Introduction

As you know, I have been given St Paul’s letter to the Romans as my Lent Book. This means I will be taking it for my daily lectio divina every day throughout Lent. We do at least 30 minutes of lectio each day, but this Lent I am extending it to 40 minutes.

Lectio is the slow, prayerful reading of a passage of Scripture or some other suitable spiritual reading. It is not to study or gain any knowledge, except knowledge of God, but often leads into prayer. It is a way of spending time with Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word, in the Scriptures which he knew and loved (the Old Testament) and which tell about him (the New Testament). In these reflections I will try and focus on how the Letter tells me about God, and draws me closer to him.

Having said this, a little background to the Letter may be helpful. Romans was written by St Paul to introduce himself to the Christians in Rome whom he hoped to visit. There were probably several Christian communities in Rome, some consisting mainly of Jews who had come to believe in Christ, and some mainly of Gentiles. Because of this diversity of the believers’ backgrounds, in parts of this letter St Paul enters into discussion of practices concerned with keeping the Jewish law, including circumcision and dietary regulations.

The first half of this letter (Chapters 1-8) is principally concerned with salvation. St Paul teaches that we are saved  through faith in Jesus Christ. The theological arguments in this letter are deep and complex, and require an appreciation of St Paul’s understanding of terms such as ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’. However, what I am going to do in these posts is something that I think of as ‘diving for pearls’. I read the text slowly (in this first week of lectio I have got as far as half way through chapter five – that’s less than one chapter a day) and find sentences and short passages that enlighten, console and, as I said, draw one closer to God and into prayer. At the end of my lectio time each day I choose one of these sentences and copy it into a notebook, so I can go back to it during the day.

For this first reading of the Letter, I am using the Jerusalem Bible, the text that was used in the Mass Lectionary in England and Wales until the recent changes. It is the translation I am most familiar with, and I have a much-loved New Testament (illustrated in last week’s photo) that I am always happy to sit with.

Lectio

So now for the Letter itself. I am nearly always struck by, and linger on, the beginnings of St Paul’s letters. as he sends good gifts (here grace and peace) to the communities to whom he is writing.

So, in the first paragraph (vv. 1-7) I ponder, among other things, the Good News, the holiness of our Lord, and the grace and peace that we are sent. St Paul tells the Romans that by God’s call they belong to Jesus Christ. For me, that idea of being possessed by Christ, belonging to him in a way similar to, and yet going beyond, that of belonging to my community and my family is a source of joy and consolation. Often I pray ‘I want to be yours, Lord’. I do not wish to be alone in this life, but to have the companionship of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be part of the Church, the community of believers.

A theme that comes to me through this first week is the power of God. I love psalm 146/147 where it says:

…he heals the broken-hearted,
he binds up all their wounds.
He fixes the number of the stars;
he calls each one by its name.       (Grail)

In just two verses we go from the personal to the cosmic, from the Lord gently touching and healing our emotions to the Lord as the Master of the Laws of Physics. The power of God has this amazing quality, it can act in so many ways, and at so many different levels, both gently and forcefully. The power St Paul is concerned with is the power that raised Jesus from the dead and that we can allow to transform our lives.

Two sentences that drew me are:

I am longing to see you either to strengthen you by sharing a spiritual gift with you… (1:11)

[Abraham] drew strength from faith and gave glory to God, convinced that God had power to do what he had promised. (4:20-21)

Although in the first verse St Paul is talking about people mutually strengthening each other, it is by the sharing of spiritual gifts, which come from God, that this is brought about. In the second quotation it is more explicit that strength and power come from God.

Prayer

Lectio should always end with a short prayer. This week I pray that God will strengthen us all for our spiritual journey through Lent, giving us the grace to carry out our observances and penances, and bring us, at Easter, to a deeper appreciation of his saving power.