Are we up for the challenge?

​It’s Good Friday, a holy day that always seems deeply personal to me. That’s an essay I’ll save for another time. 

Here’s the news that got me out of bed this morning: One in three Americans says he or she reads Scripture at least once a week. That doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. But where Catholics fall on the Scripture-reading scale does. The study from Pew Research reports that a quarter of Catholics read the Bible at least once a week and ranks us behind Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, evangelical protestants, historically black protestants, Muslims, mainline protestants and Orthodox believers. Here’s the study.

I’ve heard dozens of reasons why Catholics don’t crack open the Bible but, honestly, they sound like excuses to me. Reading the Bible isn’t easy. Studying it is harder. Praying over it more difficult still. Wrestling with it sometimes a wrenching experience. Some of us keep careful track of our daily steps and aim for 10,000. Are we not up for the challenge of reading the Bible?