I have been asked for articles about the Catholic view of Scriptures and how to read them fruitfully. I sifted through the posts I've made at Otium Sanctum and here are the articles that I think would answer the need.
The following three articles are about the Catholic view of Scriptures. I would recommend that the description given about the "Word of God" be taken seriously since it is the correct way of understanding the phrase. Non-Catholics tend to regard Christianity as a religion of the book. It is not. And the reason is primarily because Christianity is a religion of "persons", not of a book.
- Why We Read Scriptures
- The Word of God and Scriptures
- Scriptures as Word of God: Christ, Tradition and Church
The following articles are on the reading of Scriptures as we find it described in the Catechism of the Church. The fourth part of the Catechism is dedicated to prayer; it is there that one finds a description of the traditional way -- with all the attitude and lifestyle it brings with it -- by which the Church has approached Scriptures. We call it "lectio divina". Some people translate it "spiritual reading" or "divine reading". I am afraid that is not correct. It should be "Divine Lesson" because the acoustic reading that our forefathers did represented for them the daily lessons we receive from our One teacher.
- Lectio Divina in the Catechism of the Church, Part IV
- Lectio Divina: Practical Hints
- Practical Hints II: Reading Scriptures Intelligently
- Practical Hints III: Using The Modern Translations of the Bible
- Sampling A Gospel Story
Finally, the following articles are like sidelights into the ways of the experts in the "lectio divina." Guy the Carthusian is a monk who has given us the manual of the lectio, the "Scala claustralium." St. Augustine left us a monument of spirituality in his Confessions, which is a veritable "lectio divina" in processu. In the Confessions, Augustine was reading his life in the light of the Word of God, the one who sheds light on every man. The dialogic form of this autobiography itself is the way he learned to read Scriptures from Ambrose who is known to have coined the phrase we normally quote "When we read Scriptures, we listen to God; when we pray, we talk to Him." The Confessions is "dialogue" through the medium of words of men that echo that one Word of God.
- Memory, Parallel Texts, Augustine and Guy the Carthusian
- St. Augustine On The Reading of the Scriptures
We Catholics don't read the Scriptures apart from and as a substitute for the liturgy, especially the Mass. For the reading of Scriptures has always been for us a preparation for and the prolongation of our encounter with the Lord in the sacrament of His Body and Blood on the one hand, and the extension of our immersion in the liturgy on the other. The Scriptures allow us to encounter the Lord through a quasi-sacramental means to the measure that we are present to the Lord in the life of His Body, the Church.
