Dr. John Bergsma led a two-day parish mission at St. Joseph, Rice Lake, March 21-22. (Catholic Herald photo by Jenny Snarski)
Jenny Snarski
Catholic Herald Staff
Rice Lake’s St. Joseph Church and clustered parishes welcomed almost 400 people between Friday night and Saturday morning for a two-day mission March 21-22.
According to parish Director of Evangelization and Discipleship Roland Flasch, most attendees were from the area, but some traveled from as far as Hudson and Minneapolis. Noted Bible scholar Dr. John Bergsma was invited to be the mission presenter on the recommendation of the cluster’s parochial vicar, Fr. Isaiah Schick.
Bergsma teaches theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and collaborates with Dr. Scott Hahn at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. An author and speaker, Bergsma converted to the Catholic faith while earning his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame after serving as a Protestant pastor. He and his wife Dawn are parents to eight children.
For the Friday evening presentation, Bergsma offered “Practical Tips for Living Out the Jubilee Year.” Having presented his doctoral thesis on the theme of “The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran” and written a book on “Jesus and the Jubilee,” he spoke from years of study and reflection.
The introduction of Bergsma’s book “Jesus and the Jubilee” recounts scenes from “Les Misérables” and highlights the role of story in understanding and relating to the biblical principle and need for God’s mercy. He writes, “These elements of story reflect spiritual realities that we experience in our daily lives, but they also harken back to God’s plan of salvation for all of humanity. In short: God created a world of peace and harmony that is shattered, and the rest of the biblical story recounts his relentless attempts to restore his original order.”
He goes on to assert, “What was true for the Israelites then is still true for us as Christians today. The jubilee year prescribed by God is not an extra or an add-on to our faith. It lies at the heart of God’s plan of salvation,” and adds that we are in constant need of the jubilee and what it brings, including forgiveness of debts, freedom for those in bondage, return to family and one’s home and an invitation to rest in God’s fullness.
In a handout, the speaker offered the following ideas for living out the Jubilee Year: frequenting the sacraments, going on pilgrimage (encouraging visits to local and national shrines if one cannot visit Rome or the Holy Land), performing works of mercy like feeding the hungry or visiting the sick, fasting for a day, giving to the poor, forgiving someone and fostering hope.
Bergsma concluded with the theme of hope, the virtue chosen by Pope Francis for the 2025 Jubilee Year. He commented that we should be praying optimistically rather than defensively: “God is honored when we believe in his power and step out boldly, like confident children who know their father ‘has their back.’”
On Saturday morning, Bergsma introduced his “How to Get Through the Bible in a Morning,” subtitling it “stuff I wish I had known when I was 12 years old.” He credited Hahn, founder of the St. Paul Center where Bergsma is vice president of mission, and 10 years of theological study for his own “stumbling across the big picture” of the path that leads from Genesis through Revelation.
Quoting paragraph 112 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he noted the need to be attentive to the unitive aspect of the whole of Scripture. This idea, put forth by the Second Vatican Council’s document on the Word of God “Dei Verbum,” sees the Scripture as a “unity by reason of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart.” He said that “eagerness to learn” is a necessary starting point but that delving deep in the Bible also needs to be fun.
Participants were provided with blank sheets of paper that had the outline of eight boxes with some resource and contact information. “No one is too cool to draw,” he added and pointed out that visual images are important elements for learning.
Under the central focus theme of “covenant,” Bergsma defined the term succinctly as “the extension of kinship by oath” or “a way of swearing someone into your family.” He gave examples of how these words and rituals have existed in every culture, and their particular importance in the history of salvation starting with God’s act of creation. Much more than a contract or obligation, the Bible is divided by the two major covenants God has made with his people – with Moses and in Jesus Christ. In fact, the word “testament” is Latin for “covenant,” thus containing God’s self-revelation in the Old Covenant and New Covenant.
The New Covenant, or Testament, is best represented by the Eucharist as the sacrament of the eternal covenant through which God goes beyond making us his sons and daughters by taking our flesh and then, as body and blood, becoming one with us.
Bergsma clarified that Christianity is the only religion that includes the invitation to this familial relationship with God, adding that its fullness is in the Catholic Church, given the Protestant understanding of baptism. He explained they tend to see baptism as an external sign of a life given to Jesus, whereas Catholics believe that Baptism actually changes the person through the reception of the Holy Spirit and, as long as the baptized is in the state of grace, the Trinity lives inside them.
“Jesus shares his sonship with us,” he stated. “That’s a family relationship with the Creator of the universe. This is mind-blowing and makes Christianity distinct.” He clarified that while other religions have beneficial elements, they have different goals, and “our goal is to be embraced in the love of God the Father for all eternity.”
Then leading attendees through the eight covenants as the pathway through the entire Bible, Bergsma showed the eight basic drawings step-by-step on a screen, explaining how the people of Israel moved from one covenantal stage to another.
Starting with creation and the Adamic Covenant, Dr. Bergsma described the five roles of Adam as son, king, priest, prophet and bridegroom. He alluded to how Jesus Christ fulfills all of those and calls every baptized to their own fulfillment in them. The Noahic Covenant comes second as a renewal of God’s relationship with Adam and Eve but displays the disturbance in horizontal relationships because of the passing on of original sin and the disturbance in mankind’s vertical relationship with their Creator.
The third stage of the covenant with Abraham the speaker described as God’s “infiltration strategy” through which God chooses to work with one man’s family to restore blessing to all the world. God’s three promises to Abraham – to become a great nation, great name and have great descendants – are fulfilled in the covenant he makes with our Father in faith and becomes the foundation for the new covenant made through Jesus. Bergsma drew the connection between Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and God’s of his son, Jesus. God was asking Abraham, “Are you willing to undergo the same kind of sacrifice I am willing to take to bless the human race?”
Fourth was the Mosaic Covenant, which Dr. Bergsma noted came with “fine print” in the form of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The detailed laws were given, he explained, as penance to the people after the incident with the golden calf. “They don’t make forward progress until David comes along, centuries later,” he added.
With the Davidic Covenant, David experiences the “rushing” upon himself of the Holy Spirit. Bergsma pointed out that he was the only Old Testament figure to have the Holy Spirit remain with him. David is promised to the whole world as fulfillment of God’s covenant with his father Abraham, but the people of Israel “never fully embrace their divine sonship.” After Solomon’s reign, they experience decline until finally exiled. The presentation highlighted the historical and salvific parallels; as Adam and Eve had been exiled after breaking their covenant, so were the people of Israel.
This decline led to the “golden age” of prophets and the sixth covenant. Through his prophets, God’s message was one of bad news and good news. “Israel, you are under judgment because you keep breaking the covenant,” Dr. Bergsma summarized, “but Israel, God is going to send a new covenant that will be better and restore good things.”
Seventh comes the Eucharistic Covenant, in which Jesus “fulfills the typology of all the covenant holders before him,” Dr. Bergsma stated. Reviewing the genealogies in both the Gospels of Mark and John, Jesus is situated as the new Adam, the new Moses and the new David. The speaker explained the two steps of the covenant – the body and the blood – with reflections on the Last Supper and crucifixion, and that Jesus is himself the covenant, not just its conduit.
Bergsma invited participants to a contemplative imagining of the flow of blood and water that gushed from Christ’s pierced side, to see it cover the entire earth and flow through centuries to the very moment they were living that morning.
“Does the river still flow?” he questioned then revealed how the “tree” of the cross held Jesus as new “fruit” bringing humanity back to the Garden of Eden.
“He has Eden-ified the whole earth,” the professor explained. “More than 90% of people are within a day’s travel or less to the nearest Catholic Church,” all of which are sacraments of the Garden of Eden. The baptismal font present in a church is the river of eternal life and the tree of life bears the fruit that we consume in the Eucharist so as to live forever.
The final stage is the Covenant Consummation, as described in the Book of Revelation, where the heavenly Jerusalem is the perfect bride to which the Lamb weds himself. “In this new covenant,” Dr. Bergsma said, “the presence of God resides in every believer. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit provided we are in the state of grace … I don’t think we understand that. I don’t think we allow that to sink in … to guide our thoughts and behaviors,” he reflected.
Dr. Bergsma expounded on the work of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology in Steubenville, and the work he and Dr. Hahn and their colleagues are engaged in. More than 10,000 people have experienced their parish events and more than 8,000 subscribe to the center’s online study tools. Their latest release, through their publishing house Emmaus Road, is a study Bible Dr. Bergsma hopes will influence the next century of Scripture scholarship and study.
The St. Paul Center was founded 20 years ago. Dr. Bergsma affirmed they have “seen the needle shift” among Catholics with their understanding for, and love of, Scripture. “When Catholics know their Bible, sparks fly,” he concluded, inviting his listeners to fan that flame.
For more information, visit stpaulcenter.com.
