The Hallow app created a sensation by featuring St. Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975) throughout the season of Lent this year. The two publishers of his most popular book, “The Way” (Scepter Pubs, $11.96), found themselves overwhelmed by orders in the tens of thousands.
I love that book. But I say we cannot begin to understand the spirit of Josemaría until we understand his reading of the Scriptures.
I would go so far as to say that the Bible always served as Josemaría’s primary referential language. Though he was steeped in the teachings of the Fathers and doctors of the Church, though he was fluent in scholastic theology, and though he kept current with trends in contemporary theology, it was to Scripture that he consistently turned in his preaching and writing.
He quoted frequently from both the Old and New Testaments, but especially from the Gospels. No phrases appear so often in his writings and homilies as those that invoke the sacred page: “as the Gospel tells us”; “as the Gospel advises …”; “Sacred Scripture tells us …”; “the Gospels relate …”; “Remember the Gospel story …”
He spoke of the Scriptures as the very measure of his way of life, which was “as old as the Gospel but, like the Gospel, ever new.” At the beginning of “The Way,” he wrote: “How I wish your bearing and conversation were such that, on seeing or hearing you, people would say: This man reads the life of Jesus Christ.” Conversely, in discussing those who do not live Christian charity, Josemaría said, “They seem not to have read the Gospel.”
Study of the Scripture, then, was essential to his spirituality. In a sermon he wrote: “In our own life we must reproduce Christ’s life. We need to come to know him by reading and meditating on Scripture.”
He practiced a particular method for the meditative reading of Scripture: “I advised you to read the New Testament and to enter into each scene and take part in it, as one more of the characters. The minutes you spend in this way each day enable you to incarnate the Gospel, reflect it in your life and help others to reflect it.”
With the reading of Scripture, then, comes the grace of transformation, of conversion. Reading the Bible is not a passive act, but an active seeking and finding. The saint once said: “If we do this without holding back, Christ’s words will enter deep into our soul and will really change us. For ‘the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12).”
There’s just a little bit of Lent remaining. Join the crowd gathered at Hallow by learning Scripture from this saint, in the pages of his most popular book.
Source: Angelus News
