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Peter Kreeft, a Boston College philosophy professor and Catholic apologist, once wrote these words about the power of the Scriptures: "How can you pray the Bible? The Bible is not just a book, it is God's personal love letter to your soul. And biblical prayer is not just your mind praying, it is God's mind praying. God's book is praying through you. This book is unlike any other book. It's alive. It's "the sword of the Spirit" (Eph. 6:17). It cut your very being apart (Heb. 4:12). It's a seed that springs to life (Lk. 8), dry bones that come to life (Ez. 37). It is an extremely dangerous book: dangerous to your sin, sloth, selfishness, and self-satisfaction. It should carry warning labels to spiritual sleepers who hate alarm clocks. In praying the Bible we align ourselves with God's very mind and will."
The Scriptures are "God's personal love letter to your soul." That's a revolutionary thought that helps us to suddenly realize how important it is to make the Bible part of our daily life.
We often avoid change, especially interior change or conversion. We find it threatening. We find it more comfortable to stay in the same comfortable rut.
That's why the Scriptures, like packs of cigarettes, should have warning labels. If we pray over the Scriptures, if we labor over the Scriptures, our lives will change. Slowly, all sorts of little, practical conversions will begin to occur in our lives.
How do these conversions happen? The Universal Catechism summarizes the daily conversions we can experience: "Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance" (No. 1435).
So how should you begin to pray the Scripture? If you have never prayed the Scriptures regularly, you might begin with Mark Link's "Mission-Vision 2000." Make sure you buy the book that corresponds to Year B in the lectionary. This is a small meditation book which gives you each day:
1. A short section of the Scripture from the Mass of the particular day;
2. A sharp meditation that is practical and relevant to the pressures of daily life; and
3. A question that helps you to pray about how to apply the Scriptures to your life.
The book is based on making a 10-minute commitment to Scriptures and prayer each day. It is extremely practical and gives you a good start. This would be a wonderful thing for a husband and wife to commit to together.
If you have had more experience with the Scriptures and have already established regular prayer periods in your day, I'd recommend the series Conversation with Christ by Scepter Press in Princeton, NJ. This series is also based on the daily readings at Mass. The meditations are extremely substantial and challenging. They are geared to be realistic to the everyday life of the lay person. Both books are available at local Catholic bookstores.
SOME FUNDAMENTALS OF SCRIPTURAL MEDITATION
Discouragement, disappointment, loneliness and pain are a part of every life. Wounds within the family, feelings of depression, the memory of broken relationships all have a way of bubbling up to the surface at this time of the year.
Through the power of the Cross, the Christian is not defeated by these experiences. The Christian emerges risen and victorious and uses these experiences to radiate the image of Christ more deeply to others. Instead of wallowing in self-pity or becoming self-absorbed in hurt and pain, the Christian's heart expands and becomes more humble, generous, sensitive and thoughtful.
Advent is a season of hope and expectation - a time to stir the flame of hope in our hearts. One of the most effective ways to rediscover everyday hope - even in the midst of setbacks, mistakes and crosses - is by meditating on the Word of God. The Word of God penetrates to the very depth of our souls to set us free.
St. Ambrose describes scriptural meditation with eucharistic images: "Drink of Christ that you may drink his words. His word is the Old Testament. His word is the New Testament. The divine Scriptures are taken as drink and consumed as food when the sweetness of the eternal word sinks into the very marrow and powers of the soul."
For Roman Catholics, the Scriptures and the sacraments are two fountains of grace that cannot be separated. To be authentically scriptural, we need to be sacramental. To be authentically sacramental, we need to be scriptural.
Daily meditation on the Scriptures is a fundamental source of nourishment for the Roman Catholic. The Universal Catechism quotes the powerful words of St. John Eudes to illustrate this point: "We must continue to accomplish in ourselves the stages of Jesus' life and his mysteries and often to beg him to perfect and realize them in us and in his whole Church...for it is the plan of the Son of God to make us and the whole Church partake in his mysteries and to extend them to and continue them in us and in his whole Church. This is his plan for fulfilling his mysteries in us" (No. 521).
What do we mean by the mysteries of Christ's life? A mystery, very simply, is an incident in Christ's life recorded in the Sacred Scriptures. The mystery may be Christ's birth, his telling of the parable of the prodigal son or the Good Samaritan, his miracles such as the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and, of course, his passion, death, resurrection and ascension.
Each particular mystery has a special set of graces that Christ wants to place in our souls. Each mystery reveals to us a particular aspect of the heart of Christ.
FINDING THE "LITTLE WAY"
The self-help aisle in local bookstores provides all sorts of advice on dysfunctional relationships, codependency, addictions, physical, mental and verbal abuse. They are all symptoms of divided hearts, hearts that have lost their peace, their direction and their sense of purpose. The Lord mends troubled, broken hearts gradually through the healing balm of consistent prayer.
The Universal Catechism asks the question, "What is prayer?" St. Terese of Lisieux gives this response: "But for me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven; it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy""(No. 2559). The human heart is made to love. When we channel our affections through the heart of Christ, then all of our relationships and friendships find their proper balance, proportion and destiny.
Surrendering our hearts to the heart of Christ keeps them centered, focused and peaceful. The Catechism explains it this way: "The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place [to which I withdraw]. The heart is our hidden center, between the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation; it is the place of covenant (No. 2563).
When we allow our affections and desires to be guided by the seven capital sins (pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth), our hearts become divided and troubled. To quote an old Kenny Rogers song, we "look for love in all the wrong places."
However, when we die to ourselves like the grain of wheat that dies in the soil, we rise to a new life centered on the intimate guidance of the Holy Spirit. We embrace both "trial and joy" realizing that the loving providence of God is gently carving within us the features and the qualities of Jesus Christ. We also begin to see Christ more clearly in others.
St. Terese of Lisieux, affectionately known as "the Little Flower," speaks of the "little way" to holiness. The "little way" means to consecrate the ordinary events of every day life to the will of Christ. For instance, a person living the "little way" discovered Christ while cooking dinner in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink or folding the basket of laundry. We live the "little way" while shuttling our children to their sporting events and their music lessons.
We live the "little way" when we offer up in union with Christ crucified painful humiliations and contradictions. We live the "little way" when we are patient and kind with a difficult person, or when we treat an enemy as if they will one day be our friend (Cardinal Newman).
We live the "little way" when we see our professional lives as a way to holiness. Whether we teach 30 first-graders how to read or make hundreds of telemarketing calls each day, Christ wants us to sanctify our work.
Father Bernard Bro writes that the two most influential philosophers on the subject of human work in the 20th century are Karl Marx and St. Terese of Lisieux. Marx's view only touches the surface of human motivation and desire. His philosophy found its ultimate expressions in the 1989 collapse and rubble of the Berlin Wall.
Terese's view of human work is far more radical than Marx's view. Terese's philosophy reaches right down deep into the human soul. Work done well for Christ leads to an intimate understanding of the Cross, the dignity of the human person and ultimately to salvation.
When we put Christ at the center, our work becomes more focused and dedicated. We have a greater spirit of fortitude, attention to detail and industriousness.
Seeing our careers properly as a way to holiness prevents us from turning our work into an idol that alienates us from our spouses, our families and our faith. The "lean and mean" corporate cultures and economic pressures of today can make it very easy to lose the proper perspective. Prayer helps us to keep our balance (read Pope John Paul's encyclical "Laborem Exercens" for further insight on the dignity of human work).
Our daily lives should cultivate the moment-by-moment presence of Jesus Christ. The Prayer of Preparation of the Gifts at Mass expresses the spirit well: "Blessed are you Lord God of all creation, through your guidance we have this bread to offer which earth has given and humans hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life."
Our work finds its true purpose when we see it in the context of our love for the Eucharist, the bread of life. That's why fidelity to the Sunday Mass is such a concrete investment in the rest of our week.
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