When the Pauline Family launched its Year of the Bible, Sister Anne Joan Flanagan of the US-ESC province felt strongly inspired to read the Word of God from cover to cover–but not by herself. On 24 November 2020 she sent the following invitation to her 28,000 Twitter followers: “Read the Bible with me!” Her daily blog posts suggested three chapters a day (adding two Psalms on Sundays, and a Psalm for each day of Lent), and provided links to the Bible on the US Bishops’ Conference website. Her posts were often enriched with commentary, personal reflections, art, music, or book recommendations.
The initiative ended on Christmas Day 2021 with Revelation 21-22 and Psalm 150. Those who completed the Bible-reading project from beginning to end were invited to send Sr. Anne their mailing addresses so as to receive a specially designed bookmark. This gave some of them (both in the U.S. and abroad) the chance to express what participating in the experience meant to them:
From Florida:
God bless you and thank you for this year of reading the Bible. Your posts and the prayers were so helpful in preparing us to read. The year went by amazingly fast!
From New Jersey:
I want to thank you for this year-long Bible reading project. It was really great to read the whole Bible again for the first time in several years!
From Australia:
Thank you so much for your guidance throughout this time. I had never read the whole Bible before, and I found it to be a wonderful experience! I sincerely appreciated your comments and recommendations.
Our congratulations to Sr. Anne Joan for this wonderful initiative.