As it is once again the beginning of a new year, I thought this might be a good time to suggest a renewed focus on lectio divina.
You could even add doing fifteen to thirty minutes lectio (depending on how much time you can put aside for this purpose) one of your new year's resolutions.
In praise of lectio divina
Lectio Divina is one of the three key elements of Benedictine life, along with the liturgy and work.
St Benedict's Rule, you will recall, specifies that the monk devote two or three hours (depending on the season) each day to lectio divina and/or learning/meditating on the psalms.
And of course the monk also encountered sacred reading in the Office, at meals, and in the works read at the evening conferences.
Reflecting this, the traditional view was that monks should say all of the psalms each week, and read the entire Bible each year.
For most laypeople that is probably far too ambitious a reading program - it means reading one of the Gospels each quarter, saying around 22 psalms a day, and reading around two to three other chapters of the Bible each day. Most people simply won't have time to do that much.
Nonetheless, at least some time devoted to the meditative reading of Scripture each day should be the part of the life of every Christian, and particularly of every Benedictine Oblate, and setting aside fifteen minutes to half an hour each day is enough to make a difference to your spiritual life.
What to read?
There are several options you can consider for your lectio, including:
The problem with all the options above, though, good though they each are, is that they won't expose you to the entire Bible, and I think that is problematic: all of Scripture is provided for our instruction, not just some of it.
Accordingly, I think that at least every few years we should set about reading the entire Bible, maybe spread over two or three years. And to do this, one useful reference point is the Matins lectionary as it stood back in the eighth century.
Lectio continua and the Matins lectionary
The Matins readings, at least in their modern form do not, of course, cover the entire Bible.
The Gospels appear only in the form of the sections used at Mass on Sundays and major feasts.
Some books of the Bible are omitted entirely.
Only tasters are provided for most of the books that are read at Matins.
And for some seasons, such as Lent, Patristic readings entirely displace the Scriptural sequence.
Originally, though, the Matins lectionary was based on a continuous reading of the books of the Bible, starting with the Heptateuch (Genesis to ) in the lead up to Easter.
The Matins lectionary as it has come down to us though, was originally based on a continuous reading of all of the books of the Old and new Testaments, excluding the Gospels, and so it is worth, I think looking at the outline it provides for the liturgical year, and shaping our own reading around that.
You could even add doing fifteen to thirty minutes lectio (depending on how much time you can put aside for this purpose) one of your new year's resolutions.
In praise of lectio divina
Lectio Divina is one of the three key elements of Benedictine life, along with the liturgy and work.
St Benedict's Rule, you will recall, specifies that the monk devote two or three hours (depending on the season) each day to lectio divina and/or learning/meditating on the psalms.
And of course the monk also encountered sacred reading in the Office, at meals, and in the works read at the evening conferences.
Reflecting this, the traditional view was that monks should say all of the psalms each week, and read the entire Bible each year.
For most laypeople that is probably far too ambitious a reading program - it means reading one of the Gospels each quarter, saying around 22 psalms a day, and reading around two to three other chapters of the Bible each day. Most people simply won't have time to do that much.
Nonetheless, at least some time devoted to the meditative reading of Scripture each day should be the part of the life of every Christian, and particularly of every Benedictine Oblate, and setting aside fifteen minutes to half an hour each day is enough to make a difference to your spiritual life.
What to read?
There are several options you can consider for your lectio, including:
- work on really learning the psalms. For the medieval monk, the Book of Psalms was regarded as a summary of the whole of Scripture, and thus the essential foundation. My Psallam Domino blog provides notes on many of the psalms, generally interpreted in the context of the Benedictine Office, to aid you in this;
- use the readings and Mass propers from Sunday Mass. If you are using the EF calendar, the Sunday cycle provides a rich source of texts that help interpret each other, so you could devote a day each to the Sunday Gospel and Epistle, then for the rest of the week work through the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory and Communio. Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year provides useful supporting notes for this purpose; supplement it by listening to the Propers on the CC Watershed website and reading Dom Saulner's wonderful notes on the chants;
- read one of the Gospels each quarter with the aid of a good commentary. I have previously provided some notes to aid you on this;
- use the Matins readings provided on this blog (and for the summer months when there are none in the Benedictine Office, use the Roman ones, which can be found on the Divinum Officium website).
The problem with all the options above, though, good though they each are, is that they won't expose you to the entire Bible, and I think that is problematic: all of Scripture is provided for our instruction, not just some of it.
Accordingly, I think that at least every few years we should set about reading the entire Bible, maybe spread over two or three years. And to do this, one useful reference point is the Matins lectionary as it stood back in the eighth century.
Lectio continua and the Matins lectionary
The Matins readings, at least in their modern form do not, of course, cover the entire Bible.
The Gospels appear only in the form of the sections used at Mass on Sundays and major feasts.
Some books of the Bible are omitted entirely.
Only tasters are provided for most of the books that are read at Matins.
And for some seasons, such as Lent, Patristic readings entirely displace the Scriptural sequence.
Originally, though, the Matins lectionary was based on a continuous reading of the books of the Bible, starting with the Heptateuch (Genesis to ) in the lead up to Easter.
The Matins lectionary as it has come down to us though, was originally based on a continuous reading of all of the books of the Old and new Testaments, excluding the Gospels, and so it is worth, I think looking at the outline it provides for the liturgical year, and shaping our own reading around that.
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