The Gospels are how we come to know Jesus: what He said, what He did, how He treated people, and what He asks of us.
If you want to know Christ, read the Gospels.
Not to master them. Not to be able to discuss them. Simply to spend time with Him and let His words work on you.
They are short. All four together are about the length of a paperback novel, and any one of them can be read in an afternoon, though that is not what I would recommend.
Mark moves quickly. He tells the story plainly and urgently, and he does not slow down to explain much.
Start here. It is the shortest, and once you have read it the other three make more sense.
Matthew writes for people who knew the Hebrew Scriptures, and he keeps pointing back to them: this is the one you were promised.
His Gospel is built around five great blocks of teaching. The first is the Sermon on the Mount, chapters five through seven, and there is little in Scripture more concentrated than those three chapters.
Luke is a careful writer who gathered what he could from those who were there. He notices the people others pass over: the poor, foreigners, women, the disreputable.
Many of the parables you half remember are his, including the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.
If Mark feels too spare, read Luke instead.
John was written last and does something different. There are fewer events and much longer conversations, and he returns again and again to a handful of images: bread, light, water, a vine.
It is beautiful, and it is harder to begin with, because it assumes you already know the story it is unfolding. Read it third or fourth.
Read slowly. This is not information to get through. It is a Person to meet.
A short passage, five or ten verses, is enough. The Church has handed down a simple way of praying with Scripture, and it has four movements.
Slowly, and out loud if you can. Then read it a second time. The second reading is usually where something catches.
Something will stand out: a word, a phrase, a detail that seems strange. Stop there instead of pressing on. Ask what it means, and what it would have been like to be standing there.
Say something back to Him about what you have read. This is the movement people skip, and it is the one that turns reading into prayer.
Sit quietly for a minute without trying to produce anything. It will feel like wasting time. It is not.
Mark it and move on. You are not being examined. Some of it will open up years from now, and some passages remain difficult for everyone, including people who have studied them their whole lives.
If something troubles you, ask a priest. That is what he is there for.
Any Catholic edition is fine. The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition reads well aloud. The New American Bible is what you will hear at Mass in the United States, so it has the advantage of sounding familiar.
A paper copy is easier than a phone, mostly because a phone has other things on it.
Sixteen chapters of Mark, about ten minutes a day, with room to miss days. At the end you will have read an entire Gospel.
Read one chapter a day for four days. Use the other days to return to whatever struck you.
Chapter 8 is the turning point of the whole Gospel. Slow down there.
Read 14 and 15 in one sitting if you can.
Luke next, for the same reason you would read a second account of anything: the same events, seen by someone who noticed different things. Then Matthew, and John last.
Ten minutes a day is better than an hour on Sunday. A short passage each morning changes how the day reads. A long session once a week is a lecture you attend.
You are not reading alone. The Church reads through the Gospels at Mass across a three-year cycle, so the passage you hear on Sunday is being heard by Catholics everywhere that same day. Reading on your own is meant to feed that, not replace it.
Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. St. Jerome