On Friday, March 14th, Capuchin Father Rainero Cantalamessa, who is the preacher of the pontifical household, gave the fourth in his series of Lenten meditations for the Holy Father and the Roman Curia. The theme for his series of meditations is the Word of God.

The fourth and final message is entitled "The Letter Kills, the Spirit Gives Life: The Spiritual Reading of the Bible". In his meditation, Fr. Cantalemessa reflected on the need to read Scripture spiritually, which is not a subjective approach, but rather the most objective approach because it is based on understanding Scripture through the perspective of the historical event of Christ's death and resurrection through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Here is an excerpt from Fr. Cantalemessa's meditation:

Spiritual reading does not only regard the Old Testament; in a different sense it also regards the New Testament; it too must be read spiritually. Reading the New Testament spiritually means reading it in the light of the Holy Spirit given to the Church at Pentecost to lead the Church to all truth, that is, to the complete understanding and actualization of the Gospel.

Jesus explained beforehand the relationship between his word and the Spirit that he would send (even if we do not necessarily need to think that he did so in the precise terms that John's Gospel uses in this regard). The Spirit -- one reads in John -- "will teach and bring to mind" everything that Jesus said (cf. John 14:25f.), that is, he will make it completely understood, in all of its implications. He "will not speak from himself," that is, he will not say new things in respect to those things that Jesus said, but -- as Jesus himself says -- he will take what is mine and will reveal it (cf. John 16:13-15).

In this one sees how spiritual reading integrates and surpasses scientific reading. Scientific reading knows only one direction, which is that of history; it explains, in fact, that which comes after in light of that which comes before; it explains the New Testament in the light of the Old which precedes it, and it explains the Church in the light of the New Testament. A good part of the critical effort in regard to Scripture consists in illustrating the doctrines of the Gospel in light of the Old Testament traditions, of the rabbinical exegesis, etc.; it consists, in sum, in the research on sources (Kittel and many other biblical aids are based on this).

Spiritual reading fully recognizes the validity of this direction of research, but it adds an inverse direction to it. This consists in explaining that which comes before in the light of that which comes after, prophecy in the light of its realization, the Old Testament in the light of the New and in the New in the light of the tradition of the Church. In this the spiritual reading of the Bible finds a singular confirmation in the Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic principle of "history of effects" ("Wirkungsgeschichte"), according to which a text is understood by taking account of the effects that it has produced in history, by inserting oneself in this history and dialoguing with it.

Only after God has realized his plan, is one able to fully understand the meaning of that which prepared and prefigured. If every tree, as Jesus says, is known by its fruit, then the word of God cannot be fully understood unless the fruits it produces are seen. Studying Scripture in the light of the Tradition is a little like knowing the tree by its fruits. For this reason Origen says that "the spiritual sense is that which the Spirit gives to the Church." The Spirit identifies itself with the ecclesial reading or, indeed, Tradition itself, if by "Tradition" we understand not only the solemn declarations of the magisterium (which, after all, only touch on very few biblical texts), but also the experience of doctrine and sanctity in which the word of God is in a way newly incarnated and "explained" over the course of centuries, by the working of the Holy Spirit.

That which is necessary is not therefore a spiritual reading that would take the place of current scientific exegesis, with a mechanical return to the exegesis of the Fathers; it is rather a new spiritual reading corresponding to the enormous progress recorded by the study of "letter." It is a reading, in sum, that has the breath and faith of the Fathers and, at the same time, the consistency and seriousness of current biblical science.

Zenit provides a synopsis of his meditation, and you can read the entire meditation on Fr. Cantalemessa's Web site.

There is a also a link to Fr. Cantalamessa's Fourth Meditation for Lent in the Resources for Lent section of the Web site.