosh, and you've taught me so much about this but in so many ways you know jesus says uh i know my sheep and they know me and they recognize my voice and they do not recognize the voice of strangers but they do recognize my voice and the more and more i think that we expose ourselves to god's word the more and more we know like oh this is the voice of god versus no that is the voice of a counterfeit or that's the voice of the destroyer or the thief, the liar.

And yeah, I think so many, so many of us can be really held hostage by those false voices. I think too many of us maybe are held hostage by those, those, the voice of the, the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. And too few of us know how to really, really, truly identify the voice of our Lord, the voice of the shepherd, who calls us to, obviously, repentance, but calls us to freedom, calls us to life, and reminds us, like your mother-in-law had said,

"'Jeff, here is what God wants to say about you, "'about how he sees you and his love for you. That's so good. Kind of shifting gears a little bit, you and I have talked about this a lot. And for those of you joining us, Father Mike and I have a lot in common about things, about Bibles and about writing in our Bibles.

And along this journey, we're gonna introduce some new ideas, I think, you know, pop them in. I'm not going to tell you what they all are right now, but we do have some surprises. But they're big. That's going to be big surprises. But I've got to ask you, and then I'll reveal the brand of pencils I use. Do you write in your Bible?

So I prefer to underline and to bracket in my Bible. I will write in the front and I'll write in the back. So you mentioned how you have some dates, some key moments in your life. I have on some of the pages, intro pages, I have things like some things that the Lord spoke to me through his word and through other people that I just like, here is this, these images. And they're almost a little bit too close. I don't know if I can say them out loud. And so I do write, but I don't necessarily always write little notes in the margin. But I know you do.

But you underline verses that will mean something to you or you're teaching from them? Yep, absolutely. And I have so many. Oh, gosh. And also, because of you as well, highlighter. So I have different colors of highlighter when it comes to like, here's breaking down some ideas. I mean, there are so many areas in here. Every one of the gospels is just marked with pink and blue and yellow and it's great that i've been using i've been using and we'll share this as we go along but i've been using this brand here uh called caran d'ache it's a swiss brand and i like it i use i use colored pencils i'll show you the colored pencils here there you go i use colored pencils to highlight in my Bible, and I use pens to write in the column and so forth. But it's very personal, isn't it? I mean, you're underlining

things that pop. And I think that as people go through this year with you, they're going to be hearing it. It's a podcast. But we do encourage people to get the Bible and to take a moment that day and maybe highlight something that really meant something to you. You can even have color schemes, which we'll talk about later, but green can be growths, red can be no, stop, sin. And you can come up with, and it's a lot of fun actually to do it and to share it with other people of how you're getting into the Word of God and what... The Word of God is just so powerful that you could read it and I could read it, and 500 of our friends that are going to be joining us,

or thousands of them would read the same text, but they're going to hear it differently. God may speak to them in a different way than he speaks to us. And that's just the beauty of, and it speaks of the depth of God's word. And I think that by the time people are done with this year, their life's going to be different. I really do because of the power of the word of God. This is one of my favorite verses. And it's, I mean, it's no stranger to you. Obviously it's 2 Timothy 3.16. It says, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And I think that verse really kind of encapsulizes what you're

going to be doing is that the scripture is inspired. You might want to mention a little bit about inspiration because this isn't just another book. I mean, what makes this book so different? Yeah. Well, no, I'm glad you asked that question. Before that, though, I do want to emphasize what you had just said, which is, so when I'm reading, I'm reading from the Great Adventure Bible. And one of the things that can happen is I can hear it and then like, oh, that was really good. But if I don't have a way of capturing it, then it can elude me the next day.

And I'm like, oh yeah, I remember this. So what I need to do is even as I'm hearing, I need to go back and say, okay, like you said, here's the underline, here's the highlighting, or here's even that notation, because it's one of those things we are we can take in a lot of stuff but at some point the the sieve gets a little leaky yeah and and so i need to go back and and say that was this i need to have a like an actual tangible record

of even what i heard which i think is just so good. But you had said. Well, your Bible becomes kind of a spiritual diary in a sense, you know? I mean, you can go through it and you can see where you've been. Well, it's almost like one of those, those like map my run type apps, where you take the phone with you and you go on a bike ride, you go on a run or whatever,

and then it says this is where you were. And it's kind of good to be able to look back, it's like, I know where I was, but like, no, this is the route I took. And oh, on this corner, that's right. That's that big hill right there. And there's something about it that you have a record of where you've been

that then we have a greater sense of where we're going and what God is doing, as opposed to not having any record, just our memories. And how many times does scripture talk about like, remember, remember, remember what the Lord has done. Remember how he delivered your ancestors from slavery. Remember these things because why? Because we forget. God has to tell us to remember so often because we forget so often. Yeah. And so it's just, that's, I think that having that written recorded record is.

So, so you're going to be doing this every single day. It's going to be a podcast. People know about podcasts basically. And that is that on your, on your smartphone, you're going to carry this around with you. I think everyone's going to have a different time to listen to it. You know, some people are going to be listening on the way to work. Some people on the way home, you know, different, different, different times. But I think it's also a good thing to share with other people, of join me. You get your friends, say, hey, let's do it together. Let's do this together. And maybe at work or in the morning, whatever, we can get together and we can talk about it once a

week or whatever. Or if you're at work or at a church, the staff could even talk about it together a little bit. It might be a point of contact. Well, even as you noted, there are so many times where I'll listen to people who are coaching when it comes to parishes. And one of the things that happens in some of these coaching seminars or these great parishes, like Amazing Par parish being one of those things. They talk about how often staffs on parishes don't necessarily talk about their faith. They don't actually talk about their relationship with the Lord. They are just doing the business of running a parish or serving their parishioners. And so this could be one of those really like, what do you call like easy easy access, low barrier of entry kind of ways for having that discussion of saying,

on the way to work, I listened to the podcast at 1.5 speed and I got through the whole thing in 10, 15 minutes or whatever the thing it takes because there's an opportunity there. I've actually, when you mentioned that, on the way to work, that was the thing. I remember talking with this man named Todd and Todd owns a CrossFit gym in Baxter. He used to before he moved down to Florida with his family. And he was saying, he's like, Hey, I joined the gym with

my sister and brother-in-law. They were there and they said, Hey, come along with us. And so I'm talking to Todd. And at one point he's talked about his commute to work at four in the morning to be there before the 5 a.m. class. And I said, what do you do on that drive? He's like, oh, no, no, no, that's the favorite part, my favorite part of the day is my drive in. I was like, how come? He's like, because I listen to the Bible.

And I'm like, really? And he's like, yeah, I just love, that's part of my devotions every morning as I'm driving to my gym and I'm listening to God's word, and it just shapes the rest of my day. And even him saying that sparked our conversation about, I mean, he knew I was a priest and everything, but it gave like permission to be able to talk about the deeper things because he had been shaped that morning by God's word and just it was living inside of him.

And I think that that is one of the goals. who's living inside of him. And I think that that is one of the goals. I have to admit that I listen to the Bible on my phone as well, or I might listen to a favorite podcast on my phone. And so sometimes I'm like, oh, I wanna hear, I wanna listen to the rest of that. Honey, do you need anything at the store?

I need to get back in the car. Can I go back in the car and listen to it? You know, another great idea would be, and people are always looking for ideas on how to incorporate scripture into their life, is, well, what if a family has, they have two teenagers or three teenagers or junior high kids,

and maybe this could become a point during dinner, it's not gonna be that long, maybe after dinner or dinner, where you could play this and discuss a little bit as well. I mean, it's not going to be that long and maybe people could use it in creative ways that way. Love to hear their ideas. Well, it's such an, yeah, that's the thing is like, I think this out of this community are going to be a lot of ideas of what, what works, what doesn't work, what's worked for some

people and some families, what's worked for some individuals. And I think that that could be a, again, I just, I'm looking forward to the community that's going to be formed out of this interceding on behalf of each other, but also giving each other ideas of like, here's how, I mean, like you mentioned, you can share podcasts. So here is a poignant reading from scripture that like struck someone. They actually have the ability to share, share to their family members, share to friends, share to social media and say, this was something that struck me today of God's word that has changed my day, has changed my heart. Yeah, and you've had such a big impact

on young adults and teens. And I know you have a big impact on adults as well. You're just that guy. You have an impact on everybody. But how many people would like to say, well, I wish I could ask Father Mike a question. And in 365 days, I would think you're probably going to be addressing a lot of people's questions and what they're asking in life. And sometimes they don't even know until it's brought

up and they go, oh my gosh, I've been dealing with that in my own life, and it's going to become a wonderful tool there. Real quickly, I just want to share a little bit about the Great Adventure Bible, because this is what you're going to be using. It's unlike any other Bible, and kudos to Ascension Press. I mean, they did a great job of taking the idea of reading the Bible in chronological order and putting the Bible timeline chart actually into the book. And so it's different in that, and if this is on the side, you can see it's color-coded. And the Bible, the Great Adventure Bible takes the entire Bible and divides it into 12 periods,

color-coded, give you a crude look at that. That's the chart I can show you. And then on the back, you've got... So it takes the entire Bible and puts it into 12 color-coded periods, and then it shows you the 14 books. Those are the books that go through the entire Bible, and then the other 59 fit somewhere in there. And that's kind of the beauty of the Bible there. But it also has in it a wonderful article on how to interpret Scripture, and it also has an article on how to pray Scripture or do Lectio Divina, and an introduction on how to use the Bible. So if people don't have a Bible,

I really encourage you to get one that you can live in. That means write in it. Some people, they'll probably say this to you too, Father, and say, oh, I could never write in my Bible. So I say, fine, put that Bible on the shelf, go buy another one that you can write in. Right, fine. Let's give yourself permission to do that.

Yeah, and it's usually, isn't it the first time you write in it, that's the toughest, isn't it? Well, yeah, because you just, you want to keep it clean. Do you bullet journal? I do a bullet journal, but I'm starting to do something a little different, yeah.

But in that, I started doing that a bunch of years ago, probably also from you. And you see people's layouts or their spreads and you're like, oh, I need to make it perfect. And then you get to the place where you have to cross stuff out and like, well, I need a new journal now because I had to cross stuff out, it doesn't look perfect.

But when you start writing in your Bible and you're like, oh, I misspelt this word, I had to cross it out and re-correct, like, oh, it's okay. Like, it's completely fine to be able to mark up your Bible and not have it look pristine because, I mean, also that's kind of life in many, many ways. Well, you know what I did?

Go ahead, go ahead. I'm gonna show you an example of that. You go for it. I was gonna change the subject. Okay, so I did that. I started with this Bible, the first one I bought. I underlined so carefully, you know, and I had my color system and everything, and I was only going to use this one pen. Then I started getting this, oh, that's such

a cool verse. Anybody got a pen? And I started writing with everything. And then I wanted to highlight, and I got a wet marker, not even knowing what happens when you put a wet marker on Bible paper. And so in 1 Corinthians 13, I did it. Now, this is perfection. Yeah, that looks amazing. And the problem with it was it also highlighted chapters 14 and 15 on the other side. And I'm like, no. I've ruined my Bible. I've used it all these years.

And it's sort of like, you know what? I bought a brand new Subaru and everything was just perfect. And then I came out from a store one time and someone had dinged the side of my Subaru. I'm like, no, it's wrecked now. It's wrecked. I'm going to have to get a new one. That's life. That's life.

And you're going to make mistakes when you highlight in your Bible. That's all part of it. It's you and it's life. And you're gonna make mistakes when you highlight in your Bible, but that's all part of it. It's you and it's life and just jump in and do it. Yeah, one last thing before we might have to end our time right now, but you mentioned holding up the Bible timeline and the whole, the color coded, and we get to the messianic age being the gold.

One great thing about this is we had looked at this and said, wait, we have these 14 narrative books. If we're going to be doing this chronologically, we won't get to the New Testament until, I don't know, somewhere around November. And that doesn't seem right. And so what we were able to do was we were able to insert Messianic checkpoints. And so roughly three-ish months into the timeline, three months into the podcast, we have a week of the gospel. And we go through one gospel in roughly a week every quarter. And so that sense of being able to even just kind of zoom out and say, okay, you know what has been said, which is here is the Old Testament hidden or revealed in the new and the New Testament hidden in the old, these messianic

checkpoints being opportunities of like, I'm so excited about them too, because I just keep imagining and just anticipating the community of people who will be listening and going through the Bible with us to be able to take in an entire gospel in a week and just to allow it to just like, that was the story. That was how Mark, how, you know, Peter proclaimed the gospel via Mark. And here's how Matthew proclaimed the gospel via his gospel, you know, and just, I love this, how it's going to happen. And just to know that around the world, there are Catholics who are going to be hearing the entire gospel in one week at four different times throughout the course of the year.

And it's like, oh, it's genius. Whoever thought of that, give them a raise. And if anybody thinks, you know, as I go through, I don't know, I've never done this before, maybe I'll get confused. With your permission, I think I'm going to be joining you once in a while to sort of explain the major movements, you know, that you come, all of a sudden you're reading and then, oh, okay, I'm going to come in with timeout, which you're about to enter here. Let me tell you where you're going. And then you're going to take them right through there. So I'm going to come in here and there to just sort of give the historical, okay, here's where you're going to be walking. And this is where most people get lost.

Right, right. Which I'm excited for and really honored that you're willing to do that because, again, if there's anyone... I sound like I began this whole thing with maybe too much praise. Not true, not too much praise. I don't want to end up with too much praise, but I don't think any one person has taught me more about Scripture than you have. And that's nine years of theology, undergrad and major seminary, and even studying afterwards, I don't think there's anyone who's taught me more. And so I'm so grateful for your willingness to do that as well, not only to create this, but also to continue to contribute to it. It's not a praise party, but I'll tell you, you, I don't know of anyone

who has really had such an impact on people at such a basic level of follow Jesus, follow Jesus. And the way, what you're saying and the way you communicate, it resonates with people. And that's why I think this project that was your idea is going to yield incredible fruit. And we need to remember to be in prayer for everybody that is going through this because their life is going to be transformed by the power of the word.

You know, the scripture says, my word, which goes out, does not return empty. It will accomplish that which i purposed and and this book is unlike any other book it's not just data it's transformation and if it gets into your heart prepare yourself you're going to get changed you're going to get changed if you'll submit yourself to it so good ah thank you amen it's going to be good should we pray for all of those who are going to be going through it? And how do people get in touch? How do people get in touch?

Yes. So they can go to wherever they're listening to their podcast and they can subscribe. Just go to Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz. They can also text the word Catholic Bible, which is two words, but scrunch them together with no spaces. Catholic Bible to the number 33777. Or they can download the Bible reading plan by going to ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. It's all one word again, Bible in a year, ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. And they'll get the reading plan and they'll get

updates. And it's, yeah, that's the best way to get in contact and get connected should we both pray we'll pray for our i'll open it i'll just pray and then if you want to conclude uh that'd be great in the name of the father son and the holy spirit amen lord i thank you for your word i thank you lord for coming to us and inviting us to be a part of the life of the Trinity. I thank you for choosing us to not only know your ways, but to be involved in your kingdom and your plan for the world. I thank you, Lord, for Father Mike and what's going to take place over a year's period of soaking people in your word. And I do pray, Lord, for all those who are going to join us, that their lives would be transformed, that they would become like you in thought and deed, in every way. I pray that this will be a new beginning for people as they have a relationship

with you through your word. Father, we ask that you please hear this prayer and receive our thanks, Father, we ask that you please hear this prayer and receive our thanks, receive our praise. Thank you for not withholding yourself from us, but for giving yourself to us so fully through your word and through your word made flesh by giving us sacred scripture, by giving us sacred tradition, by giving us this teaching office of the church

that we can just, we can stand upon your promises. We can stand upon your truth. We can stand upon your truth. We can stand upon all that you've revealed to us. And we just give you praise and thank you for this. Thank you for giving us this opportunity. Thank you for the technology that exists, that not only are we able to have this conversation now, but we're able to, wherever we are,

have access to your word proclaimed to us. Thank you for this opportunity to do this Bible in a Year podcast. And we thank you in advance for all that you will accomplish in us and through this. May you be praised and glorified. May you be loved throughout the world and especially in our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Talk later. Thanks.