Today our lives are so directed by communications, by mass media, by technology. Some TV and much Internet material can mesmerize even three or four year old children. But how many times have you felt or heard expressed, "Going to church on the weekends, reading the Bible ... well, it's all so boring, boring." As a priest of more than 36 years, I cannot find these remarks strange. Nothing can be more boring than repetition for repetitions sake!Many times I have been told, "That was an impressive homily." Likewise, when parishioners or friends have been honest, I have been told "That homily didn't speak to me." Repetition for repetition's sake is boring.
Thankfully, several Trappist monks led to a discovery of an ancient prayer style, Lectio Divina. This prayer form has been address by this blogger several times. Nonetheless it is worthy of repetition! But repetition to provide me and you with a reminder that Scripture-based prayer is most fruitful when a text is read and re-read several times ... not in haste.
In today's liturgy's first reading, Paul speaks about those who "hear" and those who "fail to hear: "But the word that they heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened." To reap the benefit of Scripture we must listen and listen and listen not because the text is so technical or beyond our understanding. Rather we need to read and re-read so that we can allow the power of the words, indeed the power of the Holy Spirit, speak to us, to lift us out of the moment into a real union with God.
On Capitol Hill these days it is most unusual when I am out walking not to see many young and older people passing by with wires dangling from their ears. Their recorded music is playing for them, lifting them out of the apparent monotony of walking in silence (a topic for a later reflection!). But they have chosen specific selections of music to accompany their ambulations! It is music that lifts them out of the moment. It is a key that opens doors for them to their inner selves. The same is true with most music and poetry. Why are there certain poems, books or pieces of music we visit over and over? There is something in them that we listen to, something in the words that carries us from the rat-race we live in.
Scripture is no different. Praying scripture is not something you "just do." Lectio Divina invites us to reread a text, without racing to finish, but to allow its own tune to play out in our hearts and minds.
Consider today's gospel: the paralytic man who is so determined to get himself into the presence of Jesus who is known to be a healer. We see that his determination and the ingenuity of his friends got him there in front of Jesus despite the packed house! If you are alive today with the excitement of the upcoming Inauguration and all the other DC events of this most unusual weekend and week, this gospel can speak to you about your own excitement, about the struggle that African Americans put forth since the days of President Lincoln. Just as the paralytic's goal was achieved, so, too, the struggle of our African American community is seeing, politically, the results of so many years of struggle. Likewise, if the financial challenges facing many people today are overwhelming, the struggle of the paralytic man and his success might easily open the heart to understand that Jesus will be with those who are suffering whatever setbacks, ills, failures and so on.
Scripture, through the Holy Spirit, will speak to you and me ... if, if, if we but allow time to be our companion in the journey through Ordinary Time and we are presented so many different events from the life of Jesus ... so often presented to us as the healer, the encourager, and, at times, the one who calls us to task. But we will not experience this lifting out of ourselves from what weighs us down if we do not read and re-read what God is saying.
But, then, what a gift, what a grace: praying this way is almost always certain to finish with peace and awareness of how blessed we are. Go for it! Walk down that pathway! You will meet your God in the strangest of places that the scripture gives you!
