St Augustine on lectio divina

Commentary on Psalm 89:

This Psalm is entitled, The prayer of Moses the man of God, through whom, His man, God gave the law to His people, through whom He freed them from the house of slavery, and led them forty years through the wilderness. Moses was therefore the Minister of the Old, and the Prophet of the New Testament. For all these things, says the Apostle, happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, unto whom the ends of the world come. 1 Corinthians 10:11 In accordance therefore with this dispensation which was vouchsafed to Moses, this Psalm is to be examined, as it has received its title from his prayer

On Psalm 36

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread Psalm 36:25.

If it is spoken but in the person of one single individual, how long is the whole life of one man? And what is there wonderful in the circumstance, that a single man, fixed in some one part of the earth, should not, throughout the whole space of his life, being so short as man's life is, have ever seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread, although he may have advanced from youth to age. It is not anything worthy of marvel; for it might have happened, that before his lifetime there should have been some righteous man seeking bread; it might have happened, that there had been some one in some other part of the earth not where he himself was. Hear too another thing, which makes an impression upon us. Any single one among you (look you) who has now grown old, may perhaps, when, looking back upon the past course of his life, he turns over in his thoughts the persons whom he has known, not find any instance of a righteous man begging bread, or of his seed begging bread, suggest itself to him; but nevertheless he turns to the inspired Scriptures, and finds that righteous Abraham was straitened, and suffered hunger in his own country, and left that land for another; he finds too that the son of the very same man, Isaac, removed to other countries in search of bread, for the same cause of hunger. And how will it be true to say, I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread? And if he finds this true in the duration of his own life, he finds it is otherwise in the inspired writings, which are more trustworthy than human life is.

2. What are we to do then? Let us be seconded by your pious attention, so that we may discern the purpose of God in these verses of the Psalm, what it is He would have us understand by them. For there is a fear, lest any unstable person, not capable of understanding the Scriptures spiritually, should appeal to human instances, and should observe the virtuous servants of God to be sometimes in some necessity, and in want, so as to be compelled to beg bread: should particularly call to mind the Apostle Paul, who says, In hunger and thirst; in cold and nakedness; 2 Corinthians 11:27 and should stumble thereat, saying to himself, Is that certainly true which I have been singing? Is that certainly true, which I have been sounding forth in so devout a voice, standing in church? 'I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' Lest he should say in his heart, Scripture deceives us; and all his limbs should be paralyzed to good works: and when those limbs within him, those limbs of the inner man, shall have been paralyzed (which is the more fearful paralysis), he should henceforth leave off from good works, and say to himself, Wherefore do I do good works? Wherefore do I break my bread to the hungry, and clothe the naked, and take home to mine house him who has no shelter, Isaiah 58:7 putting faith in that which is written? 'I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread;' whereas I see so many persons who live virtuously, yet for the most part suffering from hunger. But if perhaps I am in error in thinking the man who is living well, and the man who is living ill, to be both of them living well, and if God knows him to be otherwise; that is, knows him, whom I think just, to be unjust, what am I to make of Abraham's case, who is commended by Scripture itself as a righteous person? What am I to make of the Apostle Paul, who says, 'Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.' 1 Corinthians 11:1 What? That I should myself be in evils such as he endured, 'In hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness'? 2 Corinthians 11:27

3. Whilst therefore he thus thinks, and while his limbs are paralyzed to the power of good works, can we, my brethren, as it were, lift up the sick of the palsy; and, as it were, lay open the roof of this Scripture, and let him down before the Lord. Luke 5:19 For you observe that it is obscure. If obscure therefore, it is covered. And I behold a certain patient paralytic in mind, and I see this roof, and am convinced that Christ is concealed beneath the roof. Let me, as far as I am able, do that which was praised in those who opened the roof, and let down the sick of the palsy before Christ; that He might say unto him, Son, be of good cheer, your sins be forgiven you. Luke 5:20 For it was so that He made the inner man whole of his palsy, by loosing his sins, by binding fast his faith....

4. But who is the righteous man, who has never been seen forsaken, nor his seed begging bread? If you understand what is meant by bread, you understand who is meant by him. For the bread is the Word of God, which never departs from the righteous man's mouth....See now if holy meditation does 'keep you' in the rumination of this bread, then have you never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

St Gregory the Great's Commentary on Job and lectio divina

This Lent I'm reading (courtesy of a kind gift of two readers of my blogs) St Gregory the Great's commentary on the book of Job, and the introduction, by the always interesting Mark DelCogliano, provides some very nice comments on St Gregory's approach to reading Scripture.

As they are available online by way of a taster for the book, I thought I'd share a couple of extracts with you, as they are well worth considering.

On St Gregory's exegetical method he comments:

In the dedicatory letter to Leander, Gregory reports that the brothers with whom he was living in Constantinople have asked him to give an exposition of the book of Job. They requested that he do three things: (1) reveal the mysteries of its great riches, (2) explain the literal narrative through allegorical interpretations aimed at providing moral reflections, and (3) support his interpretations with proof texts (which should themselves also be explained if they were difficult to understand)...

Gregory does what they requested, but in his own more systematic way. In the same dedicatory letter he explains his approach to interpreting Job. Each passage of Scripture, he says, has a threefold sense: the historical or literal (the meaning of which will be discussed below), the “typical” (more or less what Christians believe or need to believe), and the moral (what Christians need to do). Gregory considered the latter two to be the “hidden” senses of Scripture: they are not clear from the literal or historical sense and can be uncovered or revealed only by allegorical interpretations. In practice these two senses are sometimes hard to distinguish, blending into each other, because for Gregory Christian belief is inseparable from practice.  Gregory takes the threefold sense of Scripture as the basis of his exegetical method and, at least initially, as the organizing principle for each book of his commentary.... 

On elephants and lambs 

Delcogliano continues:

He was convinced that Scripture contained different levels of meaning, so that everyone who read it, regardless of training, intelligence, spiritual insight, or lack thereof, could benefit from it: Just as the Word of God puts to the test those who are learned in his mysteries, so also it often refreshes the simple with clear teaching. It is publicly proclaimed, and it nourishes children; its private suppers hold the minds of the wise in admiration.

Perhaps I might say it is like a river both shallow and deep, in which a lamb walks and an elephant swims. Gregory was clearly an elephant. He knew that plumbing the depths of Scripture and searching into its mysteries required exegetical effort.

Scripture’s obscure passages would only nourish if their meaning could be wrestled from them. Thus he also conceptualized scriptural exegesis as a kind of digestion. He writes in the first book of the Moralia:

For Sacred Scripture is sometimes food and sometimes drink for us. It is food in its obscure passages, for it is broken in exposition, as it were, chewed, and swallowed. It is drink, however, in its easier passages, for it is assimilated just as it is found. . . . It belongs to few people to know the hidden and powerful things, whereas the many understand plain history. Lambs are more plentiful than elephants. Yet the elephant does not swim in the depths of Sacred Scripture merely for his own enjoyment: those possessing the wisdom and requisite skill to penetrate the deep mysteries of Scripture have a responsibility to communicate their insights to the simple lambs. Elephants enable lambs to be nourished by the obscure passages of Scripture; lambs should be given access to all the Scriptures, not simply the plain passages.

I&II Kings (aka I&II Samuel)

The prophet Samuel
Russian c17th

From the Second Sunday after Pentecost, the Matins readings (on Sundays in the Benedictine Office) work through I&II Kings (or I&II Samuel depending on which Bible you are using), so herewith a short introduction to it.

**I should note as an aside that, as foreshadowed a few weeks ago, I plan to start posting on Hebrews from next week.

Importance of Kings

Kings doesn't get much of a run in the traditional Mass lectionary - its sole entry as far as I can find is on Monday after the fourth Sunday of Lent (2 Kings 3:16-28).

But it is extremely important in terms of the history of Israel, covering the period roughly about 1070 - 970 BC, and includes some key 'types' of Jesus, including in the nativity story of Samuel, as well, of course, as in the life and promises made to King David.

About 1&2 Kings

Kings comes immediately after Ruth in the Bible.  I  Kings has 31 chapters; II Kings has 24.

Jewish tradition held it to have been written by Samuel, whose story it sets out, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan.  Certainly conservative scholars have generally dated it to the reign of Kings David and Solomon circa 1000-930BC.  But of course modern(ist) scholars dispute this, suggesting it was probably written around  630-540 BC.

The storyline starts with the conception of Samuel by Hannah after her pleading with God at the shrine of Silo.  Samuel becomes a judge and prophet, but inaugurates the monarchy with his anointing of Saul and then David.  Much of the first book then deals with the conflicts between the two.  Book II mainly deals with reign of David, up to death of Absalom.

Some of its key themes include God as the Lord of history, working his will through fallible and sinful human beings; the model of friendship provided by Jonathan and David; the effects of sin; and the dependence of a nation’s happiness on its leaders’ personal holiness

Some of its most important moments include:

• Hannah’s song of praise, which is the key source text for the Magnificat (2 Kings 2:1-10), said in the Benedictine Office on Wednesday's at Lauds (ferial canticle);
• Samuel's vocation story (1 Samuel 3);
• the loss of the Ark of the covenant to the Philistines, and subsequent punishment of the priests of Silo (I Kings  4-6);
• the promise to David that his descendants will rule forever (2 Kings 7);
• David's adultery with Bathsheba, and subsequent repentance (2 Kings 11).

Structure

I Kings starts off with the story of the priest Eli and Samuel, moves to the establishment of the monarchy, and from chapter 13 onwards deals with the conflict between David and Saul.  Book II is primarily concerned with David, and conflict within his house (chapters 9-20).

I&II Kings in the Matins lectionary

In the Benedictine Office (unlike the Roman), I&II Kings is read over the period when there are no weekday readings, and so the readings set are for Sundays only:

Second Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings (I Samuel) 1:1-11
Third Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings (I Samuel) 9:18-10:1
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: 1 Kings (I Samuel) 17:1-16
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost: 2 Kings (II Samuel) 1:1-15
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost: 2 Kings (II Samuel) 12:1-16.

Lectio divina: meditation to work

So far in this series on Lectio Divina I've looked at reading, thinking about and studying the text.  I don't want to say a great deal about the final stages of the process, meditation, prayer, contemplation and work, but for the sake of completeness, a few comments nonetheless.

Our Lady as a model of meditation

The first thing to say is that Our Lady is generally regarded as the ultimate model for lectio divina. Meditation in the Benedictine tradition follows that idea of Our Lady treasuring all those things in her heart, turning them over and over, and reflecting on their meaning.

In the post on study I suggested the kinds of things one can look for flowing out of the words of the text, but in reality there are many different methods of meditation, and I think you just have to find one that works for you. I prefer the idea of keeping going back to the text, and seeing what you can draw out of it. But the Ignatian idea of putting yourself into the Biblical scene and engaging each of the senses, for example, can be equally helpful depending on your personality!

Why we meditate

The key point to bear in mind I think is the purpose of all this.

First we have to be actively listening to what God is trying to say to us - open to having our view of ourselves and the world changed by imitating Christ and accepting the implications of the truths Scripture and Traditional reveal.

Secondly, seeing how we fall short of the Gospel ideal, seeing the cracks in our worldview when it is held up to the mirror of the Scripture is a necessary start.

But we also have to genuinely want to change, to constantly recommit ourselves to strive for perfection - and that means looking to Scripture for the reasons why we should embark on this path. Meditating on the joys of heaven, the happiness we can achieve now, the rewards Our Lord promises can be helpful too!

Finally, we need to look at Scripture to find the tools we need to change - through Advent, many of the readings have focused on the need for repentance and confession. There is a lot more there to be found and utilised though, if, for example, we look at how Our Lord taught the disciples, and not just in words!

Meditation really should take up the bulk of the time you set aside for lectio divina - or at least the work you do in that time should set you up to meditate fruitfully on the text as you do other things during the day. Think about leaving the radio (or Ipod) off as you are do housework, drive to work, or go for a walk for example, and taking one of the lines of thought you have identified as you pursue these activities!

Prayer

Closely related to meditation is prayer.  In this schema prayer comes a fair way down the list, but in reality it has to be part of every stage of lectio - as the part of the preparation we make before starting (as with every and any task!), to guide our thought and study, and of course our meditation. St Teresa of Avila described prayer as just like a conversation with a friend, and that is a concept to keep in front of our minds all the time.

At the same time, it will be pretty evident by this point I hope, that the kind of prayer that should emerge from lectio divina in my view is not just some spontaneous charismatic-style thought to 'share', but something considered.  And it can often be helpful to try writing out your prayer, using it to summarise what you have taken out of the reading and linking it to the request for aid.

If you are looking for models on how to do this, go to the Masters! The psalms for example, particularly, those that reflect on the history of Israel. Or St Augustine's reflections on Genesis in the last few books of his Confessions.

Some of my most favourite Lectio style prayers though are those of Dame Gertrude More (a seventeenth century English Benedictine nun) and those of St Anselm. The latter for example says things like:

"St Mary Magdalene,
you came with springing tears
to the spring of mercy, Christ;
from him your burning thirst was abundantly refreshed;
through him your sins were forgiven;
by him your bitter sorrow was consoled.
My dearest lady,
well you know by your own life
how a sinful soul can be reconciled with its creator,
what counsel a soul in misery needs,
what medicine will restore the sick to health....

herefore, since you are now with the chosen
because you are beloved
and are beloved because you are chosen of God...

Ask urgently that I may have
the love that pierces the heart; tears that are humble;
desire for the homeland of heaven;
impatience with this earthly exile;
searing repentance; and a dread of torments in eternity..."

Our poor efforts won't be as worthy of preservation as these of course, but the discipline of writing them down - and being able to go back to them for reference purposes - can be useful at times!

Contemplation

The hope, of course, is that this active form of prayer will move to wordless contemplation infused by God. This is, however, a gift to be freely bestowed on us, not something we can achieve for ourselves unaided.  What we can do, though, is seek through our prayer to find an inner stillness where we push away all the distracting thoughts that pull us down, seeking an inner stillness that can be filled by God.

Work

The last stage of the schema I’m advocating for Lectio Divina is Work, or putting it all into practice.

Today it is popular to focus on acceptance – of ourselves and others. But this runs directly counter to our tradition, which recognizes that humans are imperfect and inclined to sin, and urges us to struggle for perfection.  We should recognize and even worship God present in others – but we also have to recognize and struggle against everything that makes us unworthy temples of the Holy Spirit.

In essence we read Scripture not just because it is interesting or entertaining – not because it ‘validates’ us - but because of its potential to change our lives, fostering our ongoing conversion. So as we do our lectio, we should be listening out for the ways of putting what we have learnt into practice in our lives.

Models of behavioural change

One of the more useful models of behaviour change points to a five stage process – the first is seeing our undesirable behaviour or flawed worldview for what it is. Most of the time we look at the world through the lens of a set of beliefs about what we are seeing and an image of ourselves. But it is not for nothing, that the psalmist urges us to pray that our secret sins might be forgiven: seeing the mote in our eye can be the hardest step in changing.

The key to making major or minor changes in our lives is to realize that the costs of not changing are greater than those of staying as we are. And in this spiritual life this has to be a continual process, since we know we must seek perfection, even if we can never achieve absolute perfection in this life.

The third important factor in making changes is finding the tools to help us. Scripture provides us with both models and injunctions about how we should behave. You can compile up sets yourself as you do your lectio, or look at the distillations in both Scripture and the tradition - the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament, for example, can be particularly useful here. So to distillations of key precepts from Scripture such as the fourth chapter of St Benedict’s Rule, his tools of good works, which start from the commandments, work through the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, the injunctions from the Sermon on the Mount, and other key sources.


Equally important of course is prayer, and God’s grace!

The point to keep in mind is that making any change is hard work – it won’t necessarily come naturally. The challenge is to keep at, picking ourselves up and trying again after every lapse, until it does come naturally and is fully incorporated into our lives, needing only a brief review from time to make sure we are maintaining the standard.

And in conclusion….

So that wraps up the process: Read-Think-Study-Meditate-Pray-Contemplate-Work.

Lectio divina: Studying the text

This post in this series on Lectio Divina is about the study stage of lectio, and to give you a flavour of how you might tackle it, I’m going to take a practical example, in the opening verses of St John 1:19-20.



Read

Remember first of all that the first stage is to read it. Here is the Vulgate:

“Et hoc est testimonium Iohannis quando miserunt Iudaei ab Hierosolymis sacerdotes et Levitas ad eum ut interrogarent eum tu quis es. Et confessus est et non negavit et confessus est quia non sum ego Christus”

Now have a look at the English version:

19. And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? 20. And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.”

I suggested trying to memorize this is possible (either in English or Latin). Normally I’m not very good a remembering Gospel’s for more than a day or two, but actually this one is imprinted on my brain forever in English at least courtesy of participating in a (memorable for a variety of reasons!) performance many years ago of Orlando Gibbon’s wonderful version setting of this – have a listen, it might help you too!

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Think

Remember that this process is mainly about working out how you are going to tackle the study of the passage, as well as gathering preliminary ideas on where your meditation might focus.

Context: Bear in mind that St John the Evangelist was a disciple of St John the Baptist, so was in a pretty good position to record the other John’s testimony.

Literal meaning: If you aren’t familiar with this Gospel, go read the whole of Chapter One to get the context. But I think that John’s baptizing efforts, just before the start of Jesus’ public ministry will be pretty familiar to most. The Navarre Bible and Ignatius Study Guide also provide useful maps and explanations of the literal meaning of the text.

Haydock's Bible is an old but good online resource for this. On this particular passage it says:

“Ver. 19. The Jews sent, &amp;c. These men, who were priests and Levites, seem to have been sent and deputed by the sanhedrim, or great council at Jerusalem, to ask of John the Baptist, who was then in great esteem and veneration, whether he was not their Messias; who, as they knew by the predictions of the prophets, was to come about that time. John declared to them he was not….”

Spiritual meaning: One approach is to look at the Scriptural cross-references to this passage, or use a Greek concordance to dig into the meaning of the passage in depth. But personally, in order to get started at least, I think you really can’t go past the Church Father’s on this, and I want to recommend a few good resources.

First, if you are looking online the Catena Aurea of St Thomas is a wonderful resource. Secondly, Biblia Clerus brings together a number of patristic commentaries and magisterial references.

In terms of books in hardcopy form, I love the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series, another Catena style approach, for each section it provides an overview of what the Fathers have to say, then selected extracts from their commentaries by verse.

Study

OK, So let's get down to it! As I've said, there are lots of different approaches you can take to this task, but one of the most useful tools for lectio I’ve found is the Catena Aurea compiled by St Thomas Aquinas, as it almost always both answers the questions on the literal meaning of the text, and gives some good jumping off points for the spiritual. Take a look at a couple of extracts for these verses for example:

“ORIGEN; The Jews of Jerusalem, as being of kin to the Baptist, who was of the priestly stock, send Priests and Levites to ask him who he is; that is, men considered to hold a superior rank to the rest of their order, by God's election, and coming from that favored above all cities, Jerusalem. Such is the reverential way in which they interrogate John. We read of no such proceeding towards Christ: but what the Jews did to John, John in turn does to Christ, when he asks Him, through His disciples, Are you He that should come, or look we for another? John, as it appears, saw from the question, that the Priests and Levites had doubts whether it might not be the Christ, who was baptizing; which doubts however they were afraid to profess openly, for fear of incurring the charge of credulity.

He wisely determines therefore first to correct their mistake, and then to proclaim the truth. Accordingly, he first of all shows that he is not the Christ: And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. We may add here, that at this time the people had already begun to be impressed with the idea that Christ's advent was at hand, in consequence of the interpretations which the lawyers had collected out of the sacred writings to that effect.
Thus Theudas had been enabled to collect together a considerable body, on the strength of his pretending to be the Christ; and after him Judas, in the days of the taxation, had done the same. Such being the strong expectation of Christ's advent then prevalent, the Jews send to John, intending by the question, Who are you? to extract from him whether he were the Christ.

GREG. He denied directly being what he was not, but he did not deny what he was: thus, by his speaking truth, becoming a true member of Him Whose name he had not dishonestly usurped.

CHRYS. Or take this explanation: The Jews were influenced by a kind of human sympathy for John, whom they were reluctant to see made subordinate to Christ, on account of the many marks of greatness about him; his illustrious descent in the first place, he being the son of a chief priest; in the next, his hard training, and his contempt of the world.Whereas in Christ the contrary were apparent; a humble birth, for which they reproach Him; Is not this the carpenter's son? an ordinary way of living; a dress such as every one else wore. ….And observe the wisdom of the Evangelist: he repeats the same thing three times, to show John's virtue, and the malice and madness of the Jews. For it is the character of a devoted servant, not only to forbear taking to himself his lord's glory, but even, when numbers offer it to him, to reject it. The multitude indeed believed from ignorance that John was the Christ, but in these it was malice; and in this spirit they put the question to him, thinking, by their blandishments to bring him over to their wishes."

How to use it

As you go through it, highlight the things that strike you, and jot down the things that flow from them in terms of possible topics for meditation. The important point to bear in mind here is that the objective is not to write an essay on Scripture, but to identify the message of the text for you.

Here is a bit of a list (by no means complete) to give you some idea of the types of possibilities you might come up with as you read a good commentary on the text, or think about it yourself:

• You can start at the ‘macro’ level, on God’s providential plan for our salvation, and how that can be reproduced in our own lives this Advent.
• Or think about St John’s asceticism, one of the reasons why he was held in such esteem, and how we stack up on this front.
• About the need to stand up for and preach our own faith and beliefs, correcting error and proclaiming the truth, even we know that any acclaim we win is likely to be very short-lived, and there will be scoffers!
• About the strength of St John’s conviction about his own charism, which clearly had not been endorsed in advance by the religious establishment.
• About the way St John fulfilled Jewish expectations of what a holy man should look like and do – in contrast to Our Lord!
• About the motives of the Jewish authorities, who perhaps stand for all worldly authorities when confronted with holiness that challenges the status quo!
• About St John’s humility in knowing his own position relative to Christ, and the contrast with some early false messiahs.

Next comes meditation and prayer

Hopefully as you study the text and commentaries, the most important issues for you to pray and meditate on will become evident as you look at what you have jotted down. But if not, don’t worry, just pick one or two things to take to the next stage, which we will talk more on next time,

READ-THINK-STUDY-MEDITATE-PRAY-CONTEMPLATE-WORK

Lectio divina: thinking about the text

In the last post in this series on lectio divina I talked about reading – which in a previous era really also included what we would think of as learning it and studying Scripture.

Now I want to turn to the second stage in the process, thinking about it (cogitatio). Bear in mind, of course, that while I’m talking about each of these stages as if they were separate entities, in reality they don’t necessarily happen in a linear sequence!

A lot of lectio guides suggest you should read a text over until something leaps out at you, or the voice of inspiration strikes. Sometimes that does happen.



But as Mother Cecile Bruyere, first Abbess of Solesmes said:

“It is absolute presumption to expect to obtain, by immediate light from God, that knowledge which we can and ought to acquire for ourselves as part of our work in this world. We must not voluntarily rest satisfied with vague notions about the truths….”

Approaches to thinking about the text

When you are doing lectio, you are really looking for what God is trying to say to you personally – what you need to think about, change about yourself, or understand. It is also a jumping off point for meditation and contemplation. So as you go through the lectio process, my suggestion is to jot down a few notes as you go to help structure your thinking.

I like to think of the ‘cogitatio’ stage of approaching the text as in large part working out what I need to fill in by way of study (the next stage), and what I’m going to focus on in meditating on the text.

Do remember though that the point of lectio is not to produce an academic understanding of a text (well, OK, it can be, but that isn't the objective). In thinking about it, the aim is in part to work out where to focus. There are really three key strands you can look at:

§ Understanding the context of the verses under consideration;
§ Understanding the meaning – literal and spiritual – of the text; and
§ Identifying themes or ideas that are important for you personally.

Context

In terms of context, I’m talking about both things about the text itself (like the genre, the human author, time it was written) and the context of the events being described (for the Gospel, what part of Jesus’ life, is it a parable, a discourse or description of events, etc). If you aren’t familiar with this, you might need to take a quick look at a commentary (such as the Navarre), or an ‘Introduction to the Bible’ book (there are several around – the ‘Inside the Bible’ by Fr Kenneth Baker is one of my favourites).

Literal and spiritual meaning

The Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes a nice medieval couplet that summarizes the four senses of Scripture: The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.”

Throughout history there has been something of a tug of war between those who focus primarily on the literal sense of Scripture, and those who focus primarily on the spiritual.

At the moment the literal is winning.

And it does need to be in there, being the foundation for all the other senses of Scripture.

But I won’t spend much time on it. I’ll just note that the Ignatius Study Guides (and there are other similar resources around) provide useful notes on people and technical terms, as well as maps (as recommended by commenter Felix yesterday), and these are tools designed to be used for lectio.


One book I quite like as a crib because it provides a reasonably straightforward summaries of key parts of the Bible (and for the Gospels, gives one amalgamated version of each key event, parable, etc), and in each section gives a very helpful summary of the doctrinal points it illustrates (with a nice cross reference to catechism) is Krecht's Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture. It is also very good on the spiritual meanings, particularly typology.

So in summary….

The cogitatio stage is about working out how to tackle the text, which gaps in your knowledge need to be plugged the most.  Above all, it is about starting to pick out the things that you might meditate or pray on.

READ-THINK-STUDY-MEDITATE-PRAY-CONTEMPLATE-WORK

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.

READ-THINK-STUDY-MEDITATE-PRAY-CONTEMPLATE-WORK

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.

Matthew 13:44-58

Today's parables from Matthew 13 are the hidden treasure, the pearl and the fishing net:

44 Simile est regnum cælorum thesauro abscondito in agro: quem qui invenit homo, abscondit, et præ gaudio illius vadit, et vendit universa quæ habet, et emit agrum illum. 45 Iterum simile est regnum cælorum homini negotiatori, quærenti bonas margaritas. 46 Inventa autem una pretiosa margarita, abiit, et vendidit omnia quæ habuit, et emit eam. 47 Iterum simile est regnum cælorum sagenæ missæ in mare, et ex omni genere piscium congreganti. 48 Quam, cum impleta esset, educentes, et secus littus sedentes, elegerunt bonis in vasa, malos autem foras miserunt. 49 Sic erit in consummatione sæculi: exibunt angeli, et separabunt malos de medio justorum, 50 et mittent eos in caminum ignis: ibi erit fletus, et stridor dentium. 51 Intellexistis hæc omnia? Dicunt ei: Etiam. 52 Ait illis: Ideo omnis scriba doctus in regno cælorum, similis est homini patrifamilias, qui profert de thesauro suo nova et vetera. 53 Et factum est, cum consummasset Jesus parabolas istas, transiit inde. 54 Et veniens in patriam suam, docebat eos in synagogis eorum, ita ut mirarentur, et dicerent: Unde huic sapientia hæc, et virtutes? 55 Nonne hic est fabri filius? nonne mater ejus dicitur Maria, et fratres ejus, Jacobus, et Joseph, et Simon, et Judas? 56 et sorores ejus, nonne omnes apud nos sunt? unde ergo huic omnia ista? 57 Et scandalizabantur in eo. Jesus autem dixit eis: Non est propheta sine honore, nisi in patria sua, et in domo sua. 58 Et non fecit ibi virtutes multas propter incredulitatem illorum.

And in English:

[44] The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field. Which a man having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. [45] Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls. [46] Who when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way, and sold all that he had, and bought it. [47] Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes. [48] Which, when it was filled, they drew out, and sitting by the shore, they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth. [49] So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just. [50] And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [51] Have ye understood all these things? They say to him: Yes. [52] He said unto them: Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old. [53] And it came to pass: when Jesus had finished these parables, he passed from thence. [54] And coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogues, so that they wondered and said: How came this man by this wisdom and miracles? [55] Is not this the carpenter' s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude: [56] And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence therefore hath he all these things? [57] And they were scandalized in his regard. But Jesus said to them: A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. [58] And he wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief.

Commentary

On these verses, it is hard to go past St John Chrysostom's commentary (Homily 47) on the importance of lectio divina, including on the Old Testament, which takes its cure from verse 51-52:

"Having then uttered all this, and concluded His discourse in a tone to cause fear, and signified that these are the majority of cases (for He dwelt more on them). He says,

Have ye understood all these things? They say unto Him, Yea, Lord.

Then because they understood, He again praises them, saying,

Therefore every Scribe, which is instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven, is like a man that is an householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. Matthew 13:52

Wherefore elsewhere also He says, I will send you wise men and scribes. Matthew 23:34 Do you see how so far from excluding the Old Testament, He even commends it, and speaks publicly in favor of it, calling it a treasure?

So that as many as are ignorant of the divine Scriptures cannot be householders; such as neither have of themselves, nor receive of others, but neglect their own case, perishing with famine. And not these only, but the heretics too, are excluded from this blessing. For they bring not forth things new and old. For they have not the old things, wherefore neither have they the new; even as they who have not the new, neither have they the old, but are deprived of both. For these are bound up and interwoven one with another.

Let us then hear, as many of us as neglect the reading of the Scriptures, to what harm we are subjecting ourselves, to what poverty. For when are we to apply ourselves to the real practice of virtue, who do not so much as know the very laws according to which our practice should be guided? But while the rich, those who are mad about wealth, are constantly shaking out their garments, that they may not become moth-eaten; do you, seeing forgetfulness worse than any moth wasting your soul, neglect conversing with books? Do you not thrust away from you the pest, adorn your soul, look continually upon the image of virtue, and acquaint yourself with her members and her head? For she too has a head and members more seemly than any graceful and beautiful body...

And her mouth is wisdom and understanding, and the knowledge of spiritual hymns. And her heart, acquaintance with Scripture, and maintenance of sound doctrines, and benevolence, and kindness. And as without this last there is no living, so without that other is never any salvation. Yea, for from that all her excellencies have birth. She has also for feet and hands the manifestations of her good works. She has a soul too, godliness. She has likewise a bosom of gold, and firmer than adamant, even fortitude; and all may be taken captive more easily than that bosom may be riven asunder. And the spirit that is in the brain and heart, is charity."

Should Catholics read Bible books systematically?***

A few weeks ago on Saints Will Arise I suggested a number of options on what to read by way of lectio divina, including looking at the psalms, taking the texts of the Sunday liturgical cycle, reading the Gospels systematically, and reading (the rest of) the Bible.

I've just come across a rather curious post by Father Mark over at Vultus Christi who, in a letter to Oblates of his monastery, argues that a systematic program of Bible reading, or reading the books of Scripture right through is downright uncatholic.

I have to say I find this a rather extreme position.

I'm not sure whether it was meant as a direct response to my post (or queries from his oblates generated by it); probably not.  But thought I would comment on it all the same.  Alas, wordpress won't, for some reason, allow me to post a comment on his blog, so I'm posting it over here instead.

Reading the Bible in order is Protestant?

Fr Mark points rightly to the privileged place Scripture has in the liturgy, and of Scripture as, in a certain sense, a product of the liturgy rather than something that should be viewed as entirely independent of it.  And he points out that Scripture is not a personal book, but something that can only be understood in the midst of the Church.  Thus far I agree.

But he then takes that view a step further than I think can really be sustained, arguing that as a general principle, as Catholics, we should only read the Bible in the context of the readings set at Mass and in the Office:

"Unlike Protestants who may open the Bible at random, or follow a personal reading plan, or use it to prepare a teaching or sermon, Catholic and Orthodox Christians submit to the Church’s use of the Bible in the liturgy...What should one read in lectio divina? In my long personal experience, it is best to focus on the very texts that will be chanted or read, and heard on a given day, in Holy Mass and in the Divine Office..."

He consigns the reading of Scripture in order to rare special occasions:

"There are also moments in life, notably during a retreat or on the occasion of a special anniversary, when one may want to read a particular book of the Bible continuously from start to finish..." 

St Benedict and the tradition on lectio divina

Now I'm all in favour of one option for lectio divina being to base it around the readings in the liturgy.
But to claim this is the only option we should ever adopt seems to me a step too far!

Here is why.

First, St Benedict himself in his Rule sets the precedent in favour of reading books in order, requiring his monks to read least one book a year consecutively (and this would normally have been a book of Scripture) during the season of Lent (RB 48).

Secondly the Fathers (including Benedictine monks like St Bede) and later theologians did not simply stick to the Sunday (or Sanctoral) readings, but produced many commentaries on complete books of Scripture, long viewed as essentially products of lectio divina.  Using them in anthology form obviously has value, but so too, surely, does treating them as complete works in their own right.

Thirdly, many of the Fathers adopt a 'canonical' reading of Scripture, an approach that is regaining popularity today, that interprets sections of Scripture by reference to its placement in the particular book of the Bible.  In the case of the psalms, for example, the particular number of certain psalms is regarded as significant in and of itself.  And canonical interpretation becomes supremely important in the case of obviously carefully crafted orderings of the material such as occur in St John's Gospel in particular, which is structured around 'signs' and 'days'. If we only ever read the snippets of Scripture prescribed for a particular day in the Mass we will surely miss this rich layer of meaning that comes from context.

Fourthly, others have suggested that in fact the monastic tradition is to read the books of the Bible through over a year: in fact, as Dom Christopher Lazowski, in an inspiring post from a few years back on New Liturgical Movement states that:

"There is a monastic adage that states that a monk should pray the Psalter in a week, and should read the Bible in a year...The rest of the Bible is read in a systematic way at the night Office...But the reading of Sacred Scripture is not limited to the liturgy. It is the chief matter of lectio divina, the meditative and prayerful reading, sliding in and out of prayer, that is a vital element of monastic life."

Dom Christopher notes that novices in his own monastery are given a plan for reading the Bible in a year 'which is inspired by the way the different books are read at the Office, with the addition of the books that the Office omits, but without the psalms and the Gospels'.

Finally, there are practical reasons for reading the books straight through as well, not the least of which is that if we only read what occurs in the liturgy we will remain ignorant of large chunks of Scripture (yes even the Novus Ordo lectionary omits whole psalms, chapters and verses of the Bible from its cycle).  Yet the Church has always insisted that all of Scripture is provided for our instruction.

St Matthew continues!

There is certainly a good case for taking the texts of the Mass and/or Office as the basis for our lectio for at least once cycle.  But equally, I think, there is a case for appreciating that God inspired the Sacred authors to write complete books that should be treated as such.

Accordingly, I for one will be plowing on with my systematic reading of St Matthew this quarter!

**Just to note that Fr Mark has written a subsequent post rather modifying his position, and suggesting that reading through the Gospels systematically would be acceptable as a source of lectio.

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.

How to do (real) lectio divina

One of Pope Benedict XVI's important contributions to the rehabilitation of Scripture in the lives of Catholics is his instruction on how to do lectio divina. 

Lectio divina, or holy reading, has been popularised in recent years by assorted monks and others. 

Unfortunately, much of the guidance around amounts to nothing much more than, read the text aloud a few times, seize on whatever part of it gives you a good vibe, and tell everyone about your emotional response to it.

It's the kind of approach that might work well if you are a trained theologian with a good knowledge of the whole of Scripture. But which is extremely dangerous for the typical under-catechized cafeteria Catholic whose acquaintance with Scripture is at best superficial.  Contrast that with the Pope's instructions on how to do real lectio divina, which reflect the real monastic tradition, not the pop version often propagated today under its name.

The stages of lectio divina

Pope Benedict XVI suggests, in his Post-Synodal Exhortation Verbum Domini, that there are five stages to the process:

1. Lectio (a terms that literally means reading, but in late antiquity and medieval usage also encompassed translating, thinking about and studying the text): The Pope suggests that the fundamental question to be answered at this stage is, 'what does the text mean'?

2. Meditatio (meditation): 'what does the biblical text say to us'?

3. Oratio (prayer): 'what do we say to the Lord in response to his word'?

4. Contemplatio (contemplation): 'what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us'?

5. Actio (action; sometimes the term 'work' is used for this stage in medieval schemas for lectio): Putting it into practice.

Using all of the tools at our disposal to get at meaning

It is at the 'lectio' stage that the Pope proposes the integration of the tools offered by exegesis and theology into the process.

He makes the point that Scriptural interpretation is not just a purely individual matter: we must read it in the light of the faith, and in accordance with the principles the Church as set out.

In particular he points to the importance of:  

• the way the New Testament definitively interprets the Old;
• the witness of tradition: we must read "in communion with the Church, that is, with all the great witnesses to this word, beginning with the earliest Fathers up to the saints of our own day, up to the present-day magisterium";
• drawing on the tools of exegesis;
• with attention to both the literal and spiritual senses of the text (noting that the spiritual is subdivided into three senses which deal with the contents of the faith, with the moral life and with our eschatological aspirations).

The lectio stage, in other words, is not just a matter of reading the text through a few times, but requires serious study.

Meditation through to action

And this intellectual orientation carries through into the other stages of the process. At the meditation stage, for example, he suggests that "we must open ourselves to what God wants to say to us, ‘overcoming our deafness to those words that do not fit our own opinions or prejudices’. The theological implications of the text, in other words, should inform and be the subject of our meditations, prayers and consideration for action.

 It is not, of course, all a matter of intellect. The Pope stresses that lectio divina must be a dialogue with God, involving prayer, as petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise, so that "the word transforms us".

Dialogue though, involves listening, and listening not just to what we feel personally here and now, but also to what God has said to us through his Church down the ages. Sound advice indeed.

**Reposted from Australia Incognita and Psallam Domino