Lectio Divina - Broken Bay Institute

Lectio Divina Praying the Scriptures in Lent and Holy Week 2011 Year Abodily functions and gives sensory security. We function best when we drinkplenty of water! But, more importantly, we function most fully when wedrink deeply of the Word of God, when we wash away the sinful debris thatfl oats in our lives, and when we bathe our minds in the mind of Christ.• Certain liturgical actions coursed through the season of Lent in theHippo community, giving an intensity, an enthusiasm, a fearfulness whichstirred the competentes and the Faithful to a deep understanding that theywere to be slaves of the Kingdom of justice and peace, sailors braving thestorms to reach the harbour of Christ. The committed candidates wereexorcised in the celebration of the Scrutiny. Heads bowed, they enteredthe church, stamped barefoot on a goatskin (a sign of the hope to benot numbered among the goats at the fi nal judgment), were breathedover by the exorcist, to drive out the power of the devil, and then theyformally renounced the power of Satan. Unfortunately, though thethree Sundays of scrutinises are retained in our contemporary rite forthe Elect (our term for the competentes), they are often whitewashedinto blandness and celebrated only at one Mass. Many of the localcommunity would never have come across the emotionally chargedcall to conversion that the scrutiny delivers. We have not allowed,generally, these dramatic liturgical moments to both buffet us as withraging wave in the surf or scour us as with a gushing channels that cutsand smoothes. We have tamed what could be a white water event!• Over the whole Lenten period, the competentes had listened to Augustineopen the scriptures intensively to draw them into the mind of Christand the Christian lifestyle. It came to a point when all that they hadimbibed needed to be become dammed into a holding force, to form areservoir feeding their total outlook on life, an anchor to secure them intheir practice of the Faith. They were handed a summary of all they hadlearnt, the Creed. They were to learn it ‘off by heart’ and be able to repeatit in the presence of the Faithful as the last week of Lent approached.Within a slightly different time frame, we do the same today. We handover the Creed to the Elect, for them to learn. At the preparation Riteson the morning of Holy Saturday, they ‘hand it back’ by reciting it in thepresence of the community. Hopefully, it has become washed into theirhearts by the exercise of repeating it again and again. Today, there is aconcern that these ceremonies are not more widely experienced by theparish and fully celebrated as the ritual indicates. This is not a privatemoment for the candidates. Rather, it is a time of very public witness16