Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the Scriptural center of the spiritual life

Note: Again and again we see the necessity of soaking in Scripture as the center of the spiritual life. Ruminating on God’s Word – which we can only do when we’re thoroughly familiar with it – puts it constantly in our thoughts and on our lips. Is it time to add “ruminatio” to the oratio, meditatio, tentatio sequence?

(And, by the way, the sequence I just referred to comes from Luther’s commentary on Psalm 119 where he wrote that “oratio, meditatio, tentatio faciunt theologum” which, being interpreted, means “prayer, meditation, and struggle/temptation/personal experience make a theologian.” Many modern writers treat the “tentatio” as one of those words you can’t really translate. Anyway, should we think about adding “rumination” to Luther’s formula?)

Quote:
“The monastic practice of rumination moves from the personal reading of the gospel of the day and the liturgical listening to the text at Lauds and Eucharist to its repetition from memory throughout the day. We could call it meditatio, but meditation is only a moment of lectio and cannot exhaust its spiritual sense. Rumination consists in keeping the word alive within us by its repetition. So we begin to know God, to abide in God’s love. This kind of knowledge is a comprehension of participation, union, and love.”

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, pg. 53.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Scripture alone is the heart of the spiritual life

Note: I grew up knowing that sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) is one of the core principles of the Reformation. And it’s only in the last couple decades that I’ve become aware of two things connected with this two word soundbite. First, that so many people misunderstand what the Lutheran Reformers were getting at here. Second, that so many Roman Catholics actually teach the same thing the Lutherans do with regard to the Bible.

As an example of the second, the Camaldolese see lectio divina as the central core and heart of the spiritual disciplines. That’s because lectio is how and where the Bible soaks into our very being. We must listen before we can serve.

Quote:
“Our monastic vocation is to serve and worship God through a contemplative life that reveals the trinitarian love of God. For this reason lectio divina is not a technique of interpretation or meditation of the Scriptures, but the very heart of monastic spirituality. Our own asceticism must be built on God’s Word. The monastery is a school of the Lord’s service because it is where we learn to hear our Lord Jesus Christ. Silence, ongoing conversion and solitude are meant for listening. They are conditions of possibility for our spiritual growth.”

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, pg. 54.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

religious fasting not always total abstinence from food

Note: When most people hear the word “fasting” I think they hear “total abstinence.” That’s fasting in the sense of preparing for bloodwork at your annual physical. But it’s not always religious or spiritual fasting. This fasting can be viewed as a kind of anti-gluttony; as chastity of the digestive tract; as poverty of the plate. This may make religious fasting easier for some people to practice. It may make some of those stories about the early desert monks easier to understand.

Quote:
“Camaldolese practice for fasting expects the monk to eat something every day, according to personal needs, but to eat only what is necessary–like the Israelites with their manna in the desert (Exod 16).”

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.(p. 55)

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

praying and mulling over the Psalms

Note: The reason we spend so much time praying with the Psalms is that their broad range of content and expression touch all our needs. It could be that we feel one thing when the appointed Psalm goes somewhere else, but that just indicates (I think) our need for broader and deeper familiarity with them so that we can recall and pray the verses that do, at that moment, speak our heart.

Quote:
“And with that gospel, it is very important during our periods of silence and personal prayer to repeat some psalms that we have prayed in the Liturgy of Hours. Why the psalms? I can find myself in the psalms. Through the psalms I can praise God with trust and hope, but I can also give free rein to my darker thoughts that might otherwise lie in wait within my heart. Above all, the psalms sing my own thirst for God, the joys and sufferings of my search for God. The psalms are a support for our prayer and lectio divina.” (p. 55)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

how the Camaldolese practice lectio

Note: How and why do we do lectio? And what comes of it? The Camaldolese practice it this way: slowly and with silence. It leads to conversion of life and thought, not confirmation of them.

Quote:
“So, the first exercise of lectio is the proclamation of the gospel. We read the text at least three or four times, with attentiveness and concentration, accompanied by lengthy, deep pauses of silence. God’s Word is a gift that does not come to confirm my thoughts or life, but to convert them.” (p. 55)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the truths of lectio are heart truths

Note: Lectio divina takes us to, and uncovers, the spiritual heart of a text, which may well be, and usually is, different from the literal, exegetical center. The latter is head knowledge more than heart knowledge. But does this mean that lectio truths are personal ones and not as applicable to the larger Body? That would mean that the spiritual heart of the text could be different for each of us. Well, why not?

Quote: “All of this spiritual exercise in reading, repetition and hearing makes sense if we discover the center of the text. What is the center? In lectio we do not search for the textually central spot, but that spiritual center that gives the text a contemplative sense. Such a center can be a sentence, a verb or series of verbs, a teaching, etc. In other words, this center is not always the exegetical center. It is the heart of the text for me, right now, in my present spiritual path. That center we discover in our lectio is a gift of the Spirit, a spiritual intuition that comes from God, not from our intellect. In the beginning, it is not always easy to uncover the spiritual center of a text.” (p. 56)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

meditate like a bee

Note: Barban clarifies the parts of meditatio with a nice animal metaphor. In lectio we read the Bible, and in meditatio Scripture reads us. It’s important for us to store up Scripture texts, as a bee stores honey.

Quote:
“In the Christian monastic tradition, meditatio is not primarily a technique for emptying the soul. Meditation is an exercise in attentiveness, purification, and concentration, but its primary goal is the fullness or maturation of God’s Word within us. According to the most ancient tradition, meditation is biblical. And in lectio divina, three important ‘moments’ constitute meditatio: the ant’s work, the bee’s work, and discernment.

“The ant’s work is to harvest the food. Our food is God’s Word. … [then hammer at the keystone center of the text]. One who is more familiar with Scripture will have the advantage of recalling a greater number of texts.

“We must not only harvest our food, but also work with it like a bee. …. In other words, the monk’s work is to meditate, i.e., to reveal the hidden sense of Scripture, to produce the honey of evangelical wisdom. Monastic tradition calls this second step of meditation ruminatio. …

“God’s Word entering our lives begins a work of discernment, of purification, of krisis–transformation and conversion. Whereas with lectio we read Scripture, during meditatio God’s Word ‘reads’ us. This can prove a painful process.” (pp. 56-57)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

centrality of lectio divina

Note: Camaldolese prior Alessandro Barban highlights the centrality of lectio divina among the Christian spiritual disciplines. It is the core around which all the rest of spiritual life circles. He is writing about his Camaldolese monks, but the thought applies to us all as we are able in our various stations in life.

Quote:
“Every day we monks live in important spiritual practices, such as stability, attentiveness or mindfulness, meditation, silence, prayer, obedience, purity of heart, simplicity, openness, and many others. But lectio divina is the center of our monastic life. Monastic practices are not simply things to do. They are dimensions of the Spirit. If we cannot live these dimensions, we are not really monks.” (p. 59)

Source: Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

understanding Scripture

Note: Augustine says that different people understand the Bible at different depths, and that it’s really best if they get the true meaning in their hearts rather than just the bare words in their heads. On the other hand, if the understanding is weak or lacking, then it is best to have the actual words of the text memorized. A takeaway for Bible teachers would be that they shouldn’t expect the same results for everybody.

Quote: “The wisdom of what a person says is in direct proportion to his progress in learning the holy scriptures — and I am not speaking of intensive reading or memorization, but real understanding and careful investigation of their meaning. Some people read them but neglect them; by their reading they profit in knowledge, by their neglect they forfeit understanding. Those who remember the words less closely but penetrate to the heart of scripture with the eyes of their own heart are much to be preferred, but better than either is the person who not only quotes scripture when he chooses but also understands it as he should. For a person who has to speak wisely on matters which he cannot treat eloquently, close adherence to the words of scripture is particularly necessary. The poorer he sees himself to be in his own resources, the richer he must be in those of scripture, using them to confirm what he says in his own words; so that although once deficient in words of his own he can grow in stature, as it were, by the testimony of something really important.” 

Tags: #scholarship #study #Bible

Source: St Augustine of Hippo, “On Christian Teaching” Book 5, paragraphs 19-21. Translated by R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), page 104-105.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

texts and the student

Note: Augustine thought it important for students (especially students of Holy Scripture) to have ready access to good quality texts. This is really a foreshadowing of the Renaissance humanists’ call to return to the sources (ad fontes). Also, note how Christian scholarship leads to holiness, holiness leads to gentleness, and gentleness to avoiding controversy.

Quote: “The student who fears God earnestly seeks his will in the holy scriptures. Holiness makes him gentle, so that he does not revel in controversy; a knowledge of languages protects him from uncertainty over unfamiliar words or phrases, and a knowledge of certain essential things protects him from ignorance of the significance and detail of what is used by way of imagery. Thus equipped, and with the assistance of reliable texts derived from the manuscripts with careful attention to the need for emendation, he should approach the task of analysing and resolving the ambiguities of scriptures.” 

Source:
St Augustine of Hippo, “On Christian Teaching” Book 3, paragraph 1. Translated by R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), page 68.