Lectio divina: more on reading

In the previous posts in this series I've suggested that the first stage of lectio divina, reading the text, needs to be a very active process, ideally starting by puzzling out the Latin of the text.  In this post I want to say a little more about what the reading stage can usefully involve, including a look at processes such as listening to it and memorization.

 Reading can mean hearing

The techniques of lectio divina originally grew out of an oral culture.

Books were enormously expensive, something to be shared amongst several people, and literacy was often in short supply. Accordingly, as the fourteenth century Cloud of Unknowing puts it:

“All is one in manner, reading and hearing: clerks reading on books, and lewd men reading on clerks when they hear them preach the word of God.”

Moreover, even when people were literate, they remained immersed in a culture that was primarily oral. St Benedict in his Rule, for example, prescribes 2-3 hours a day of individual sacred 'reading'. But he also prescribed reading out loud at meals and in the evening before Compline. And all on top of the several hours in choir for Mass and Divine Office.

Accordingly, after you have read the text through once for yourself, try listening to it read aloud if you can.  You can find recordings of the vulgate (albeit not in an ecclesial Latin accent) here.

Reading meant memorization

A lot of guides to lectio divina stress the importance of trying to memorise the text under consideration.  The consequence of the oral culture of an earlier era is that memorization of texts was the norm.  Books were laid out in a way to aid memorization, and a large part of the aim of set times for lectio divina was to supply the person with a text to chew over during the rest of the day - one of the images used are of a cow chewing her cud.

I do think that is worth trying if you can, but, alas, most of us simply don't have the prodigiously well-trained memories that an oral culture relied on.  Accordingly, I think we need to adapt our efforts to our times.

Fortunately for us though, today text is easily accessible and portable: forget your text for the day and you can look it up on your ipad or, if you are old-fashioned, your pocket sized gospel book.

Associated texts

The other key consequence of the oral culture of St Benedict's era was that a monk of likely had a large store of Scripture already memorized, so when he focused on the text of the day, he was able to draw on many other texts that were related to it.

If he was reading the New Testament, for example, the reader would recognise the citations from the psalms, and if he was reading the psalms he would recognise how a particular line was interpreted by the Gospels.

Our lack of a developed memory, not to mention the general lack of familiarity with the Scriptures of most Catholics in our time, make it a lot harder for us to this: if Christ appear to us, as he did to that group of travellers on the road to Emmaus, or to the group of assembled apostles (Luke 24), and explained all of the references to him in the Old Testament, would we recognise the texts he would cite from the law, the prophets and the psalms as readily as those first hearers did?  Most of us, I think, would struggle.

Similarly, when related texts are placed before us, for example in the Divine Office, will we automatically realise the connections?  I think the answer is generally not, but again we can use tools such as books or online lists of cross-references to Scripture to compensate for our lack of memory.

A nice example of these sort of subtle connections relates to Monday at Lauds in the Benedictine form of the Divine Office.  St Benedict assigns two variable psalms to the hour, Psalms 5 and 35.  He may have inherited Psalm 5 from the older Roman Office of his time, but why Psalm 35?  One possibility is that he is implicitly pointing us to St Paul's interpretation of the two psalms which he links together in Romans 3:

"Of what use is it, then, to be a Jew?... Well then, has either side the advantage? In no way. Jews and Gentiles, as we have before alleged, are alike convicted of sin.10 Thus, it is written, There is not an innocent man among them, no, not one. 11 There is nobody who reflects, and searches for God; 12 all alike are on the wrong course, all are wasted lives; not one of them acts honourably, no, not one. 13 Their mouths are gaping tombs, they use their tongues to flatter. Under their lips the venom of asps is hidden.[Ps 5] 14 Their talk overflows with curses and calumny.15 They run hot-foot to shed blood; 16 havoc and ruin follow in their path;17 the way of peace is unknown to them. 18 They do not keep the fear of God before their eyes.[Ps 35] 19 So the law says, and we know that the words of the law are meant for the law’s own subjects; it is determined that no one shall have anything to say for himself, that the whole world shall own itself liable to God’s judgements. 20 No human creature can become acceptable in his sight by observing the law; what the law does is to give us the full consciousness of sin."

This passage also, of course, draws on several others psalms, including Psalms 49, 9 and 138.  It is an important reminder that the New Testament interprets the Old, and the Old needs to be read in the light of the New.  It should also remind us that the New Testament cannot be properly understood in isolation, but depends on the foreshadowing and preparation of the events and teaching set out in the Old.  Our reading must encompass this.

And for the next part of the series, continue on here.

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Doing Lectio Divina: the problem of translations

In my previous post I set out some general comments around doing lectio divina, and suggested that there are essential six stages in the process: read - think - study - meditate - pray - contemplate - work.

In this post I want to take start looking at the first of these stages, 'reading' the text, and particularly the vexed question of which translation to use.

In particular I want to make the case for at least taking a look at the Latin text even if you don't actually know any Latin (you will quickly pick it up!).

Reading was hard work

The first point to keep in mind is that reading, in late antiquity and medieval times, was hard work.  The monk was generally working in a second language - Latin - in which he might have varying degrees of fluency.

And the book he had in front of him wasn't easy to read even if he was fluent in the language. We tend to think of the nice clear, beautifully illuminated texts as the norm. In fact, however, deciphering most medieval books was a laborious process, constituting hard physical work.

It is pretty hard for us today to reproduce the effort that a person in earlier times went through to puzzle out the text and its meaning. Curiously, though, the internet does in a way allow us, at least potentially, to get a little closer to that experience than readers in the more recent past.

Take a look at a site like the Blueletter Bible for example. For each verse it offers multiple translations to compare, dictionaries of Biblical terms, a Greek/Hebrew lexicon which enables you to cross-reference word use to other Scriptural citations, background material on the text, maps, and much more. Working through your verse using some of these kinds of tools (taking due care with protestant commentaries however!) is not a bad place to start.

Reading in Latin?

I would also  recommend at least taking a look at (or listening to) the Latin.   If, of course, you attend the traditional Latin Mass, or say the Office in Latin, it is well worth looking at the Latin text as part of your lectio divina, so you can readily recognise it when you come across it used in the liturgy.

Even if you attend Mass in English though, there are still good reasons for at least starting from the Latin in terms of reading in the mind of the Church, in my view, even if your Latin is almost non-existent (at first!).  In particular, a lot of the nuances of meaning depend on the exact word or words being used, which can so easily be lost in translation.

You don't need to try and translate every word - what I'm suggesting is that you read (or listen to) the text in Latin first, and then work with a good translation, picking out key words in the Latin to explore further as necessary using a dictionary or through commentaries (there are some good resources available online, which I'll point you to).

Over time, you'll find you will build up a working knowledge of some key words, which you can then build on more systematically if you want to.

Personally I'd suggest working with (at least) two English translations: one very literal (such as the Douay-Rheims) and one that works harder to convey the meaning of the text.

As an aid to getting at the underlying meaning of the text, I'd particularly recommend the Knox translation, available on the New Advent site, but this is a matter of taste: the Revised Standard Version (Catholic Edition) is also good in my view, and there are others.

Why its worth starting from the Latin (even if you have none!)

Why go to all that effort though?

The answer is that many words in Scripture have rich associations that can be gleaned from them, in part from how they are used elsewhere in Scripture, and in part from their consideration in the tradition.  These associations are all too often lost or obscured in translation.

Let me give an example using Psalm 3, which St Benedict specifies is to be said daily, opening Matins in his Office.  Verse 3 of the psalm reads, in the Latin Vulgate and the current official 'Neo-Vulgate':  Tu autem, Dómine, suscéptor meus es, glória mea, et exáltans caput meum.   The Douay-Rheims' fairly literal translation gives this verse as: But thou, O Lord art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.  

I want to focus in on just one word here, susceptor.

The word susceptor, from the verb suscipere, is quite difficult to translate into English, but extremely important theologically, attracting extended commentary on it by St Augustine among others.  It comes from the verb suscipere, to guard, protect, uphold, support;  receive, accept; to seize.

The first problem a modern reader faces is the differences between the Septuagint-Greek/Latin Vulgate and Hebrew Masoretic Text tradition: the received Hebrew text for this verse uses the idea of God as a shield rather than sustainer/helper.  Moreover, despite the fact that the official approved text is the Vulgate/neo-Vulgate, which uses the word susceptor, virtually all modern translations used by Catholics follow the received Hebrew text instead, as the following selection illustrates:

RSV-CE	But thou, O LORD, art a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.
New American	But you, Lord, are a shield around me; my glory, you keep my head high.
New Jerusalem	But you, Yahweh, the shield at my side, my glory, you hold my head high
Grail Psalter	But you, Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, who lift up my head.

The Greek-Latin tradition on this is not an error or mistranslation though, but rather a systematic choice reflecting the distinctive theology of the Septuagint Greek, a monument of tradition that the Fathers generally viewed as a distinctive stage of revelation particularly meant for the salvation of the Gentiles.  Certainly the translations of the verse that reflect the Septuagint-Vulgate (and Neo-Vulgate) give it a subtly different flavour:

Douay-Rheims	But thou, O Lord art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.
Knox	Yet, Lord, thou art my champion, thou art the pride that keeps my head erect.
Brenton	But thou, O Lord, art my helper: my glory, and the one that lifts up my head.
New English Translation from the Septuagint	But you, O Lord, you are my supporter, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

Even so, if one only looked at the English even of these translations that follow the officially approved text, the underlying Latin or Greek could be anyone of several words.  Yet the particular the concept of God as susceptor is quite important in the tradition.

The theology of God as susceptor

St Augustine's take on the word points to the analogy of the Roman paterfamilias, who 'received' (acknowledged) his child, thus saving it from the fate of exposure.  He also explains it as a word used to mean a powerful man who takes up the cause of someone, or a doctor or lawyer accepting a case.   When God becomes our susceptor, in other words, he acts as a Father or powerful protector of us, someone who has taken our cause on as his own, and will work to sustain, help and heal us.

The monastic commentator Cassian (c. 360 – 435) took the discussion of its meaning a step further, for in Chapter 17 of his Conference 13 he discusses God's intervention in various types of vocation:

 "Hence it comes in our prayers we proclaim God as not only protector and Saviour, but actually as our Helper and Sponsor [adjuitorem et susceptorem] for whereas He first calls us to him, and while we are ignorant and unwilling, draws us towards salvation, he is our Protector and Saviour, but whereas when we are already striving, He is want to bring us help, and to receive and defend those who fly to Him for refuge, He is our Sponsor and Refuge.' "

St Benedict's contemporary Cassiodorus' commentary on the verse puts more emphasis on the idea of God as our 'sustainer', particularly in the ennoblement of the flesh through grace made possible through the Incarnation:

"Sustainer, that is, of the form of slave, since the taking up of human nature is the Word made flesh. So it is the flesh which speaks of its glory and the lifting up of its head, for the all-powerful Word assumed it so that the divine and human substance might be one Person without any admixture. This verse is relevant too to the confounding of the Pelagians, who believe that man can by his own efforts achieve something good; for who, pray, could be self-sufficient for performing good without abundance of divine grace? It is through grace by which it is united to God that human nature has taken its place at the Father's right hand."

St Benedict himself was probably alluding to all of these layers of meaning of the word when he selected the Suscipe verse (Psalm 118:114) for use in the monastic profession ceremony (it is worth noting that the phrase Cassian uses, adjutor et susceptor, appears two verses earlier in the stanza of the Psalm St Benedict drew the Suscipe from).

All of these layers of meaning, however, can be quite hard to glean from the standard translations of this verse, and others that use the same word.

Building up our reading knowledge

The first time you encounter a word such as susceptor, we won't of course, necessarily appreciate its importance.

But if you work with a good commentary, or anthology of commentaries (such as St Thomas' Catena Aurea on the Gospels) you will gradually build up a knowledge of some of these key words and phrases, and recognise them when you see them in another context.

So it is worth at least looking at the Latin in my view, and certainly looking at a few different modern translations rather than just relying on one.

And you can find the next part of this series here.

On doing lectio divina...

Before I go on with any more Lectio Divina notes, I thought it might be useful to post  this week, a few thoughts on how to approach the task of lectio divina, or prayerful spiritual reading.

Accordingly, this is the first of a short series that brings together some material I've previously written on this subject (on my Australia Incognita blog), along with some more recent reflections.

In this post I want to make a few introductory remarks, after that, I'll work through each of the stages of the process.  I won't say a great deal about the latter stages of the process, around meditation and contemplation, as I think the literature that is around on these topics is good and reasonably complete.  Where I think there are more issues is at the front end of the process, in relation to how we approach the text, so that is where I am going to focus my comments.

In essence my comments are directed at the seeming divorce that is constantly reinforced by many sets of instructions on lectio, between study of and theological commentary on Scripture, and the practice of lectio divina.  My own view is that they can and should be closely integrated, and in this I'm following Pope Benedict XVI.  You can find a post summarising his approach to lectio drawn from his Apostolic Exhortation on Scripture here if you want to go back and refresh your memory on what he said.

A little history...

There are lots of Scriptural references on the importance of lectio divina as an aid to conversion and spiritual growth.

Think, for example, of Our Lady 'treasuring all these things in her heart' (Luke 2:51):

A second key reference is to that conversation on the road to Emmaus, when Our Lord explained the meaning of Scripture to some of the disciples, so that their ‘hearts were burning within them’ (Luke 24:32):

25 Then he said to them, Too slow of wit, too dull of heart, to believe all those sayings of the prophets! 26 Was it not to be expected that the Christ should undergo these sufferings, and enter so into his glory? 27 Then, going back to Moses and the whole line of the prophets, he began to interpret the words used of himself by all the scriptures...32 And they said to one another, Were not our hearts burning within us when he spoke to us on the road, and when he made the scriptures plain to us? (Knox translation)

Similarly, consider St Paul preaching to the Thessalonians and Beroeans (Acts 17):

"Over a space of three sabbaths he reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3 expounding these and bringing proofs from them that the sufferings of Christ and his rising from the dead were fore-ordained; the Christ, he said, is none other than the Jesus whom I am preaching to you. 4 Some of them were convinced, and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas; a great number, too, of those Gentiles who worshipped the true God, and not a few of the leading women....they welcomed the word with all eagerness, and examined the scriptures, day after day, to find out whether all this was true; 12 so that many of them learned to believe..." (Knox)

Lectio, in other words, has been with us from the very beginnings of Christianity.

The systematic practice of lectio in the Western tradition, though, really has its origins in the Patristic tradition, and above all in the monasticism of late antiquity and early middle ages. Its continued use today can arguably be traced primarily to the sixth century Rule of St Benedict, for the saint instructed his monks to devote at least two hours a day (more during Lent) to 'reading or the study of the psalms' (the psalms are probably mentioned separately firstly to emphasise their importance as a source of spiritual nourishment, and secondly because it didn't technically require 'reading' as such, since the monk could be assumed to have memorised them).

There are a lot of useful guides to lectio divina around on the net, but my own, purely personal view is that although many contain useful insights, most of them miss the mark in key ways.  Here's why.

'Reading', in late antiquity and well into the middle ages, meant a much more active process than it does today.  It included puzzling out the grammar and literal meaning of the Latin text, reading it aloud, seeking to set the text the context of the whole of Scripture, and reaching to understand its spiritual meaning.  The commentaries of the Fathers provide wonderful examples of this approach.

My own view is that the writer who comes closest to capturing the stages of this process remains Dom Delatte, who in his classic commentary on the Benedictine Rule suggested that the process has six stages, namely read, think, study, meditate, pray, and contemplate.  Some medieval authors added an additional step, namely putting the lessons learnt from lectio to work.

How not to...key dangers

In our own time, by contrast, reading has become something very passive, done silently without much active engagement with the text.

Worse, even where we do attempt to engage with the text more actively, for example by reading it aloud and attempting to memorise it, most of us lack the tools to reach the spiritual meaning of the text.

If we are well educated theologically, or work with the aid of a modern commentary, we may well be able to come to the text with a good understanding of the text in its historical and cultural context; we may well have been taught something of the supposed authorial and editorial process that lies behind the text as we know it today.

From at least the seventeenth century onwards though, Scriptural exegetes (even including prominent Benedictines such as Dom Augustine Calmet) to favour the literal meaning of the text over its spiritual one, and to reject the importance of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. The result has been the emergence of a disjunction between exegesis and theology on the one hand, and the reading of Scripture as a means to make progress in the spiritual life.

Yet if we come at the text without the aid of a commentary or other support materials, there are, in my view, two key dangers.  The first is that Scripture is reduced to little more than a mantra, a few words to be repeated without real meaning, but used to induce a kind of zen-like meditation.  The dangers of such techniques have been well set out in a CDF guidance document on Certain Aspects of Christian Meditation (ie dangers of centering prayer and such like techniques).  The second possibility is just as dangerous, namely that we might be embarking on a de facto protectant sola scriptura exercize, in which we fail to interpret Scripture in the mind of the Church, and risk falling into or reinforcing error.

What is lectio divina about?

How then can we avoid these dangers?

The first point is that God gave us brains and expects us to use them! He also gave us the teaching of the Magisterium, the Fathers and the Theologians to guide us. Scripture has to be placed in context, and that means thinking with the Church.  So we should start by using good commentaries and other materials to help our understanding of the text.

As a counter-weight to this point though, reading Scripture must be guided by the Holy Spirit. Lectio is about a personal engagement with God.  So we have to be careful not to get so immersed in the intellectual aspects of our engagement in the task that we block off that inner voice.  And more generally, as with any conversation, there is a danger that we only hear ourselves or what we want to hear, rather than genuinely listening. Active listening is hard.

Thirdly, while the insights gained from lectio can sometimes be useful to others, they are generally meant for ourselves alone. Lectio, I'd suggest, is about facilitating our own inner transformation. My favourite text on this point comes from the Cloud of Unknowing:

"God's word can be likened to a mirror. Spiritually, the 'eye' of your soul is your reason: your conscience is your spiritual 'face'. Just as you cannot see or know that there is a dirty mark on your actual face without the aid or a mirror, or somebody telling you, so spiritually it is impossible for a soul blinded by his frequent sins to see the dirty mark in his conscience, without reading or hearing God's word."

It follows that while a website like this can provide some starting points for your lectio, that can only take you so far, the rest you have to do on your own.

Nonetheless, if start off well, and place ourselves in God's hands, we can expect to see the spiritual benefits, so in the next series of posts in this series, I'll go into a little more detail on how I think lectio should be approached.

Bear in mind though, that this is just my personal view, and I'm happy to discuss or debate it through the comments box.

And you can find the next part in this series here.