As catechists, we want to take every opportunity we can to introduce scripture into our classrooms. We use the New American Bible – Revised Edition (NABRE), which of course corresponds to the text that the children hear in Mass. But, there are other texts which are perfectly acceptable to use. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops provides a listing of all approved Bible texts that Catholics can use for their personal study. That being said, I like to tell my students, that the version of the Bible they should use – is the one that they will read!
In all seriousness though, many students simply are not comfortable reading the Bible for a number of reasons – everything from words they can’t pronounce, to places they’ve never heard of, to feeling that the Bible is out of touch with what is happening in their lives 2000 years later. In a future post I’ll go into more detail on ways to make the Bible more approachable for your students, but one place that I like to go for ideas of how to connect Scriptures to our youth is The Catholic Youth Bible by Saint Mary’s Press. I confess that I have an older edition (from 2000) that I use, so it may be time to upgrade to the latest edition. The good news (pun intended) is that Amazon sells used books and I found a listing for the current edition in “like new” condition for less than $5 -Sold!
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