Lectio Divina

Historical Critical Level and Theological Level of Scripture

“The Synod Fathers rightly stated that the positive fruit yielded by the use of modern historical-critical research is undeniable. While today’s academic exegesis, including that of Catholic scholars, is highly competent in the field of historical-critical methodology and its latest developments, it must be said that comparable attention need to be paid to the theological dimension of the biblical texts, so that they can be more deeply understood in accordance with the three elements indicated by the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum.[108]“

“Only where both methodological levels, the historical-critical and the theological, are respected, can one speak of a theological exegesis, an exegesis worthy of this book”.[107]

We should not underestimate “the danger inherent in seeking to derive the truth of Sacred Scripture from the use of one method alone, ignoring the need for a more comprehensive exegesis which enables the exegete, together with the whole Church, to arrive at the full sense of the texts (Pope John Paul II )

“as a consequence of the absence of the second methodological level, a profound gulf is opened up between scientific exegesis and lectio divina. This can give rise to a lack of clarity in the preparation of homilies” (Dei Verbum)

Historical Critical Method	Theological/Spiritual method
Context: Academic	Christian. Discipleship
Person: scholar / student	One with a personal relationship with Jesus
Study	Prayerful reflection
Scriptures: Ancient texts	Inspired by the Holy Spirit. revelation a. The emperor of heaven … ardently has written you letters concerning your life, but still you neglect to read them. Study them, I beg you and meditate daily on the words of your creator. (Gregory the Great ) b. “Be constant in prayer as in reading; now speak to God, now let God speak to you.” (St Cyprian)
Approach: Academic methodology	An attitude of faith, openness and availability to God’s revelation: a pure heart.
Purpose: To understand what the biblical author meant to say to the readers of his time.	What is God saying to the believer now The Bible is the means “by which God speaks daily to believers” (Jerome)
Orientation: Past / historical	Present / contemporary The aim of our reading is to hear the call of God clearly and concretely in our present situation. It is not just a memory of a past event, but a present event of encounter with Jesus.
An impersonal study of the text	A personal encounter with God God chooses to reveal the divine self Himself and His the divine will and speaks to humans as friends, inviting them to join fellowship of the divine persons? (Vat ll)
Human Faculty	Head: Intellect/understanding Heart: will: prayer/ transformation of life
Evaluation: Literal sense Academic peer group	Criteria for theological/Spiritual sense First, (the unity of the Scriptures) the exegete must place the biblical text within the context of the entire Bible. For example, Deut 24:1 permits divorce but in Mark10:1-12, Jesus prohibits divorce. Second, (the tradition of the Church) the interpreter must take into consideration the living tradition of the whole Church. This criterion includes several sources: the teaching office of the Church (the magisterium); the teaching of the fathers of the Church; the use of the Scriptures in the liturgy and in prayer; and the testimony of the saints. A third and final criterion (the analogy of faith) is that the biblical interpretation must be in harmony with the elements of faith. This means that the biblical interpretation must be in agreement with the doctrine of the Church.
Literal sense: one meaning What the human author directly intended and his words actually meant	Spiritual sense: multiple meanings The spiritual (theological) sense refers to when what is signified by the words of a text, the literal sense, also has a further signification. As it developed within Christianity, the spiritual sense pertained to “the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it.” (Pontifical Biblical Commission)
Object: the text	Mirror: ourselves as disciple of Christ
Outcome: establishing the literal sense	Come closer to Jesus and transform our life. As it developed within Christianity, the spiritual sense pertained to “the meaning expressed by the biblical texts when read under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it.” (Pontifical Biblical Commission)

This means that in reading the Scriptures we do need to appreciate that there are two senses: that of the historical author and that of the Spirit, the spiritual / theological sense. The historical critical method helps us to appreciate the historical meaning, but we need another methodology to appreciate the spiritual sense: the message that transcends the historical sense and gives the Scriptures their unique character. Unless we recognize this divine spiritual sense, the Scriptures be a book of the past, just an historical work, to be explained simply in human terms. Lectio divina is always a theological reading of the text of Scripture.

There can be multiple meanings in a text, but not according to some predetermined pattern.(though the literal one is binding e.g. Thou shalt not commit adultery; the literal reading; allegory the doctrinal exposition; tropological, its moral or ethical implications, anagogical, the prophetic sense, oriented toward the heavenly life to come)

We reflect on the implications for Christian discipleship that flow from these mysteries. We are confronted:
a. Confrontational: How we are loving the Christian life. We reflect on the implications for Christian discipleship that flow from these mysteries. We are confronted: how we are living as disciples of Jesus.

“What use is it to anyone if he sees in his meditation what is to be done, unless the help of prayer and the grace of God enable him to achieve it?” Guigo ll

“Dye your heart the colour of the Scriptures”

“Daily and hourly till the soil of the heart with the Gospel plough”

The main action is from our side: v. the main action is from god’s side

Guigo’s opening prayer: “Lord Jesus, you who are the Son of the Living God, teach me to listen to what you tell me in the Holy Scriptures, and to discover your face there.” (Guigo ll, the Carthusian)

The Scriptures, through the Spirit, emerged from the early Christian community. It was the Church that brought together these disparate books into one canon to make the Scriptures. The life of the early Church was the matrix into which the Scriptures were born. The Scriptures need to be understood and interpreted within the life of the Church. The covenant that God offers in the Scriptures is not with the individual, but with the people. The Church is the community of believers, the community of those who respond to the love of God. It is those that have faith and are living a loving response to God’s love who can be most open to the divine message of the Scriptures. Just as the Church was the matrix in which the Scriptures were born so it needs to be the matrix within which we interpret them. The Scriptures need to be read within the faith community.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16), In the Scriptures, God speaks to us.

• Suzuki method learns the notes and then gradually perfects the piece.
• Did the constant recitation of Scripture lead to the ethical internalization that Cassian describes?
• Once again, it is stressed that the necessary accompaniment of reading, as of prayer, is intention 126 study the psalms with an intent mind. Aim /intention

Impersonal/personal

In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4).

Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. (Emphasis is mine)
In the Scriptures one encounters Jesus in a unique way. Vatican Council: Jesus presence in the Scriptures

Ten Points on tradition of Lectio Divina

The Sacred Scriptures are the divinely inspired presence of the Mystery of Jesus; To engage with the Scriptures is to engage with God through Jesus who is the human face of God. In every age, the Christian community engages with the Scriptures and lives according to the Scriptures within the context of the age within which it lives. In the Scripture, God speaks to us. In the Scriptures is contained the revelation that has climaxed in the coming in Jesus Christ. Truly it can be said that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ (Jerome). Guigo’s opening prayer: “Lord Jesus, you who are the Son of the Living God, teach me to listen to what you tell me in the Holy Scriptures, and to discover your face there.” (Guigo ll, the Carthusian)

While lectio divina can be seen as a way of approaching and engaging with a spiritual text, because of the uniqueness of the Scriptures, the term has a special and unique meaning when applied to the Scriptures. God speaks in the Scriptures and proclaims to us what Christ came to reveal to us. The emperor of heaven …… ardently has written you letters concerning your life, but still you neglect to read them. Study them, I beg you and meditate daily on the words of your creator.(Gregory the Great)

The word “lectio” means reading, but it does not capture the whole process of what lectio divina is. It is an engagement with the text

It is a process that begin with reading, but then is meant to unfold according to the response of the one engaged in the process. Lectio divina is a process that engages with the Scriptures rather than just listens to them. This process begins with the text and concludes when what is in the text has become a reality in one’s heart and life.. “What is the use of spending one’s time in continuous reading, turning the pages of the lives and sayings of holy men, unless we can extract nourishment from them by chewing and digesting this food so that its strength can pass into our inmost heart? (Guigo ll Carthusian +1188) p.64

Lectio divina is a dialogue. It is an encounter with the Risen Lord, who has left us these accounts of his divine intervention in human history. It goes beyond the relationship that might be between a reader and a human author. It is a dialogue with the Lord who lives now, whose life we share, and who is the ultimate goal of our life. Lectio divina takes place within the relationship with God and is a special time within that relationship. “In your reading, let not your end be to seek and find out curiosities and subleties, but to find and meet with Christ. (Thomas Taylor (1576-1633) p 136

We engage with the Scriptures as human beings. It is through our senses of sight or hearing that we begin the process of lection divina. But then it is our intellect that probes the text, drawing from it the manifold messages it may hold. Guigo suggests that the reading is like placing a grape in one’s mouth, and meditation is when you crush the grape and taste what it has to offer. The role of our intellect is an important component of lectio divina, but, though it is necessary, its ultimate role is to move the will to prayer and action. “ This engagement naturally leads to prayer, to our personal dialogue with Christ. “What is the use of spending one’s time in continuous reading, turning the pages of the lives and sayings of holy men, unless we can extract nourishment from them by chewing and digesting this food so that its strength can pass into our inmost heart?” (Guigo ll Carthusian +1188) p.64

Principle 1	Lectio divina is aimed not at confirming and reinforcing our individual approach to life, but at breaking into our subjective world and enriching it from the outside, delivering· us from the prejudices and limitations of closed convictions and ideology, and exposing our lives to the fullness of revelation and not simply to that part which presently appeals to us.
Principle 2	Lectio divina is a long-term activity. It is not a source of immediate gratification as much as a general provisioning for life. Fidelity and constancy are most valuable adjuncts to such reading.
Principle 3	Lectio divina is connected with our personal sense of vocation. The aim of our reading is to hear the call of God o.learly and concretely in our present situation.
Principle 4	Lectio divina applies the Word of God to our own life-situation, allowing revelation and experience to overlap.
Principle 5	There is a certain purposelessness or gratuity about lectio divina which is reflected in the leisure and peace which surround it. Lectio divina is done in such a way that it may be punctuated by prayer.
Principle 6	Reading is not merely an inner exercise. As far as possible our whole body should participate in our lectio divina.
Principle 7	When something is encountered in our lectio divina which particularly speaks to us we should endeavour to retain it in our memory lest any of its savour escape us.
Principle 8
Principle 9
Principle 10

Lectio Polish Conference

1. Lection was a way of life, not just a discrete exercise
2. It was integrated in the whole of one’s spiritual journey
3. It took place as part of the overall life of the monastery.
4. 2 Tim 3:6 Framework I continuous prayer
5. One’s life was meant to be an expression of lectio.
6. Scripture is divinely inspired
7. In SS God speaks to us
8. We are alive like Jesus?
9. Link between the ascetic life and SS. As one grew in the former, one had a greater appreciation of the latter. A pure hear was the prerequisite for understanding the Scriptures
10. The literal or historical sense was the basis of other meanings of SS.

• “Daily and hourly till the soil of the heart with the Gospel plough”
• Christian life context: discipleship
• Motivation and outcome: intimate union with Jesus
• Scriptures: unique presence of Jesus (Vat ll)
• Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ (St Jerome)
• Lectio is a personal encounter
• In the Spirit
• Impersonal v. personal

The mystical communion of the Scriptures can only be reached through the purification of the mind. Conceptual comprehension and facility with words do not add up to understanding and do not qualify one to teach…” No-one should presume to teach in words what he has not previously done in deed.” (Cassian)

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16), In the Scriptures, God speaks to us.

• “Be constant in prayer as in reading; now speak to God, now let God speak to you.” (St Cyprian)
• The emperor of heaven … ardently has written you letters concerning your life, but still you neglect to read them. Study them, I beg you and meditate daily on the words of your creator. (Gregory the Great)

There was more to the text than the literal historical sense.

• One does not approach the Scripture to dissect them and dig out their meaning. One lets one’s life be flooded with the Scriptures so that when one goes to them, they speak to the heart. Maturity in the faith opens the Scriptures to us.
• The interaction of the text and the prepared heart reveals the very core of each, and the heart is transformed in the process.
• Cassian argued that “ the habits in which one engages, the disciplines to which one is subject, and the experiences that one undergoes shape the heart’s capacity to receive”

Lectio divina is not an event but a process; it is not an individual act but a way of life.This process begins with the text and concludes when what is in the text has become a reality in the heart and life of the reader.
The attentive reader will be more concerned with putting what he reads into practice than with acquiring knowledge. There is less of a fault in not knowing what you should seek than in not applying what you do know.
It is not a breadth of reading knowledge that is sought, but an intensive reading that leads to application in act and internalization in depth
The emperor of heaven … ardently has written you letters concerning your life, but still you neglect to read them. Study them, I beg you and meditate daily on the words of your Creator. (Gregory the Great )

How we read the Scriptures will depend on how we understand them. If we recognize them as coming from the God who loves us, we could liken reading them to the beloved reading the letters from her lover. It is the one who loves God deeply who is the most likely to appreciate the deepest dimension of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are not just a book, but a library, with many authors. Any one author may not have known the writings of any other. However, there is a unity here. This is the story of God’s love for us, and this is so because the unifying author of all the Scriptures is the Spirit of God.

In the context of our journey to God in Jesus, a lectio divina is personal or communal reading of a passage of Scripture with a view to a deeper understanding, appreciation and appropriation of the text which leads to prayer and transformation of life. Its aim is to deepen our relationship with God in Jesus and to transform our life according to the revelation made known in Jesus.

• The assumptions behind this form of prayer: One is living as a disciple of Jesus
• In the Scriptures one encounters Jesus personally in a unique way.
• Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ (St Jerome)
• Reading requires an attitude of faith, openness and availability to God’s revelation
• The ultimate aim of this prayer is to transform our life as a disciple of Jesus.

In Roman Catholicism, Lectio Divina (Latin for “Divine Reading”) is a traditional monastic practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of God’s word. In the view of one commentator, it does not treat scripture as texts to be studied, but as the living word.

Ourselves
We reflect on the implications for Christian discipleship that flow from these mysteries.
We are confronted how we are living as disciples of Jesus.
We focus on what needs to be done

109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.

110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. “For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.”76

111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. “Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”77
The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.

112 Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole Scripture”. Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.

The phrase “heart of Christ” can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.

113 Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church”. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (“…according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church”81).

114 Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By “analogy of faith” we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.”83

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85

The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:
The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87

119 “It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.”88

But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.

Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that in spiritual interpretation, we question the text as we would any other document from the past. Rather, de Lubac says, making his own the words of the poet, Paul Claudel, “it would be more exact to acknowledge that it is Scripture which is questioning us, and which finds for each of us, through all time and all generations, the appropriate question.”[24]
The Christian is not simply to choose whatever of these two exegetical approaches is more congenial to him. For de Lubac, the spiritual sense ought normally to be the ultimate goal when Christians approach the Bible as Christians. We must, as believers, come to the Bible expecting to receive more than “understanding of the past” or even, for that matter, moral or doctrinal instruction. We must become aware that, in pursuing the spiritual sense, we “are accomplishing a religious activity according to the total logic of our faith.”[25]
For de Lubac as for his friend, Hans Urs von Balthasar, spiritual exegesis thus leads to an encounter with the living God, a meeting which changes us: “Just as the Eucharist is not a simple remembrance of something which happened in the past, but the perpetual re-actualization of the Body of the Lord and of his Sacrifice, in the same fashion is Scripture less a question of history than of the form and vehicle of God’s Word uttered unceasingly, and uttered even now.” [26]

De Lubac affirms, with the traditional hermeneutic, that before any such understanding of the Old Testament can be undertaken in the light of the New, the New must be understood historically in light of the Old. Here too we see the importance of the religious meaning — what the tradition calls the “literal sense” — of the Bible as the indispensable basis or foundation of the spiritual sense.
Both the religious and the spiritual senses of Scripture are, then, irreducible in de Lubac’s scheme of things. Though they are interrelated in a number of ways, they nonetheless have different ends and are attained by different methods. Their relative autonomy must be preserved. Spiritual exegesis must not interfere with or try to substitute for historical science.
On the other hand, the scientific exegete must bear in mind that his science does “not exhaust what the Christian is to expect from the Word of God. Whatever may be the superiority which we have acquired or which we still have yet to acquire from the scientific point of view, it is this that the ancients, including the medievals, never cease and never will cease to remind us.”[27]
Henri de Lubac’s voluminous study of ancient Christian exegesis is clearly more than a work of historical reconstruction. He has successfully demonstrated that the Catholic exegetical and dogmatic tradition is unanimous in affirming both literal and spiritual senses of Scripture and that this has been consistently reaffirmed over the past hundred years by the very same magisterial documents which have so zealously promoted a more rigorously historical and critical methodology for Catholic literal exegesis.

Moreover, his insistence that this hermeneutic is fundamental to the New Testament authors’ understanding of Christ and the salvation history which led up to him seems unassailable. It is hard to see, in light of the evidence he adduces for this, how one could entirety reject spiritual exegesis of the Old Testament without completely rejecting the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old and thereby endangering the foundation of the Church’s faith.

In meditation we come to know God and ourselves

We reflect on, grow in understanding, make our own the mysteries of God’s love
They provide us with motivation and stimulus to be disciples of Jesus

Christian life context: discipleship

Motivation and outcome: intimate union with Jesus

Scriptures: unique presence of Jesus (Vat ll)