A Weekly Bible Study: Barbara Gawle

Feast of Christ the King 2015
A Weekly Bible Study

With this weekend we conclude the three-year cycle of Bible Study columns. It has been my pleasure to give you a glimpse into the vast treasury of revelation that is Sacred Scripture, where we come to know the Lord – and ourselves – more deeply.  It is my hope that you will continue to explore Sacred Scripture and find it to be an enriching source of knowledge, inspiration, strength and hope. I now offer a closing invitation to embrace the Word more deeply.


If a wonder of nature or a marvel of creation caught our eye and moved us deeply we would not
hesitate to stop and observe this majestic sight, perhaps even to pause to praise the Lord. We might spend time studying its delicate or awe-inspiring features. Nature has a way of slowing us down, stopping us in our tracks, enabling us to commune with its intricacies.

Does our reading of Sacred Scripture stop us in our tracks? Why or why not?

Sacred Reading or Lectio Divina invites us to pause, ponder and pray. Unlike recreational or informational reading, we allow the Word of God to penetrate slowly our minds, hearts and wills. We invite the Word to speak to us at ever deepening levels. As we engage with the Sacred Word, we read, listen, respond, rest and perhaps begin again in a kind of circular motion. This kind of reading is not so much a process as it is a disposition of the heart. Initially we may be engaging with the printed word, the message of Scripture, but we move gracefully into an encounter with the Word who is Christ.

Reading about Lectio Divina recently, two phrases caught my eye: moment of insight and movement of love. The author was describing the flow of this way of prayer that often stops at such moments and leads to such movements. There is a gentleness about these two phrases, as if being tenderly led into the mysterious chambers of the heart where one can gaze upon the Lord’s loveliness while also being instructed in the God's ways. In these days of over-stimulation and lack of reflection, isn’t it refreshing for the spirit to be brought back to a place where it can move slowly, deliberately and lovingly through a printed word and be nourished as well as transformed?

The author, Ms. Barbara Gawle, leads Bible studies at her parish, Incarnation Church of Wethersfield, CT. She is a CBS graduate and the 2012 recipient of the Biblical School's highest award, the Lawrence Boadt Memorial Medal.