Dr Brant Pitre - Thursday Morning Session 2 - Applied Biblical Studies

good to be here with you at last I left New Orleans yesterday around 7:00 a.m. Central time got in midnight last night and as I was trying to fall asleep remembered a couple days ago I had prayed for patients what was I thinking dumb don't do that don't do that all right so anyway it's great to be back here with you I'm aware of the time constraints because the mass will be being offered after the end of this session so without any further ado I want to dive right in I do want to highlight though that with this lecture I'm gonna have a handout I got a lot of text I want to share with you so I think they gave it to you earlier it's this yellow one entitled Lexi Oh Davina and your spiritual life so you'll want to take that out and follow along with me I'm gonna be giving a presentation that's a part of a course that I taught a few years back called spiritual theology Christian prayer and the three stages of the spiritual life so if you like to talk today you might go check that out it's over at the bookstore it's my favorite class I ever taught we went through all these issues that we're kind of doing this weekend looking at what is prayer the Battle of Prayer like dr. Bergsma talked about I'll be talking about the dark night of the soul later on today and just walking through all of this and one of my favorite sections and the ones that has gotten a very powerful response from Catholics was a section on Lexi o Divina on praying Sacred Scripture as an essential and daily part of our spiritual life so that's what I want to talk with you today about in this session so let's begin with a word of Prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we thank you for the gift of this day and for the gift of your Holy Word we pray that as we turn our hearts and our minds to the gift of your Holy Scriptures and to the practice of praying Sacred Scripture that you would pour out the grace of the Holy Spirit upon us that same Spirit who inspired the scriptures to open our minds and to open our hearts than ever to everything you wish to share with us in this time and so we pray to you in the words your son gave to us our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all right let me just this dr. Bergsma and I are about the same height but it's slightly off all right like so Davina in your spiritual life in this session this morning I want to basically do two things for those of you who already have a habit or a practice of Lexi Oh Davina as part of your spiritual life I want to encourage you to continue that and maybe try to connect it more deeply with Sacred Scripture and with its biblical roots for those of you who may not yet have made this a part of your spiritual life I want to invite you to consider that today as we look at what the Magisterium has said in recent times some very significant statements about the role that lexi oh Davina should should play in every Catholic spiritual life and also by going back to the classic formulation of this in guigo the Carthusians famous treatise on Lexi Oh Davina the ladder of paradise so let's begin just by looking for a brief moment together at the question of what is the Magisterium said about Lexi Oh Davina in recent decades now I don't know about you but growing up as a Catholic this wasn't something that was part of my exposure to Catholic faith in life as a young Catholic in south Louisiana whenever I would meet someone or whenever I myself had a kind of you know renewal and faith and conversion to faith oftentimes what Catholics will do will be to increase their participation in the sacramental life of the church right daily mass Eucharistic Adoration praying the rosary for example and in terms of apparel liturgical activity but I never really even heard of Lexi o Divina until I was in my doctoral program in the University of Notre Dame and I only began to practice it even after that and I think that this is something that's probably typical maybe for a lot of Catholics we do a really good job of like Eucharistic Adoration going to the Lord and mass and things like that and that kind of prayer but maybe aren't quite aware are as aware of how rich a tradition we have with reference to this particular devotion this particular practice of Prayer known as Lexi o Divina divine reading praying Sacred Scripture and yet when we turn to the right teachings of the Magisterium in recent decades we find some remarkable statements about Lexi o Divina going all the way back to the Second Vatican Council so on page one here let's just look at a few of these teachings of the Magisterium on this practice of praying Scripture begin with Vatican 2 in 1965 in the document des verbum had this to say about the role of Scripture in the spiritual life of the church and I quote the church has always venerated the divine scriptures as she venerates the body of the Lord insofar as she never ceases particularly in the Sacred Liturgy to partake of the bread of life and to offer it to the faithful from the one table of the word of God and the body of Christ it follows that all the preaching of the church as indeed the entire Christian religion should be nourished and ruled by what sacred scripture in the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children and talks with them and such is the force and the power of the word of God that it can serve the church as her support and vigor and the children of the church a strength for their faith food for the soul and a pure and lasting fount of the spiritual life look at those last two images what is Scripture it is food for the Soul and it's the pure and lasting fount of your spiritual life now I don't know about you but when I get up in the morning one of the first things I do is think what am I going to eat and what am I going to what drink right and that's good we have to do that on the natural plane but we also need supernatural food and supernatural drink and where might we go to get it well according to Vatican 2 it is not just the Eucharist the table of God's of the Lord's body but also the table of his word right so if you're spiritually hungry or if you're spiritually thirsty maybe going through some dryness some thirst like dr. Bert Mirza was talking about turn to sacred scriptures so notice here Vatican 2 is very clear and in fact very strong on the picture that it gives of the role scripture should have in the life of Catholics the church has always venerated the scriptures as she venerates the body of the Lord that's powerful right what does it what are the two things the priest kisses in the Eucharistic liturgy the altar and the the Gospels notice that parallel devotion well the Catechism built on that in 1992 several decades later to be even more specific about Lexi o Divina in particular and in 1992 the church said this about the practice of praying Scripture the church forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by occasional reading of the divine scriptures oh I'm sorry did I read that wrong no what does it say frequent reading of the divine scriptures that's right that's the church's teaching let them remember however and this is the point you wanna highlight that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture so that a dialogue takes place between God and man before we speak to him when we pray and we listen to him when we read the divine Oracle's alright stop there I'll read the second part later we're gonna come back to that a little bit later notice what the church is saying here Catholics should be reading the Bible frequently number one and number two when they do it they shouldn't just be studying it they should be praying the Sacred Scripture so that a dialogue takes place between God and man now I don't know about you but one of the great temptations in the life of prayer is to monologue anybody do this you know our name of the Father Son Holy Spirit amen lord I need this Lord I need that Lord I want this Lord I want that why is this happening lord thank you for this okay I'm done into prayer right I'm done talking so the prayer time is over right and don't you just love to be with people who monologue isn't that great right who just talking talking talking talking and never listen to what you might have to say isn't that a wonderful way to spend time together no right and the same thing is true in our prayer life as well so one of the things is we're going to see Lexi Oh Davina opens the line of communication in prayer and helps us avoid the temptation to just monologue monologue monologue monologue and I'm a professor so this is we have a particular temptation for monologuing right we get paid him on along right so we all need that dialogue to take place in prayer and that's what the Catechism is saying we should do and we can do through praying Sacred Scripture right the third and final Magisterial statement was from Pope Benedict in 2011 his document on the Word of God in the life of the church was published verbum Domini and this document was really revolutionary first of all it was a 200 page letter on the Bible I don't know about you but I don't write 200 page letters right okay this this was a massive document and in it for the first time in church history to my knowledge a pope officially laid out how to practice Lexi o Divina and encouraged all the Christian faithful to engage in this practice and this is what Pope Benedict said the Synod meaning the Synod of Bishops in 2008 frequently insisted on the need for a prayerful approach to the sacred texts as an optional element no as a what as a fundamental element in the spiritual life of every believer that means you and me every single one of us in the various ministries and states of life so religious state or lay state with particular reference to Lexi o Divina and then he said these words the word God is at the basis of all authentic Christian spirituality the Word of God is at the basis of all authentic Christian spirituality so I think you can see here from just Vatican 2 the Catechism Pope Benedict is praying Sacred Scripture optional for us as Catholics no it really isn't it's fundamental it's essential it's the ordinary path of sanctity for those of us seeking to know Christ Jesus and so in that apostolic letter the Pope doesn't just exhort us to practice like co2 meaning he actually shows us how and he does so by going back to the classic formulation given by guigo the carthesian in the 12th century in a short little work called the ladder of paradise beautiful beautiful work which was in one of the volumes of letter and spirit was translated extremely beautiful and I encourage you to read I'm gonna be giving you some quotations from it now as you probably know there are many different methods of lexie o Divina so I'm not canonizing this what I'm saying this is the one you have to do but this is the one that the Holy Father recommended to the faithful as the classic expression and as a very easy one to do in the sense of it's methodologically very simple as we're gonna see and it's based on basically four steps that we go this monk in the Middle Ages compared to a ladder leading up to heaven so this is this is the basic description of Lexia given by guigo that Pope Benedict refers to this is what the monk said one day while I was busy with the bodily labor of hands I began to think about man's spiritual exercise and for spiritual steps suddenly presented themselves to my pondering soul reading meditation prayer and contemplation this is the latter of cloistered monks whereby they are lifted up from earth into heaven and although it is divided into only a few steps it is nonetheless immense and incredible it's lower part rests on the earth but its upper part penetrates the clouds and proves the secrets now we're gonna come back to this in just a minute but you might have already noticed here that by using this image of the ladder to heaven guigo is actually taking language from Jacob's Ladder in Genesis 28 alright so keep that in mind as we go through this we'll come back to the biblical roots of this because it's not inconsequential that that image was inspired by Sacred Scripture but before we look at that image in Jacob's life let's break down exactly what we go means by these four steps of Lexi o Divina in his treatise we go defines them at the top of page 2 as follows number 1 Lexi Oh what is Lexi Oh Lexi oh he says is the diligent examination of Scripture with attentiveness of soul the diligent examination of Scripture with attentiveness of soul notice already that this is not just any kind of reading is it right we read many different things in our lives right you read the newspaper you read the internet you read a blog post and those are different forms of reading Lexi oh is different because we're not skimming we're not scanning we're not even just studying we're reading Sacred Scripture with attentiveness of soul which means it's an act of Prayer that's the first step number two meditate Co meditation many people often wonder what exactly is meditation well he defines it here meditation is the studious action of the mind as it searches out hidden truth in the scriptures right so notice we're not just taking up the book and using our bodies and our eyes to read we're also engaging the the mind to ponder to stop to think and to search out the hidden truth and if you've been in this conference any ever ever before you know there are many hidden truths in Scripture right to ponder and to search out the truths we encounter in Scripture that's meditation number three step three is horacio prayer and we go defines this as the hearts devout reaching out to God in response to what has been found right so we encounter some beautiful truth in the sacred texts like some of the ones dr. Bergson was just opening up for us and what does it do it moves our heart not just our head but our heart to ask for the good things that we're encountering in God's Word whether it be some kind of virtue or some particular grace right to ask the Lord for Orazio and then finally the most mysterious of them all contemplation con-tem-plat-- CEO guido says that this the contemplation for him is when God raises the soul to himself and the soul tastes quote the joys of eternal sweetness the joys of eternal sweetness so those are his four definitions of Lexi o Divina for very simple steps which are also infinite they start on the ground and they lead up where into heaven right now in order to kind of flesh out these definitions we go goes on to give us three analogies for what happens in Lexi Oh Davina and these different steps so that we can understand them better and the first analogy he gives is that of a quest we'll look at each one of these for just a moment he says if you want to understand like Co Davina you can put it in the mode of a quest kind of rewriting Jesus's words from the Sermon on the Mount he says in reading the soul seeks the sweetness of the Blessed lion in meditation the soul finds the sweetness of the blessed life in prayer the soul asks for it and then in contemplation the soul tastes now notice something here about that analogy of the quest what's the first step in reading you have to seek write and this is where many of us trip up right if you're going to begin the practice of like CEO Divini you first have to desire the sweetness of the blessed life you have to seek it out it's not something that's gonna happen automatically or without you participating it as dr. Bergman said earlier prayer is going to be a what a battle it's a quest it involves our effort right now whenever we pray it's always God's grace moving in us first he calls us first to pray every single time you get down on your knees in a sense you are really responding to his initial grace moving your heart to desire him but we have to seek it we have to pick up the sacred text we have to begin that quest for God what does Jesus say seek and you shall find a second analogy he uses and this is my favorite one because I am from south Louisiana and if we know how to do anything well it's eat right okay I was recently given a course on spiritual theology this summer we got to the seven deadly sins and we were going through the sin of gluttony and I asked the class you know what can we do to combat the sin of gluttony what remedies are there for the sin of gluttony and several of them said leave the state of Louisiana right a couple of them said move to the Midwest no no no insults anyway so a meal we all know what it's like to eat a good meal listen to what guigo says he compares Lexie o Divina to eating a meal and this is what he says reading step 1 places solid food in the mouth I'll pause there for a second reading place of solid food in the mouth are you hungry if you're hungry what's the first step you have to do to remedy it you have to put the food in your and your mouth that's right same thing again with Scripture reading if we're hungry for God we need to pick up his word and consume it and eat it place it in our mouth by frequent reading of the divine scriptures right we begin there and he says meditation chews and breaks the word now this is important very very critical what happens if you eat a meal too fast anybody ever done this before especially if you were a teenage boy you did this habitually right you just gobble down the food you swallow it whole what happens when you eat too fast you either get sick or if you eat it really fast like on some of those contests the hell I'm teasing what can happen you just throw it back up don't you right this is very important whenever we're coming to Sacred Scripture if we're going to consume the word we need to not just gobble it down right as if it's fast food but to treat it like a fine meal to chew it and to break it apart right to chew it to break it apart that act of chewing or ruminating on the word is meditation slow down slow down what does this word mean why is Jesus saying this where is this happening right where does this echo an Old Testament passage just slow down and start to ponder the word to chew it to break it down right and if you've ever gone out for a really fine meal right like say you're eating a steak do you eat it fast or do you eat it slow slow right especially if it's fifty bucks a pop right you know you're gonna drag that thing out why because it's a fine meal well is the is the scripture is the Holy Word of God is it fast food or is it a fine meal is it a Burger King BK broiler or is it a steak right it's the finest feast of all and so the Lord is inviting us here by means this analogy to not only take up his word and consume it but to slow down to chew it and to break it open right third prayer he says extracts the flavor ah now we know what he's talking again if you're eating a really fine meal what do you do you savor it you savor it right where I'm from in south Louisiana we have a practice about this when we eat crawfish anybody ever had crawfish okay okay I don't know where you had it cuz it makes a difference but if you come to Louisiana and you have actual crawfish you and you're a real Cajun when you're eating the crawfish you don't just break it open and eat the meat out of the tail you actually take the head and you suck the brains out of the head all the juices right and my daddy used to get mad at me cuz I thought that was kind of gross I was a boy and he's like what are you doing boy you got to suck the heads and he took the head and that's how you you could you this is a fine banquet of bugs from the ditch my son you know we're not gonna rush through this we're gonna savor every part of it right so you got to get all the juice out we come from poor ancestry all right this is poor man's food all right so but we treat it like a feast actually I used to say there's no crawfish at the messianic banquet I don't want to be there but seriously so you know and everybody has this in their own culture their own context what you do with a fine meal well that's what Scripture is and can prayers prayer to savoring just drawing out the juices right from the Word of God to savoring the taste of it you want it to last and so you ask God for the good things that you find in the sacred text to become a part of you you want to draw out the honey the sweetness of the word and then finally number four he says is contemplation is the very sweetness that gives joy and refreshes it's the refreshment of encountering the word of breaking open the word of taking the word into ourselves and again if you've ever had a really fine meal how do you feel after light right refreshed at peace usually you're doing it with family and friends people you love there's a sense of communion and rest right in that peace he says that's contemplation resting in the joy and the sweetness of what you've tasted in God's divine were beautiful image something to ponder somebody should write a book called consuming the word that would be a great idea all right finally the third image that guigo gives here is is is very powerful and he uses the analogy of the spiritual marriage and I brought this one up to you because I just have a new book called Jesus the bridegroom where we explore this in more depth but this what we go says about the spiritual marriage he compares Alexio to this spiritual union of the soul with Christ the divine bridegroom he says this the soul in Lexi o Divina humbles herself saying O Lord I search by reading meditating on what true purity of heart is and how it may be had and by period of heart I'm sorry that by period of heart I may know you at least to some extent I was searching for your face of Lord your face Oh Lord that I see and for a long time and meditated in my heart am I meditate in my meditation the fire and desire of knowing you has more blazed up that's what meditation does it pours fire it pours in a sense fuel on the fire of your desire to know God and when you braid for me the bread of the sacred scripture you are known to me in the breaking of the bread and the more I know you the more I desire to know you no longer in the bark of the letter but in the knowledge of experience give me therefore O Lord a pledge of future inheritance at least a drop of heavenly rain to cool my thirst for I burn with love by these in similar words Guido says the soul inflames her desire and by these incantations she summons her spouse but the Lord whose eyes are upon the just whose ears are directed into the prayers themselves does not wait until she is finished speaking but interrupting in the middle of the prayer he thrusts himself in and rushes to the desiring soul soaked in the dew of heavenly sweetness he revives the weary soul refreshes her that was hungry causes her to forget earthly things marvelously vivifies the self forgetful soul by slaying her and Sobers by inebriating her Wow is that what happened last time you read the bottle I fell asleep the last time I was wow this is what a beautiful description of these four steps right describing reading like the bride going after her bridegroom right meditation in flaming her hearts love for the bridegroom right prayer is summoning the bridegroom and then contemplation are is the spiritual union of the bridegroom and the bride right or she forgets about earthly things and is consumed with love for him that's griego's image of what's happening in this mysterious encounter with Christ and His Word now turn the page before I move on I just want to say that that is what's happening you all you realize that reading scripture is not like any other book is it because it is an encounter with a person you're not just reading words on a page you're going to meet Christ the bridegroom who is in a sense waiting for you in his word right longing for you to seek him with your heart aflame for him right and you'll notice something real quick before moving further about those steps all three of those first steps reading meditation and prayer involve action on our part and you notice that notice in reading what do we do we use our body and meditation we use our intellect and then in prayer we're using our will our heart right so notice all of the faculties of the soul are being so to speak gathered up and mobilized in order to encounter Christ you do the reading you do the prayer you do the meditation and then who does the contemplation who acts there himself right it's a gift of grace it's his response to our prayer to our reading to our meditation now what does any of this have to do with the Bible or where does we go get this beautiful imagery from well as I'm pointed out on page one this goes back actually to the book of Genesis so I'm gonna mention one patriarch here not to step on doctor burdens toes here but I want to look at this because even the very image of a ladder is actually going back to the book of Genesis and the famous story of Jacob's Ladder right and in Genesis chapter 28 I've got the quote here on page three we read that story of Jacob's Ladder that is the inspiration for griego's imagery of Lexi o Divina and this is what the story's tells us this is a very famous story so dr. Bergman was talking about Jacobs encounter wrestling with the angel as an image of prayer right as an image of the Battle of Prayer well in the spiritual tradition this dream of Jacob Jacob's Ladder is kind of the second image from the spiritual tradition of what is the mystery of prayer the the wrestling with the angel was kind of an image for what the spiritual writers call asceticism the struggle of Prayer our efforts and our energies utilized in prayer and this is more of an image of the mystical component of prayer of how God acts supernaturally and spiritually in the encounter with him in prayer and it all goes back to this famous story of Jacob falling asleep and this is what the scripture says in Genesis 28 verse 10 through 17 we read these words and Jacob came to a certain place and he stayed there that night because the son had said and taking one of the stones of the place he put it under his head and he lay down in that place to sleep so no Sealy Posturepedic mattresses for uh for Jacob here right no Sleep Number beds or anything like that all he needs is a good stone and he lays down to get his rest and he dreamed that there was a ladder right or some translations will have a stairway right set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven and behold the angels of God were a sending and descending on the staircase and behold the Lord stood above it and said I am the Lord remember this is in Hebrew I am Yahweh so this is a theophany he's revealing his name I am the Lord the God of Abraham your father and the god of Isaac behold I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go then Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it and he was afraid and he said how awesome is this place this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven and so what does he do he goes on to rename the place Beth L right Beth meaning house L meaning God because there in a sense heaven was open for him and he encountered the Lord in a powerful and new way well the reason I bring this to your attention is because this is really the model that inspired griego's image of the ladder of paradise and there are very different various models out there for Lexi Oh Divina some of them are more circular some of them are cyclical all right like ascending spirals but the reason I like griego's is because it's very biblical and you'll notice that it consists of these basic four steps he's saying Lexi Oh Davina is like Jacob's Ladder right if you look at the chart here Jacob like all of us is where he's on the earth he's going through trials he's going through tribulations and heaven can seem very far away right and so what Guido is telling us is like Jacob we have to sort of speak rest in the Lord and through these four small steps reading meditation prayer and then contemplation we too can ascend to be with the Lord in heaven at least for a time at least for a time and that's what lek CEO Davina is all about meeting the Lord in an encounter an encounter like Jacobs encounter recognizing that he's present and that no matter where we are in a sense whenever we open his word we can say this is the house of God this is the gate of heaven have you ever had this experience sometimes when you're reading Scripture maybe you've read a passage for the same you know the same passage hundreds and hundreds of time and all sudden you see what you see something new that's a little it's almost like heavens opening ups a little taste of heaven that the Lord's giving to us and he wants us to encounter him in this way like Jacob encounters him to be awestruck by the fact that he's always present to us in his word he's always waiting for us in his word we just have to climb this little bitty ladder four steps reading meditation prayer and contemplation this is the latter of the month this is the gate of heaven now that would just be a kind of beautiful and interesting image if we stop there in the Old Testament but if you know you gospel John you'll know that this isn't the only time Genesis 28 is prominent in the scriptures but that Jesus himself alludes to Genesis 28 in the Gospel John chapter 1 and the famous story of Nathaniel's encounter with Jesus after Philip brings him to meet Jesus now I'm sure you all know this story I want you to look at it again with Genesis 28 in mine is the background and also with griego's use of Jacob's Ladder for Lexi Oh Davina and I want hope try to show you something interesting here all right the story goes in this way now Philip was from Bethsaida the city of Andrew and Peter right and Philip found Nathanael and said to him we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph and Nathanael said to him get anything good come out of Nazareth right all right Paul is there and as I'm sure you know cuz you've been to the ABS before Nazareth was not as you might say an illustrious City right it was what we would call like a podunk little town it was a very humble village in Galilee right that was not known for anything special there weren't any profits from Nazareth there weren't any great men from Nazareth right and so Nathaniel here is speaking of it derogatorily and I'm sure you can come up with some town or city in your own background that you wouldn't might think of in this way I'm from south Louisiana we have lots of those little towns you know people might say can anything good come from Houma which is where I'm from and that's the idea of Nathaniel's comment and Phillip says to him look at this response well come and see so what does Phillip do he invites him to come and encounter Christ now Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said to him behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile in other words there was no deception and the same thing you know said to him how do you know me and jesus answered before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you nothing you answered him rabbi you are the son of God you are the king of Israel that's not there is that how you would have responded think about it Jesus comes up to you says hey I saw you on the under the fig tree what would you say where were you hiding in the bushes right I mean well you behind the tree what I mean this is a very strange response to Jesus's simple statement before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw you now this is a good important example of an important rule in Scripture whenever a of Scripture our person in Scripture Ziggs when you would have zagged right they say something you would have never ever said it usually means you're what you're missing something right there's something going on here beneath Tech so to speak that we're not privy to right so what is it what in the world gets Nathaniel to move from skeptical derision toward Nazareth to a proclamation of Jesus as Messiah and king of Israel just based on the simple statement that Jesus saw him sitting under the fig tree well let's back up and go and unpack it for a minute a couple of brief points number one Jesus if you go back to what Phillips says when he found a thing and he says we found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth right and the city of Nazareth as you may already know comes from the Hebrew word Netzer which means branch right so in a sense he says here we found Jesus of branch town son of Joseph so Nathanael says well can anything good come out of branch town right okay and Phillip says we'll come and see so Jesus seasoned ahthe annual coming to him and Jesus says behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile or no deception right we'll go back to the doctor Bergman's talked this morning Israel is the new name for Jacob who was the deceiver who was the supplanter right who knew how to practice deception and who was famous for it right so in a sense what Jesus saying is here's a descendant of Jacob who unlike his ancestor is not a deceiver so all these little wordplay is going on here so I think it says well hold on how do you know me and Jesus says well before Philip called you you were under the fig tree and I saw you and then he recognizes Jesus as son of God and king of Israel right so what's the connection here well I think I think that this is actually going back to an Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah because if you may recall from the Old Testament one of the things they're all various titles for the old for the Messiah in the Old Testament Messiah Anointed One right king right son of God and then another one of the Mathai Dalls that was used several times in the prophets the branch name I remember this book of Zechariah right refers to the Messiah as the branch Isaiah chapter 11 talks about how Jesse's tree will be a stump and out of the stump of Jesse's tree shall sprout forth what a chute right a branch have you ever cut down a tree you'll know that you cut down the stump and then you if you don't grind the stump out what's gonna happen branches will begin to grow out of the stump and that's what David's kingdom was like had been reduced to a stump but one day Isaiah was saying a branch a chute was going to sprout forth from Jesse's tree and that would be the Davidic heir the New Kingdom right so if you go back to the Old Testament in the book of Zechariah we see this amazing combination of the images from John 1 we're calming around the image of the fig tree and the branch this is quoted very very briefly but look at this at the bottom page 3 Zechariah says this behold I will bring my servant who the branch and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day so when the Messiah comes the guilt of the land the forgiveness of sins will take place and in that day in the day of the Messiah what will happen in that day says the Lord of Hosts every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his wife his fig tree now what is this talking about every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree well an ancient Jewish tradition one of the key places that a person would meditate on Scripture right the choice place for meditating on sacred scripture would be to sit under a a fig tree right they actually saw this as a kind of foretaste of the age of the Messiah as a kind of foretaste of the new heavens and the new earth when the Messiah would come and God would restore the world to the state that it had in Eden right because if you go back to the book of Genesis although most of us Catholics in the West will think that Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of an apple tree or you'll see all the images of an apple tree the Jewish tradition actually believed that in the garden there was a fig tree because it's the only tree mentioned in the book of Genesis right remember when after they fall they make the fig tree leaf underwear for that all right which by the way you don't want to do that in south Louisiana everybody's mama everybody's grandma has a fig tree in the backyard this is kind of a staple right and the leaves put out this the substance whenever it's in bloom that will give you a wicked rash okay so fig tree leaf underwear not a good idea right so the penance starts right after the fall there and serious right after they start to do penance okay so in Jewish tradition then the fig tree was an image of both Eden and the age of the Messiah and so there was a custom of meditating under the fig tree on sacred scripture and anticipation of the Messiah the branch who was to come so notice what happens here can anything good come out of branch town we'll come and see here's Jesus from branch town well then Jesus steps up and says oh I saw you Nathanael sitting under the what fig tree and all of the pieces of the puzzle come together and through grace Nathanael recognizes this is the one I was waiting for this is the one I was longing for this is the Messiah the Son of God and I bring this to your attention because notice what was it that prepared Nathaniel's heart to receive that grace meditation on the word Lexi Oh Divina his heart was ready to encounter Christ through his word and listen to what Jesus says after this response if you have any doubts look what he goes on to say jesus answered him because I said to you I saw you under the fig tree do you believe you shall see greater things than these and he said to him amen amen I say to you you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man now the Old Testament it was angels of God ascending and descending upon Jacob's Ladder now Jesus says you'll see the angels of God ascending and descending upon me so what does Jesus revealing to Nathanael here I am the gate of heaven I in the ladder of paradise I am the house of God I am the new temple I'm the temple on earth I'm God's presence on earth right and this is fundamentally important for understanding the personal dimension of lexie Oh Divina because when we open up the pages of the inspired Word of God we encounter the Word made flesh right the very word who was made flesh and who walked the hills of Galilee and who encountered Nathan Nathanael in the flesh is still present in his word waiting for us to encounter him and when we do right he will open up to us the joys of heaven even in this life to help us to begin to taste what it would be like to be with him forever and ever and ever he is that gateway alright let's turn the page keep my eye on the clock here now if that's the case then what are the implications well I want to bring one last possible analogy to you for consideration it was inspired by Pope Benedict's absolute letter on the Word of God verbum Domini because in this Apostolic exhortation the Pope draws a final connection between Lexia Divina and our spiritual life that it will be very should resonate with us as Catholics he draws a connection between Lexi o Divina and the mass between the litter etsu Divina and the liturgy and this is what he says the privileged place for the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture is where the liturgy and particularly the Eucharist in which as we celebrate the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament the word itself is present and it work in our midst in some sense the prayerful reading of the Bible personal and communal must always be related to what the Eucharistic celebration right all of our various devotions in a sense all should lead us to the source in the summit of the Christian life the Eucharist he continues just as the adoration of the Eucharist prepares for accompanies and follows the Liturgy of the Eucharist so - prayerful reading personal and communal prepares for accompanies and deepens with the church celebrates when she proclaims the word in a liturgical setting by so closely relating lexie oh and liturgy we can better grasp the criteria which should guide this practice in the area of pastoral care and in the spiritual life of the people of God so knows what Pope Benedict sang here on the one hand he's saying your personal prayer for reading of Scripture really should lead you into a deeper experience of the Word made flesh on the altar right in the Eucharist okay it shouldn't just be something separate from your devotion to Christ in the mass it should lead to it and flow out of it right and one of the great ways to do this is to prayerfully prepare the readings for mass before you go as you might do this maybe with the Magnificat isn't it a wonderful practice to read the scriptures prayerfully before you get into the context of the mass so kind of incense till the soil of your heart so that when you hear that word in the liturgy it's already ready to be enlivened in you right but there's a second dimension here to that I would want to highlight and this was brought to my attention by a seminarian one I was once I was lecturing lecturing through Lexi o Divina and the four steps and one of the seminarians raised their hand and they said dr. Petrie if you look at those four steps in that kind of what we do in the mass look at the chart here start at the bottom number one reading how does the mass open the Liturgy of the word so the church as we gather together in the spirit in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit the church reads the holy words of God to us Old Testament the song the New Testament right and the gospel second step meditation what is that the the homily the homily the homily is supposed to be in the Pope has said this multiple times a meditation on the scriptures it's supposed to be the priests for the faithful breaking open the word so we can consume it all right I say supposed to be because as Holy Father himself pointed out in this in this apostolic exhortation all too often homilies detached themselves from the word have you ever had this experience right praise to You Lord Jesus Christ we put the gospel and then we know we don't hear about it again we move off to other you know anecdotes or abstract things this Pope in it actually goes into great detail on this right and what happens if that's the case the meditation is lost right the bridge between the reading the lexie oh and the arathi o is broken right so the homily functions in the mass like meditation functions in private reading of Scripture right what's the third part here prayer or Rossi oh well what do we do after the homily the Eucharistic prayer we have the intercessions for the people I prayers of the faithful and then above all the prayer of all prayers the Eucharistic prayer what are we doing in the Eucharistic prayer we're asking God to give us the good things that we have just heard about in his word prepared for in the Old Testament prayed for in the Psalms and fulfilled in Jesus Christ who is now going to come into our very midst in the Most Blessed Sacrament so that all of those sacred realities and events prefigured and fulfilled in the history of salvation are now being really truly made present in our midst and so we beg God for that to be the case in the Eucharistic prayer and yet how often and I accused myself here do we check out at this point right anybody can have this problem that's when I tend to go lay off in my mind to think about my own things precisely when the offertory in the Eucharistic prayer is being offered is when we should be uniting ourselves most deeply to the or ROTC oh that is going on in the mass to Christ's who was praying to the father in the spirit in the person of the priest and we who all pray with him in him and then finally last it's certainly not least contemplation what happens next in the mass Holy Communion right what is Holy Communion that's when God acts right we read we ponder we pray and in the Holy Communion God comes the bridegroom comes to be with his bride to commune with his bride his body his blood his soul his divinity it's the wedding supper of the Lamb right we receive from the table of God's Word and the table of his Eucharistic feasts something to think about well I see that my time is up according to this sign so lovely and read so I'll just close with one last reflection from Pope Benedict the Holy Father ends may every day of our lives thus be shaped by a renewed and counted with Christ the word of the Father made flesh let us be silent in order to hear the Lord's word and meditate upon it so by the workings of the Holy Spirit it remain in our it may remain in our hearts and speak to us all the days of our lives thus we to look at this we too will enter into the Great nuptial dialogue that's what Scripture is nuptial dialogue which concludes Sacred Scripture the spirit and the bride say come and let everyone who hears say come and the one who testifies to these things says surely I am coming soon amen come Lord Jesus and that's how the Pope ends his letter that the word of God is a nuptial dialogue between the church the bride and Jesus the bridegroom and he is coming soon like 20 minutes so let us prepare our hearts and give thanks to Almighty God in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen thank you very much

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

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Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization

Id: wd54kRMsQXM

Length: 53min 38sec (3218 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 19 2014