Editor’s note: This is part 32 of a series, “The Kingdom of Grace.” Part 31 can be found here.
One of the best practices in the life of prayer is lectio divina. Those who practice it tend to grow in wisdom and grace before God and men (see Lk. 2:52).
In contemporary American society, a life immersed in Scripture is stereotypically Protestant rather than Catholic. Long before there were any Protestants, however, the Fathers of the Church and the monks of old devoted themselves to sacred Scripture in an amazing way.
The liturgy of the hours celebrated in monasteries consisted mainly of the recitation of psalms and readings from Scripture, and when the liturgy was over the monks devoted themselves extensively to lectio divina. Two hours of lectio divina each day was a common practice. For them, lectio divina was not one practice alongside others in the spiritual life but the primary practice. Even when the monks were not reading and meditating on Scripture at the liturgy or during periods designated for lectio, they were intent on remembering and meditating on Scripture as they went about their labors throughout the day. In this way, their minds were so imbued with Scripture that virtually every word they wrote was either a quotation, paraphrase, or allusion to Scripture if not a commentary on it. The monastic form of life with its incessant meditation on Scripture gave birth to a biblical culture in the monasteries.
Sacred Scripture is a divinely inspired communication of the truth of God. Because it is divinely inspired, Scripture is a special book – different from every other book. The world is full of books, but there is no other book the Church will hold up in the liturgy and say: “The Word of the Lord.” In the Byzantine rites, they say: “Wisdom. Be attentive.”
What awaits the prayerful reader of Scripture is pure truth. On every page one finds layer upon layer of meaning. Throughout the whole bible, every attribute of God is on display for the mind’s eye to marvel. But there is more. The words of Scripture bear a special energy (see Heb. 4:12). They cut to the heart, cast out demons, clean up vices, direct the virtues, purify the soul, and illuminate the mind with divine Light. Scripture shines with beams brighter than the sun, but the beams are invisible to the naked eye. Faith alone perceives them, and charity alone enjoys them. Just as everything is generally better on sunny days than on cloudy days, so too everything is generally better on days we are exposed to the rays of Scripture than on days when we are not.
The new life of grace is designed to be lived in coordination with Scripture. The principal cause of the growth of grace is the Eucharist, but the Church does not normally celebrate the Eucharist or minister holy communion without some reading of Scripture. In fact, all of the sacraments normally involve either some reading of Scripture or at least allusion to the great themes of Scripture. Our lives outside the liturgy should reflect our lives inside the liturgy. Outside the liturgy some regular reading of Scripture should be a normal part of daily life..
In recent times, even before the Second Vatican Council, the Popes have frequently urged Catholics to return to the sacred page. In 1943, for example, Pope Pius XII urged that Scripture be read daily with piety and devotion in every family (Divino Afflante Spiritu, 51). The Second Vatican Council and all the Popes since have repeatedly urged Catholics to read Scripture, e.g. in Pope Benedict XVI’s Verbum Domini, 86-7. If Scripture received even ten percent of the attention we now give to trivialities on our devices, how different our minds would be! How different the world would be!
Scripture has an amazing power to speak to every person in every situation. It is common for people to experience being “addressed” by God through Scripture. It often happens that certain words leap off the page and strike the heart. Sometimes it happens during private reading, sometimes during the readings at Mass, and sometimes during a homily, confession, or spiritual direction. When it happens, somehow or another, you just know God is talking to you personally. Every believer has a list – or should have a list – of those words of Scripture that have spoken personally to him or her. It is an important list in our lives. It is a list of things God has said to you.
One important exercise, in fact, is to sit down, go through your memories, and draw up a list of all those verses of Scripture that have struck you personally. It is important to spend time meditating on each of the verses on the list. Those sayings are at the core of your relationship with God. Mary kept all the sayings she heard from the angel Gabriel, the shepherds, the magi, the prophets Simeon and Anna, as well as Jesus himself, and Mary pondered them endlessly in her heart (see Lk. 2:19 & 52). Just as Mary did, so you and I should do with the list of sayings that have pierced our hearts and shaped our lives before God.
When the ancient monks gave themselves to a life of reading Scripture, they did so with a certain hope. The hope was to read Scripture in the same Spirit in which it was written. Scripture is a puzzling book – even a perplexing one. It is not easy to understand, and even when we try to do so it often remains something of a closed book. For Scripture was written in the Spirit of Truth, and only the Spirit of Truth can really open our mind’s eye to understand the deeper meaning of its words – what God is telling us. Only the Spirit of Truth can teach us the spiritual sense of the text. Only the Spirit of Truth can lead us into the depths of the riches of the wisdom of God contained in the sacred page (see Rom. 11:30). A serious program of lectio divina, therefore, requires serious prayer for God to illuminate our minds with the Spirit of Truth.
People sometimes wonder why the ancient monks took up certain ascetical practices: fasting, labors, vigils, silence, and more. The Lord himself practiced these things, of course, and the monks imitated him. What the monks learned by experience was that such practices prepare the mind to receive special illuminations from Holy Spirit for purposes of understanding Scripture. When such special illuminations come to us, and when we interpret Scripture according to proper principles of exegesis, what comes to light is Jesus Christ – “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). In this way, by a practice of regular and frequent lectio divina, you and I can experience something of the road to Emmaus for ourselves. As we prayerfully read the sacred page and beg for light to understand, the Lord himself will draw near, walk with us, talk with us, and interpret for us “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Lk. 24:27). Our hearts too will come to burn within us, and a new world will be in the making. It will be a world of hearts made new, a new measure of communion amongst us, and a new biblical culture.
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Father James Dominic Brent, O.P. is a Dominican Friar who lives and teaches at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of The Father’s House: Discovering Our Home in the Trinity. His podcast is called Contemplata — a podcast for contemplative souls. He posts select homilies, spiritual conferences, interviews, and radio spots on on his personal Soundcloud site. He frequently lectures for the Thomistic Institute and appears on Aquinas 101.
Image courtesy of Unsplash.
