Recently, I had a conversation with an older gentleman who has had a serious spirituality of the Word for over 50 years. He had recently heard a talk I gave on the three spiritual senses of Scripture and had some time to test it out in his own quiet times of prayer. He marveled over the richness of what it brought out of the scriptural text and wondered why he was only now hearing about it after half a century. Yes, that is a good question. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a rich section on spiritual exegesis precisely so it does not remain a hidden secret any longer (CCC 108-18).
The Catechism shows us how the literal sense of Scripture contains a plethora of meaning that is opened up through the three spiritual senses, which help us penetrate the full riches of the Word of God (cf. Col 1:25-2:8). The three spiritual senses are the allegorical (Christological), moral (tropological), and anagogical (eschatological) (CCC 117). The three spiritual senses can be simply understood like this: What does a given passage say about (1) Jesus, (2) our living the mystery of Jesus, and (3) our destiny in Jesus? These are not ironclad and do not limit things to just a few proper interpretations, but are basic guidelines to point us in the right direction, deeper into the Word.
There is a way, too, that the four steps of lectio divina correspond to the four senses of Scripture: lectio (literal sense), meditatio (allegorical/Christological), oratio (moral as we pray for the text to be actualized in our life), and contemplatio (anagogical/eschatological/mystical as we savor a foretaste of our final union with God). We are meant to continue to live out the Emmaus Journey of Lk 24:13-49, where the Lord breaks Bread with us and opens our minds and hearts to encounter Jesus through the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments. It is all about Him and our life with Him as these mysteries burn in our hearts as a present reality (cf. Eph 1:17-18). “Emmaus” literally means “hot springs,” and this is precisely where we journey through the Word of God, deeper into the living waters of Jesus, warmed with the fire of His love.
We are meant to continue to live out the Emmaus Journey of Lk 24:13-49, where the Lord breaks Bread with us and opens our minds and hearts to encounter Jesus through the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments.
The Catechism, following Dei Verbum, lays out three principles for reading the Scriptures “in the same Spirit by whom they were written” (CCC 111-14). These three principles immediately precede the account of the three spiritual senses (CCC 115-18), so they should be seen as governing our use of the spiritual senses. It is a way to guard against arbitrary or whimsical interpretations and keep us within the richness of the truth of the Word. The three principles help us open up layers of meaning contained in the divine Word itself as we try to go deeper into the core meaning of a given passage of the Bible, which is the mystery of Jesus and our saving participation in it. There is not just one correct meaning of a passage but a symphony of interpretations as the mystery of Jesus in our lives breaks open. St. Bonaventure compared interpretation and insights drawn from the Word as a seed expanding into a whole forest and then producing even more seeds (Collation XIII.2).
According to the three principles (CCC 111-14), first, we are to read the passage in light of the whole canon of Scripture. Our Mass lectionary hence pairs up an Old Testament reading that corresponds to our Gospel for each Sunday. What other passages come to mind? The rabbis spoke of “stringing pearls” as a given theme in the Bible that leads us to other passages, and we weave them together to enrich our reading. Second, we are to read the text in light of the living Tradition, which involves the Saints, the Magisterium, and the Liturgy. What have the Saints or Church teaching said that is related to this passage or theme? Does the Liturgy shed any light on it? Third, we should read the Bible as we keep in mind the “analogy of faith.” What theological truths shed light on the passage, or what theological implications follow from it? With these three principles, as we think about the allegorical (Christological), moral (tropological), and anagogical (eschatological) spiritual senses, we are kept on track with a deeper penetration into the saving truth of the Word.
Why did God give us the Bible? St. Augustine’s answer is that God gave us the Bible to help us grow in love of God and neighbor. Hence, there is a grace in the living Word of God to help us live out what we read about and to grow in love. St. Augustine even says that the right interpretation of a passage is one that causes us to grow in love of God and neighbor (De Doctrina Christiana 1.35). We surely want to keep in mind other standards of truth as we read the Bible but Augustine’s point holds. God’s purpose and end (telos) in giving us His Word is to make us grow in love of God and neighbor, and so there are graces hidden within the Word toward this end.
The three spiritual senses open up layers of the mystery of the Word and, as St. Gregory the Great notes, most of what we perceive cannot be put into words (On Ezekiel, I, 7.8 and II, 5.17). It is about a contemplative engagement with the Word as God manifests Himself in a living encounter and releases His saving energies through His Word, whether we can say much about it or not, as we rest like a dove in a cavern of the Rock. Gregory, building on Augustine, draws out how love of God and love of neighbor are the two wings of contemplation (I, 7.16). Praying with the Bible, then, releases the power of God into our ascent to God in contemplative prayer and into our active life of preaching and service.
Sometimes, Biblical commentaries have a section on “Interpretation” followed by a section on “Application.” This is misleading since it makes it sound like application is something we are doing extra, something that falls outside the text itself. But in reality, the actualization of the text in our lives through a saving encounter with the Lord is the very purpose God authored the Scriptures; it is a power and grace contained in the Word itself as it addresses us afresh each day. These saving riches of the Word are what the three spiritual senses release for us. Hence, it has been an ardent teaching project of mine this past year if you wish to learn more from a playlist of talks that I gave or a lengthy article on this theme in St. John of the Cross at the Substack page of Dr. Anthony Lilles and me called “Spiritual Revolution: A Journal of Mystical Theology.”
In a recent book I co-authored, How to Be His: A 33-Day Dedication to our Eucharistic Jesus, I wrote 11 Scriptural reflections on the Eucharist. Some readers noted that while they found what I said rich and helpful, it was not what they normally think of as Scriptural exegesis. This is a case in point. I think this was the case because I am precisely doing spiritual exegesis in these reflections, and we are not entirely used to reading the Bible in this way in our modern age, which can sometimes remain on the surface level even as we may be engaged in many Bible studies. Hence, there is something here from the Church fathers and medieval monks to incorporate more into our own lectio divina in order to expand our engagement with the inexhaustible depths of the Word.
As we adore our Eucharistic Lord with our Bible open, we should recognize that there is no passage that is not about the Eucharist! The Eucharist is Jesus and His saving mysteries alive and at work today, and this is precisely what the whole Bible is about. As our Eucharistic revival also becomes a revival of the Word, the deep and plentiful blessings, energies, and power of the Word made flesh in the Eucharist will be unleashed even more into our souls and the world today. Our Eucharistic lectio divina helps build up the Kingdom of God, whether we realize it or not. And the three spiritual senses can continue to enrich our engagement with the mystery of the Word, even if we have already been at it for 50+ years.
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