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INTRODUCTION

Human life, like the dawning of each new day, is rhythmic. Our bodies have their own cycles and rhythms, oscillating between activity and sleep, in concert with the alternation between light and darkness in the world about us. In relation to these changes we construct the patterns of our personal and corporate existence, our days and our weeks, our terms and our vacations, our times of work and our periods of relaxation and rest. Women in particular are sensitive to these movements because of the biological rhythms and changes that govern their bodies. Much of contemporary living, however, at least in the West, has tended to obscure the fundamental patterns of our existence. Electric light mitigates our dependence on daylight. Urban living masks the seasonal fluctuations which so dominate the outlook and priorities of those whose lives depend on an agricultural economy. The abundance of produce on our supermarket shelves throughout the twelve months of the year testifies to our immunity from the vicissitudes of seedtime and harvest.

But the high standards of living we take for granted are paid for at a price – and not simply in the potential exploitation of poorer nations to supply and maintain our affluence. In the shadow of our material security we are in danger of becoming desensitized to the changes and rhythms of the environment that sustains us. And in the wake of our insatiable need for material security we can find ourselves out of touch with ourselves, driven by psychological forces that, if unchecked, do violence to our bodies and their legitimate needs. In short we become ill, both as persons and nations. We talk casually about the ‘absence of God’ in our lives, but God is God, and therefore, by definition, always present. It is we who are not sufficiently at home in our bodies to receive him.

Attending to ourselves as created beings and our place in creation is part of what it means to be human: it is fundamental to what it means to be Christian. Abundant living is both God’s will and his gift to us. But abundance goes hand in hand with ascesis: the vine must be pruned if it is to fruit productively. Personal discipline is not an optional extra for the pious few, but integral to the Christian enterprise, and if it is not to degenerate into negative self-punishment, must accord with the natural movements and rhythms of our souls and bodies and world, implanted as they are by God.

Celebrating the Seasons

It is against this backcloth that the Church’s liturgical year with its various seasons and festivals finds its place. Beginning afresh each year on Advent Sunday, the Church has crafted a rhythm of prayer and worship that continues to shape much of Christian life and thought. In the Book of Proverbs is the grave warning: ‘Cursed be he who removes the ancient landmark which your ancestors set up’ (Proverbs 22:28). To some the Church’s festivals and fast-days are anachronisms, echoes of an antique drum we no longer follow; but to others they constitute ancient and trusted landmarks on a spiritual landscape by which Christians have plotted their course and focused their prayerful attention, and which – like other rhythms in our lives – we do well to heed.

Over the centuries, the Church’s seasons (temporale) have coalesced into two liturgical cycles celebrating respectively the incarnation (Advent to Candlemas), and the crucifixion and resurrection (Ash Wednesday to Pentecost). This seasonal framework is peppered throughout with saints’ days (sanctorale) which provide opportunities to reflect upon the faithful discipleship of fellow Christians down the ages, giving names and faces to the otherwise faceless ‘cloud of witnesses’ that surrounds us. Historically, with the exception of Easter, this latter form of personal commemoration antedated the development of the Christian Year as we know it today. But taken together, the two liturgical forms create a counterpoint which excites the Christian imagination, enabling people to meditate systematically and profoundly upon the truth at the heart of the gospel that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’.

Non-Scriptural Readings

Like its companion volume Celebrating the Saints, this anthology of non-Scriptural readings from the Christian Tradition is geared to the movement of the Christian Year. The custom of including non-Scriptural readings in the public worship of the Church has become increasingly common in recent years. Funerals, memorial services, weddings, eucharists on saints’ days, family services and State occasions have all witnessed the change. Some Christians find this development problematic, either because it appears to threaten the supremacy of Scripture, or because it fits uncomfortably with received norms about the shape and context of the liturgy. Certainly, readings which incline to the banal or sentimental should be eschewed as unworthy of Chritian worship. But as this anthology of readings seeks to demonstrate the Christian Tradition can yield a wealth and depth of spirituality which is both profound and accessible.

Ironically, the custom of reading non-Scriptural texts in the worship of the Church is not the innovation it appears, and is probably monastic in origin. The monastic day was oriented to the praise of God. Life was ordered around the celebration of the Word of God, principally through the recitation of the psalms. It was a way of sanctifying the natural rhythm of the day, and above all, of fulfilling St Paul’s admonition to ‘pray without ceasing’. The Divine Office (or to give it its proper title ‘The Liturgy of the Hours’) punctuated the day with prayer, impregnating the mind and heart with the Word of God.

Unlike the offices celebrated during the daytime when short Biblical readings were preferred (ideally so that they could be readily committed to memory) the office of Vigils, which was celebrated normally just before dawn, provided for whole books of the Bible to be read consecutively over a period of time, the so-called lectio continuans. It was this custom that Cranmer adopted for his offices of Morning and Evening Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer. Reclaiming the centrality of the Scriptures in the life and worship of the Church was of prime importance to the Reformers. In monastic custom, however, the Scriptural reading at Vigils was supplemented by a non-Biblical lection. In the words of St Benedict’s Rule: ‘In addition to the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments, the works read at Vigils should include explanations of Scripture by reputable and orthodox writers.’ The reading of commentaries (presumably on what had just been read) enabled the monk not only to engage with Scripture more intelligently, but also to place his personal meditation within the context of those of other Christians from different ages and traditions. It was this broader perspective, this sense of conversation, that was lost at the Reformation, but which in recent liturgical change is once again being explored right across the Christian spectrum.

Reading and Interpreting Scripture

We tend to assume (rather naively) that although our world-view may be different, fundamentally our Christian forebears approached and interpreted the Scriptures in the same way that we do. As this anthology of readings reveals, this is not the case. In the early Church, for example, it was assumed that sacred Scripture, far from being transparently clear, had different layers of meaning. There was the literal, obvious meaning, but there was also a hidden meaning. The invitation of God was to go deeper, to search for this hidden treasure. The task of the exegete was to unlock these hidden meanings. In this quest, our forbears were fascinated by the mystical significance of numbers, by typology and symbolism, by the use of allegory. These were tools with which to uncover the truth. Indeed, the Greek word for truth (alitheia) means literally that which is no longer hidden, that which is uncovered, exposed to view. Truth, for them, was not exclusively or even primarily an intellectual exercise: it was an event which liberated the heart. In the words of the Psalmist: ‘You that desire truth in the inward parts: O teach me truth in the secret places of the heart’ (Psalm 51:6).

Since all parts of Scripture were deemed to be uniformly authoritative, ancient commentators did not hesitate to lift verses and phrases out of their literary and historical contexts, and apply them elsewhere as a means of illuminating a difficult text – sometimes with bizarre results. Such critical procedures may be alien to the modern mind, but within their own terms of reference, these were valid theological enterprises. Indeed, they challenge some of our own exegetical methods which may be ‘accurate’ but which do not exactly lead to the liberation of the heart.

Listening with the ear of the heart

Probably the most significant change in the way Christians have approached the Scriptures occurred during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Promoted by the explosion of cheaply available literature following the invention of printing, and reflecting the new taste for privacy (seen typically, for example, in the introduction of bedrooms and corridors in English country houses) there evolved the custom of silent reading. When earlier generations talked about ‘reading’ the Bible what they really meant was listening. All literature (as far as we know) was read aloud – not necessarily loudly, but nevertheless declaimed. Reading as we know it – the silent scanning of the printed page – appears to have been unknown.

This explains, for example, the somewhat cryptic remark of St Benedict to his monks that during their siesta, when resting on their beds in the dormitory, they could read ‘provided they did not disturb the others’. It also explains why patristic and medieval commentators on Scripture display such interest in the sounds of words, and in the literary devices of rhythm, rhyme, alliteration and assonance. Their interpretation of Scripture honoured the dignity of the spoken word more than our generation does. They related to its performative value, what it actually felt like as it was articulated in the mouth, spoken with the tongue, and heard with the ear. They would repeat the words of the sacred text with their lips again and again so that the body and not just the mind entered into the process. They sought to cultivate their capacity to listen to the Word of God at ever deeper levels of inward attention. They borrowed from the vocabulary of digestion to describe this process of ingesting Scripture, using such expressive terms as ruminatio and mundicare, the verb to chew the cud. This ancient language still survives today in the collect for Bible Sunday, the Last Sunday after Trinity:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures

to be written for our learning:

help us so to hear them,

to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them

that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,

we may embrace and for ever hold fast

the hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Our forebears’ belief that the slow digestive process of cows was well-suited to describe the process of engaging with Scripture, stands in marked contrast to the language and expectations of a fast-food generation. Their wisdom calls us to a more gentle rhythm of prayerful reading in which patience, silence and receptivity are vital ingredients. In a world of sound-bites we need to learn again the art of listening with the ear of the heart. To this end when we are praying by ourselves, reading the Bible or saying the Office alone, perhaps we should experiment with the custom of earlier generations and speak the words out loud? Whatever personal ascesis we evolve it should be one that engages all of us: mind, heart, imagination and body. This assembly of non-Scriptural readings is offered to that end. As well as making accessible valued and contrasting commentaries on the Christian Way, it also reaches towards the recovery of a more balanced and integrated pattern of personal and corporate devotion.

Using this volume

In constructing this anthology of ‘reputable and orthodox writers’ it has not been possible (sadly) to pursue the monastic ideal of matching a reading from Scripture with an appropriate commentary from the Christian Tradition. The plethora of lectionaries and three-yearly cycles of readings makes this project unfeasible. Instead this selection has been organised thematically in close association with the movement of the Church’s Year beginning with Advent Sunday. Each liturgical section also includes a brief note about the season and the material that follows. A comprehensive index is provided at the back of the book. Like Celebrating the Saints, its companion volume, the literature included in this anthology spans two thousand years. It contains extracts from sermons, hymns, theological treatises, Biblical commentaries, letters, prayers and poems. It constitutes a rich treasury worthy of study and reflection.

Not being tied to any one Scriptural text has the advantage that the readings chosen here may be read in conjunction with either Morning or Evening Prayer, or with the eucharistic lectionary. They may be read publicly in church or used privately for personal devotion. Although drawn from various centuries and across the spectrum of Eastern and Western spirituality, the writings of the early Fathers will be found to enjoy a special prominence, partly because translations of their works are not as available to the general public as contemporary Christian writers and they deserve a wider public, and partly because they antedate the various schisms that have dismembered the Body of Christ, and therefore occupy an honoured place in the mind of the Church.

Our Christian forebears emerge from this assembly of texts as a vibrant company of voices which both affirm and challenge us. Recognizing resonances in their voices, coming as they do from different traditions, cultures and ages, is exciting. They root our discipleship, and give us fresh hope and energy in our current cultural and ecclesiastical fragmentation.