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PRAYER AND THE BIBLE 
Copyright © 2007 Kay Murdy

Prayer Before Studying the Bible

Shine within my heart, loving God, the pure light of your divine word, and open the eyes of my mind that I may understand your teachings. Instill in me a reverence for the commandments, so that having conquered sinful desires I may pursue a spiritual way of life, thinking and doing all those things that are pleasing to you. For you, Christ my Lord, are my light, and to you I give glory together with your Father and your Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

The Psalmist writes of our longing for God: As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God. When can I go and see the face of God? (Ps 42:2-3).

God is a God who both reveals and conceals. Moses experienced a God whose majesty and transcendence surpassed any attempt to control or command God. Yet Moses enjoyed an intimacy with God never before experienced. As God's word was revealed to him on the mountaintop, God's glory shined on Moses' face (Ex 34:29). To see God face to face would be an unimaginable experience. Yet we have received even greater privileges than Moses. God has chosen to be revealed in our midst through Jesus and his sacred word.

When we read sacred scripture we approach it on two levels: 1) The Content level and 2) The faith level. Placing the text in the literary, historical, social, cultural, political, economic, religious world in which it was written gives us a framework for study. This helps us avoid a narrow, fundamentalist view of only one literal meaning of the text. Knowledge is important for our understanding of God's word; however, one can be abstract and theoretical in relation to God and not be a person of faith. We can be doctrinally correct and spiritually dead. An accumulation of facts does not confer on a person the goodness or wisdom esteemed in the Bible. Christianity is a "way" not just an academic discipline.

The person in search of spiritual growth needs to go beyond information to formation and eventually transformation. Formative reading gives us a meaningful way to understand our human experience. In formative reading, we have a conversation with the word of God. We connect our story with our longings and hopes, exiles and homecomings with the Biblical story. Though separated by time and distance, the Biblical world is our world, the stories experienced by our ancestors are our stories.

To read scripture as God's word to us is not so much a matter of technique than it is God's grace. Understanding does not come through human effort alone. It is the work of the Spirit who inspired the sacred authors to see God's hand at work in every event in history. It is the same Spirit who inspires our understanding of these words. The word "inspire" is derived from the Latin words "to breath into." God breathed life into Adam. Jesus breathed the Spirit upon the Apostles. The Spirit breaths divine inspiration into us.

CONVERSATION WITH GOD'S WORD
Spiritual writers have called prayer "a conversation with God's Word," and our reading of Scripture can give us the subject matter for this dialogue. At times we may quietly meditate on a verse of Scripture. At other times God may seem to withdraw from us in order to lead us in our search for God. We cannot force God's grace, but we can ask for it. Hence a moment of prayer before we read is all important, like Samuel who prayed: "Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening" (1 Sm 3:10). Sometimes, our prayer is more like, "I'm speaking, Lord. Are you listening?"  

At the mountain of the transfiguration we heard God saying: "This is my beloved Son, listen to him" (Lk 9:35). When we open the Scriptures we must listen to Jesus. We consider everything Jesus said as speaking to us personally: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). Jesus speaks and invites us to listen. It has been pointed out that the words "silent" and "listen" have the same letters. Silence allows God's word to be heard -- like Elijah on the mountaintop (1 Kings 19:11-12). God wasn't in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still, small voice of the wind -- the breath of the Spirit inspiring him and us.

When we read God's word, we can put ourselves in the story. Perhaps I am the widow pleading for the life of her son. I may be the leper, an outcast, begging Jesus for healing. I may be the woman at the well thirsting for life-giving water, "Sir, give me this water so I shall never grow thirsty again" (John 4:15). I may be Peter on the mountain, awestruck by the beauty and glory of Christ, "Master, how good it is for us to be here" (Mk 9:5). We can put the words of blind Bartimaeus on our lips: "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me" (Mark 10:47). Our reading invites us to have faith, to love and be healed and reconciled with God and one another.

Jesus reveals God's compassion to us when we are blind, deaf or afflicted. He raises us to life when we feel dead. He preaches the good news to us when we feel empty, poor, lost and when we sin. The word of God is not just words printed on paper, a doctrine to be argued or debated. God's word is a person, "the word made flesh." God did not just go through the motions in declaring his love and faithfulness: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3:16).

After the resurrection, Jesus told his followers that when he returned to the Father, "the Spirit would guide them to all truth" (John 16:13). So when we read scripture we pray, "Come Holy Spirit! Fill the hearts of your faithful ones! Fill my heart, breath your life into me. Enkindle the fire of your love in me." As we read God's word, sometimes the words are enkindled by a divine spark and our hearts burn within us (Luke 24:32). Other times the words are more like dying embers and our hearts grow cold. If our hearts are to burn with love as did the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus as Jesus spoke to them and explained the scriptures, we must be touched by the one who speaks to us through the sacred word. 

Sometimes we have a sense of the power of God's word as described in Jeremiah: "Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, like a hammer shattering rocks?" (Jer 23:29). At other times God's word is like a surgeon's scalpel cutting into our innermost being: "Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart" (Heb 4:12). Again, God's word might come to us our dry souls as rain that "waters the earth, making it fertile and fruitful." God told the prophet Isaiah, "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but shall do my will and achieve the end for which I sent it" (Is 55:10,11). As we read the Bible our aim should be to experience God. Whether as fire, hammer, sword, or rain on a dry desert, we should open our hearts to God, hear God speak to us, and be transformed by it. 

What is necessary for us to be transformed by God's Word? The Biblical image is to "eat the word." God told the prophet Ezekiel: "Son of Man, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel" (Ezekiel 3:1-2). Eight centuries before the coming of Christ the prophet Amos said: "There is a famine upon the land: not a famine of bread, or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst" (John 6:35). Jesus is the "Word that became flesh," who yearns for us to "consume" him, to have "communion" with him in the Eucharist and in the word so that we "may have life to the full" (John 10:10).

There is a correlation between consuming food and the transforming power of God's Word, not merely reading it but seeking to become one with it. When we find God's word so sweet to the taste that, like food, it becomes part of our being, then we are eligible, like Elijah, to speak the words to the "house of Israel." 

The Document on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) describes God's Word as having a Eucharistic character when it says: "The church venerates the divine scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord (and) unceasingly offers to the faithful the bread of life from the one table of God's Word and of Christ's body" (#21). 

Only when we come to the banquet table with hunger for God's Word are we ready to receive Jesus who feeds us with the "Bread of Life."

QUESTION: Do I hunger for God's Word in the Scriptures and in the Sacrament?

Read Psalm 23 slowly and prayerfully.

The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me; you restore my strength. You guide me along the right path for the sake of your name. Even when I walk through a dark valley, I fear no harm for you are at my side; your rod and staff give me courage. You set a table before me as my enemies watch; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Only goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come (Psalm 23:1-6).

What did you experience as you read this Psalm? Emptiness? Fear? Peace? Hope, Encouragement? 

Read the Psalm again, pausing as you come upon a word or phrase that is meaningful to you.

What new thoughts or inspiration came to you as you reread the Psalm?

Read the Psalm a third time and allow God to speak to you in prayer.

In what ways is this Psalm God's revelation for you?