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By Shannan Dose
It is through Sacred Scripture that we come to know the Triune God revealed through the Incarnation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) reminds us that, “In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way” (109). Through a prayerful reading of Scripture, we can build and continue to foster a relationship with God.
However, spending time in prayer with Scripture can oftentimes feel like a daunting task due to a lack of knowing how to begin or what parts of Scripture are to be taken literally and figuratively. When facing these hurdles, having a deeper understanding of what the Church teaches about Sacred Scripture and how we should read it can aid in our growth of understanding what is contained in Scripture where we encounter the living God.
Scripture’s place
Before we can better understand how we are to interpret Scripture, we need to understand what Scripture is and what its place is in the Church. In his book “Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina,” Archbishop Mariano Magrassi describes Scripture as a kiss of heaven. He writes, “When we study the sacred text, we feel as if we had already left the land of slavery to enter the land of freedom and knock at the doors of the kingdom. Reading is seen as an anticipated vision of divine glory.” It is through Sacred Scripture that we come to know and understand the Kingdom of God and come to know our Creator.
When we look at what the catechism says about the reading of Scripture, it tells us, “Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that dialogue takes place between God and man. For ‘we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles’” (CCC 2653). When we approach the reading of Scripture, we should do so in a prayerful manner, because it is through this manner that our hearts become opened to what it is the Lord desires to share with us. It is through prayer that we share of our hearts with the Lord, and that the Lord shares with us.
Dr. Chris Burgwald said that “it is through a prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture, which is the living and active Word of God, that we encounter the Triune God, who was revealed to us in history.” In order to better understand the impact that encountering the living Word of God has on our personal relationship with God, we must better understand how we are to read and interpret Sacred Scripture.
Dr. Burgwald reminds us that when reading Scripture, “We must be attentive to the literary genre in which the individual books were written. The Bible is one book, but written by 73 divinely inspired human authors, so it is important to consider the literary genre in which the book is written.”
Take, for example, the Book of Psalms: These were poetic hymns that were intended for group or personal praise. The Psalms contain many poetic verses that deeply connect with human emotion. They are to be read differently than the Gospels, which are historical accounts of Christ’s time on earth and what followed. The lens with which these are read is different from the lens with which we are to read the Psalms. However, the genres that are contained in the Canon of Scripture are genres that are intended to bring us more fully into the life of the Trinity.
Accompanied by the Church
While praying with Scripture and knowing how we are to interpret Scripture seems like a daunting task to do on our own, the Church does not abandon us in this. Through the liturgy, we are given the opportunity to better understand Scripture.
“The liturgy is the natural place for Scripture to be proclaimed, as seen in the Old Testament,” Dr. Burgwald said. “It is the place where Scripture is made fully alive.”
While we should absolutely establish our own habit of reading Scripture, we are also given the liturgy as a place where we can encounter Scripture fully alive and come to understand better what the Lord is sharing with us through Scripture.
The Church also has an aid in Sacred Tradition. Dei Verbum tells us, “There exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end” (9). The goal of both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture is that Christ may be made known to all and the faith be passed down from generation to generation.
“Sacred Tradition is the life of the Church in the context in which Sacred Scripture is clarified and comes to life,” said Dr. Burgwald. The very tradition of the Church is living out what is shared in Sacred Scripture. Therefore, when we become active members of the Church and live out her mission, we come to better understand what is written in Scripture.
A prayerful reading
Let us return to the foundation of understanding Scripture: that of a prayerful reading. This should be the place where we start, but how do we approach a prayerful reading of Scripture? Dr. Burgwald offers a couple of tools to help us get started.
His first suggestion is to invest in an Ignatius Study Bible. “The Ignatius Study Bible is a deeply Catholic approach to reading Sacred Scripture,” he says. “It contains great notes on the historical and cultural context of Scripture in light of Sacred Tradition.”
This is a great tool to understand the context in which the human authors wrote the divinely inspired word. It provides historical and cultural references, which can help us better understand the genre of the book and, therefore, how we should interpret what was written.
Secondly, it’s important to have some tools of how to pray with Scripture. There are many different ways in which one can pray with Scripture, but I want to touch on two, specifically imaginative prayer and Lectio Divina.
The first one, which is Dr. Burgwald’s favorite way to pray with Scripture, is what is known as imaginative prayer. This consists of putting yourself into the passage that you are reading and allowing the Lord to show you what it is he wants you to receive. Dr. Burgwald said he likes this way of praying so much because it gives him “less control over prayer and allows the Lord to show him what he needs to see.”
Imaginative prayer works best with the Gospels due to their historical nature but can be done with other parts of Scripture as well. This way of praying invites you to imagine the passage of Scripture as if it were a movie—allow the passage to play out in your imagination and draw upon your senses as you watch. During this time of contemplation, you will immerse yourself in the story and allow the Lord to guide your prayer.
This way of prayer really draws upon the living aspect of Scripture. We are able to better see the ways in which Scripture is continually applicable to our lives and inviting us into a relationship with our Creator.
The next form of prayer is Lectio Divina, or divine reading. This, too, is a contemplative style of prayer in which we are invited to slow down and focus on a small passage of Scripture. Lectio Divina is composed of four different components or steps: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation.
First, you begin with a simple, but slow, intentional reading of the passage you are praying with. This is time for you to gather your bearings of the passage and to begin to understand what is being said. It can be done several times as you begin to pick up what is being said in the passage.
The next step is meditation, which allows the word which you read to ruminate in your heart. In his book, Archbishop Magrassi says the first step in meditation is to “create within our heart a flexible space of resonance, so that the Word can penetrate its deepest parts and touch its innermost fibers” (109). The goal of meditation is that you encounter the word in such a way that it becomes lived.
The next step of Lectio Divina is prayer. This is when our time of reflection and meditation is given back to God. We return to him what he has given us through Scripture and our prayer with Scripture.
Finally, the contemplation component of Lectio Divina gives us the opportunity to elevate our minds toward heaven through what we have encountered in the living Word. This is the application portion of Lectio. In your contemplation, you can see how you have been impacted by Scripture and the ways in which you can ask God for the tools necessary to change what needs changing.
Immerse your heart
Ultimately, Scripture is not something to be afraid of or to shy away from. It is the living Word of God in which we encounter him in our daily lives. It may seem daunting, but the more time we spend in prayer with Scripture, the more time we come to know God and the more we long to know of him.
Scripture is the place where God pierces our hearts so that we might come to know him more. As St. Jerome reminds us, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” We must remember that it is through Scripture that we come to know our Creator and that we come to know ourselves.
Shannan Dose teaches theology at Bishop O’Gorman Junior High. She holds a master’s degree in theology and a degree in evangelization and catechesis.
