Inheriting my dad's Bible
NOTE: I began writing this piece in 2025. It sat in a stack of unpublished drafts for nearly a year. I have made minimal edits in order to preserve its original tone.
Our story sort of begins in the fall of 2024. I was a lapsed Catholic for roughly two decades. I’m not sure entirely why, but something caused me to download the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) and start reading it on mobile. For those of you unfamiliar, this is a pretty common English translation of the Catholic Bible. It sort of evolved into a one year Bible challenge. I wanted to read chronologically. By Holy Week, I had made it all the way to the first Book of Samuel.
During Holy Week, I decided to skip ahead into the New Testament in order to read the Passion. Upon finishing the Gospel, I moved on to Acts without a second thought. I made it through Acts and into the Letters of St. Paul. On my dad’s birthday, I asked my stepmom if she had any of my dad’s old physical Bibles laying around. The page below is where I left off on Kindle — Chapter 2 of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
Intro: Everything Happens in Due Time.
My dad passed away in May of 2018. Back then, I worked in the food industry and Sundays off were a luxury reserved for vacation. As I journeyed back into faith this year, I got hold of two of his Bibles — a New American Bible (Catholic Bible) and a King James Version. By some set of strange coincidence or perhaps Divine architecture, his NAB had two passages marked at least seven years ago yet somehow contextually relevant to my life today — eerily so.
Seven years ago, my father was undergoing aggressive chemotherapy for stage four lung cancer. He had one foot on each side of the door. He was a man who loved to work with his hands — even in that state, nearing the end of his life. I remember speaking to him about it as we dug mulch at my grandmother’s house.
Unbeknownst to me, in that state, he had already marked two Bible passages for me to read when the time had come.
2025: The Time Has Come
I opened his Bible and decided to continue where I had left off digitally. I found my way to the Letter to the Galatians. The image below is exactly what I discovered. As you can see below in high resolution, my dad had creased St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. I’m not sure when he did this, but flipping through his Bible, this is the only spot that I can find creased in the entire thing. He didn’t just crease the beginning, he creased the entire letter — only for me to discover when I continued my personal read in his Bible — at least seven years later.
There was one other passage marked, 1 Kings 12. You can actually see the ad that he used as a bookmark back in 2017. The context of this passage is disturbingly relevant to my faith journey at the time of inheriting his Bible.
In this passage, Rehoboam, King of Judah, inherits the kingdom from his father, Solomon. His rival to the North, Jeroboam, the King of Israel, erects two golden calves in Bethel and in Dan — to prevent his people from worshipping in Jerusalem. The people begin worshipping these calves and they’re told that these calves, not the Living God, brought them out of Egypt. From there on, the Northern Kingdom of Israel falls into idolatry. Rehoboam’s pride and self image played directly into this and influenced the rest of Israel’s history.
Rehoboam’s Pride
Rehoboam travels to Shechem in Northern Israel. The people of the Northern Kingdom had been oppressed during Solomon’s reign. They asked his son for mercy. Here is that same passage but from the Douay-Rheims.
“Thy father laid a grievous yoke upon us: now therefore do thou take off a little of the grievous service of thy father, and of his most heavy yoke, which he put upon us, and we will serve thee.”
He then sought the advice of elders around who told him to show mercy and lighten the load. However, Rehoboam didn’t like this idea. He asked some of his younger peers for advice instead. These young men encouraged Rehoboam to increase their load.
“And now my father put a, heavy yoke upon you, but I will add to your yoke: my father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.”
Rather than showing mercy to his slaves, Rehoboam was overcome with pride. Instead of making their lives easier, he needed to show them who’s boss. He needed to punish them for asking for help. This led directly to Israel anointing Jeroboam as their king and seceding from the unified kingdom ruled by David and Solomon.
The Death of Pride
In Psalm 50/51, we learn, “a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” I’m not sure how others feel this prayer, but every time I say it, my entire being asks God to crush and humble my heart. God answers our prayers.
After going to confession for the first time in 20 years, I finished my confession and the priest asked if there was anything else I wanted to talk about before saying the Prayers of Absolution.
“Well, there’s one thing I guess. I’m not sure if this is technically sinful or not. My wife and I met outside the Church, neither of us was religious at the time. We didn’t get married in the Church, we had a courthouse wedding.”
He wasn’t angry or mean. He responded very gently and said, “If I had known that, I wouldn’t have given you Communion. It’s okay because you didn’t know and I didn’t know either but I’m not supposed to give it.”
He then asked, if she was Melkite or if she hated the Catholic Church to which I replied “no” and “no.” He was looking for a way in which he could help us. I think he could sense that we’d both been wounded deeply in the Roman Church when we were younger. He then explained that his hands are basically tied, that we’re Latin, so we’re under Latin Canonical law and that we need to get our marriage recognized by the Latin Church by way of a Roman Catholic priest.
He then placed his stole over my head and proceeded with prayers of Absolution. As one might expect, my penance revolves around restoring my Sacramental situation in the Latin Church, not to shame me or my wife, but so the Church can witness my marriage and perhaps my relationship with the Latin Church can heal.
Until my Sacramental situation changes, I’m back in the Latin Church and abstaining from Communion. A couple Catholic friends have told me to receive anyway and I get the idea. However, doing so feels like a real violation of my penance. I don’t think God put this in front of me for nothing.
At the moment, I honestly couldn’t receive without embracing pride or deception in my heart. I’ve taken my marriage vows seriously for 11 years and that’s not going to stop. I inherit Catholicism from my dad — just like I inherited his Bible.