Possible lectio programs reading the Gospel of St Matthew

Lindisfarne Gospel

Doing at least some lectio divina each day should surely be a key part of our daily spiritual regime.

But what should we take as our text?  Let me suggest a few options for consideration.

Option 1: Study the psalms

For followers of St Benedict, knowing the psalms is surely the first priority.  St Benedict enjoins the study of the psalms twice in his Rule - once as a use for the gap between Matins and Lauds, and a second time in his discussion of the daily horarium.

Why?

The psalms are of course the backbone of his Office, their repetition each each week so crucial that the lessons are to be dropped if necessary, rather than the psalms be omitted or Lauds started late!  Yet the saint never actually explains why they are so important; rather  he just assumes we know that the psalms are the most quoted book of the Old Testament in the New, and long considered to contain the entire Bible in summary, poetic form.

My blog Psallam Domino is devoted to notes to assist those wishing to use the psalms for lectio divina, or to pray them with greater intensity, particularly in the context of the Benedictine form of the Divine Office.

Option 2: The texts of the Sunday cycle

One obvious option is to use the lectionary and propers used at the Mass.  If you normally attend the 1970 Missal Mass, there is so much material provided in the lectionary that you will have to select what to look at  - one obvious option being the epistles for each day.

In the traditional Mass the obvious option is to look at all the proper texts for the Sunday (and perhaps the texts of the other major feasts and seasons) - that is the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Epistle, Gospel, Offertory and Communio - over a week.  The Church has, for centuries, selected out these texts as crucial to our instruction, repeating them year after year so that we can have them practically memorised, so exploring them in more depth for ourselves makes a great deal of sense.

The Sunday Gospels of course can easily take up two or three days in this regime, if one studies them with the aid of patristic sources such as using the excellent Sunday Sermons of the Fathers volumes.  And if the psalm verses or other text in the propers are too sparse or repetitive, it is no great problem to consider the whole psalm or chapter from which the text is taken.

Option 3: Systematic reading of the Gospels

A second option is to spread the reading of the Gospels over a year, taking one for each quarter.  The Gospels are obviously the most important books of the bible for a Catholic to be familiar with, so well worth the effort.  And there are any number of commentaries available to assist this task.  A good starting point is the Catena Aurea of St Thomas, providing an anthology of patristic commentaries for our consideration.

This is the approach I plan to take here, looking at St Matthew's Gospel this quarter on this blog.

Option 4: (Rest of the) Bible in a year

Another option worth considering is systematically reading the rest of the Bible.

If you are feeling ambitious, a while back, a monk posted a suggested two possible reading plans for the Bible in a year over at New Liturgical Movement.  But if you are not a monk with several hours a day to devote to the task, you could devise a plan to spread your reading over two  or three years!

All the same, I will post in a sidebar the books suggested by reading plan 1, which broadly mirrors the Matins readings.