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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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From hope deferred to a tree of life

I am here to confirm the truth of Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

Just 5 months ago I was on my way home from Mount Katahdin, Maine, a place I had wanted to be for more than 50 years. Climbing Katahdin was the goal of a long-deferred hope of mine: to hike the Appalachian Trail. I felt that my time this past summer, my months on the Trail, was a personally holy time; that the hike was a pilgrimage taking me to “a tree of life.”

A pilgrimage is usually a long trek to a religious or spiritual shrine of some sort. Katahdin, if it is that for some (it is held sacred by the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot nations), is not a Christian shrine in the usual sense. It commemorates no saint or martyr, has no church or monument, witnessed no miracle or event in the life of the Church.

For me, this pilgrimage was first of all just a part of my ‘pilgrimage through life’ on my eventual way to heaven. But it was also a pilgrimage within. I spent a lot of time in prayer, reading Scripture, and re-reading the Christian spiritual classics “The Imitation of Christ” and “The Practice of the Presence of God.”

So maybe my time was more of a walking retreat? It doesn’t matter.

Near the end of my time on the Trail another hiker excitedly asked me “So, what’s next?” He had in mind other treks, trips, and experiences, and was happy to share with me where he was headed after he finished the Appalachian Trail. What I replied was something like, “Well, I want to do some reading.”

And my last 5 months have included a lot of reading. A variety of things. Short stories by Flannery O’Connor, and by Leo Tolstoy; silliness by Jasper Fforde and by Douglas Adams; more of the Eastern Orthodox collection of spiritual texts called the ‘Philokalia’; some of Evelyn Underhill’s classic ‘Mysticism’; a Charles Dickens; some William Faulkner; and more. All tied together only by the fact that I had never read those works before. And if that is my selection criterion, I have a long way to go.

This leads by a winding path to something I’ve been thinking about since I got back from Katahdin: There are already way too many words floating around out here.

There are already words in books, words in articles, words in blog posts, words in conversations, words in arguments, words on the Internet, words on paper, words in broadcasts and podcasts, and more. Some days it seems that everybody is either talking or typing, and that almost everybody is publishing in some form or another. All of greatly varying quality.

And now I have just added more and published more. Mea culpa.

I actually feel like there is nothing I can say or write that is either new or interesting or of great quality.

So this blog, for now, will just let people peer into my commonplace book. I’ve already been doing that sporadically. Now I want to be more regular about it, to copy out notes from things I have been reading, and to offer my brief comments (so, yes, sorry, I will be adding yet more words to the world).

If there’s one thing I learned during my career in libraries, it is that there really are “too many books, too little time” because “of the making of books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). At best, these notes will lead you to find and read the full texts from which the snippets come. Do read some of those old texts. They’re better anyway.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Apophatic Theology and True Theologians

“In accord with the ecstatic and negative theology, by means of which God is praised in a way beyond expression and by being silent because of the amazement and wonder induced by His majesty, so that now the worshiper feels that not only every word is less than His praise, but also that every thought is inferior to His praise. This is the true Cabala, which is extremely rare. For as the affirmative way concerning God is imperfect, both in understanding and in speaking, so the negative way is altogether perfect. … Therefore our theologians are too rash when they argue and make assertions so boldly about matters divine. For, as I have said, the affirmative theology is like milk to wine in relation to the negative theology. This cannot be treated in a disputation and with much speaking, but must be done in the supreme repose of the mind and in silence, as in rapture and ecstasy. This is what makes a true theologian. But no university crowns anyone like this, only the Holy Spirit. And whoever has seen this, sees how all affirmative theology knows nothing. But this matter perhaps experiences more things than modesty.”

Luther, Martin. On Psalm 65:1. In “First Lectures on Psalms, I” Luther’s Works, American edition. Volume 10. St. Louis: Concordia, 1974, p. 313. [lectures delivered in 1513-1515]

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simplicity can be simple

“Given the same external circumstances, a desire for simplification can do much, and what one cannot get rid of outwardly, one can always remove from one’s soul.”

Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987, p. 41.