GOSPEL
‘Let us get up then, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arouse from sleep. Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God.’
(Prologue, Rule of St Benedict)
For St Benedict, Scripture is a living and active thing in the life of a monastic. He uses a description of Scripture which is unique to his writing- ‘light which comes from God’. Some translations say ‘deifying light’. His use of this phrase in the Prologue brings to mind the picture of an appearance of God (theophany): light and thunder from the sky and the voice of God appear in the theophany of Mt Sinai (Exodus 19:16-24).
St Benedict arranges the monastic timetable so that a monastic is guaranteed to be in the presence of this ‘light which comes from God’. The monastic liturgy is composed almost entirely of Scripture. And added to this are the prescribed times for Lectio Divina- the slow reading and pondering of God’s Word. Little by little the monastic learns to listen attentively to God’s voice in the Scriptures. With years of repetition some texts become woven into the heart and mind.
Sr Irene Nowell osb, a Biblical scholar, expresses her sense of the place that Scripture holds in the life of a monastic. She remembers her high school English teacher saying: ‘It’s so nice to be a Benedictine and live with the Psalms every day. They just soak into your bones.’
During her own life in monastery she has found this to be the case:
‘We are charged not to harden our hearts, nor dull our ears, nor close our eyes. We are called to integrate thinking and praying and acting. Scripture is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. What would our monastic lives be without Scripture? How grateful we must be that God chooses every day to speak to us with our own human words in our own human lives. “The word of God is very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out” (Dt 30:14; cf. Rom 10:7).’
Spend some time today doing a ‘Scriptural brainstorm’. Don’t edit, just see which texts surface for you. Can you see any patterns? How is God speaking through the Scripture that you have stored in your heart?