Just some questions :)

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Alesti

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Hello Everyone,

I have a few questions I was hoping I could get answered. I asked in the “ask an apologist” forum - but I never got a reply so I thought I’d try here.

Some of my questions may seem really “basic” - but I’ve only been a Catholic for 3 years and I’m still learning. I was raised in an Evangelical Baptist home, gave up on religion when I was about 16, dabbled in Wicca before I finally arrived at the Catholic Church …so it’s been a learning process for me.

A couple weeks ago, my priest had loaned me a book that I read - it was on the Gospel of John. It was a devotional commentary book published by The Word Among Us. While I was reading this, a question came to me. Not sure if I’ll be able to word this correctly, but do we “get” anything out of spending time reading “faith books” ? I mean aside from maybe a better understanding of our faith? I don’t know if that makes sense.

Secondly, I tend to listen to Contemporary Christian music a lot. Is listening to Christian music a form of prayer?

Thirdly, I’ve been trying to find ways to increase my faith. The last 3 years have been very difficult for me - and I have a lot of days where I feel very far away from God. I was thinking the other day of something I had seen in our parish bulletin recently about a “silent retreat” … I really like the idea of attending one but not really sure what takes place. Was wondering if I could get some insight from anyone who has attended one.

And finally, I’d like to ask you all to pray for my hubby and his conversion - also for the conversion of all sinners around the world. We’ve been married for 3 years now - and I would love for him to experience Jesus like I do - but he believes that “God is a myth”.

Thanks in advance for your replies

Sarah
 
do we “get” anything out of spending time reading “faith books” ? I mean aside from maybe a better understanding of our faith? I don’t know if that makes sense.
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It is through a better understanding of our faith that we get closer to God - in a way. The intellectual understanding of God (as much as we can) is a very good and great thing to strive for, but at the same time learning theology is no match for having that actual time with God and building that relationship. Imagine someone wrote a book about a friend; you’d learn a lot you never knew about that friend, and start thinking of things you’d never even wondered about them, but without actually spending time with that friend you wouldn’t really have a relationship with them.
Is listening to Christian music a form of prayer?
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I don’t recall which saint, but one of them said “To sing is to pray twice!” Now is it necessary to listen only to Christian music? Not in my opinion. Can it help you in your faith, it has in mine (but I don’t only listen to Christian music. Not even in majority).

I’ve never been on a silent retreat, but the ones I have been on have been great. I will pray for your husband.
 
It is through a better understanding of our faith that we get closer to God - in a way. The intellectual understanding of God (as much as we can) is a very good and great thing to strive for, but at the same time learning theology is no match for having that actual time with God and building that relationship. Imagine someone wrote a book about a friend; you’d learn a lot you never knew about that friend, and start thinking of things you’d never even wondered about them, but without actually spending time with that friend you wouldn’t really have a relationship with them.
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So true. It makes no sense to completely intellectualize your relationship with God. Yet, at the same time we need to be aware… I had experience with a CCD teacher who said she wasn’t worried about students knowing their faith as much as loving it… which is also true, yet how could we love without knowing what (or who) we are loving? The intellectual experience serves our relationship with God, so it is important to keep up with divine learning. That doesn’t mean you have to have a high I.Q. Doctors of the Church like St. Catherine of Siena wasn’t even literate! (or so I’ve heard…)

The Holy Spirit will guide you to resources that will help you understand your faith. Books, especially by saints, are not just books under His guidance… but rather it’s like you are sitting with these people who have done God’s will so well, and having a conversation with them. All this is possible… we believe in Communion of Saints, do we not? A beautiful thing!
Secondly, I tend to listen to Contemporary Christian music a lot. Is listening to Christian music a form of prayer?
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In a sense yes! It helps us to remember God even when we cannot sit down quietly and listen to Him… when we are doing laundry, driving, other menial things that require our attention, yet allow us to drift in and out mentally to other things. It aids in making every moment a prayer.

I’ve never been on a retreat that’s silent the entire time, but on one that was silent for the first night. It is a great experience. Though your personal experience on that particular retreat will depend on the retreat masters, and more importantly prayers from you and others 😉

I will also pray for your husband 🙂 Just pray, and don’t worry (St. Padre Pio said it, not me 👍 ).
 
I’ll share about silent retreats.

The first time I went on one was five years ago, and I’ve been going once a year ever since.

The ones I go on are four-day Ladies retreats. On Thursday night we can talk at dinnertime. After that we do not talk at meals, nor to one another outside or in the halls. We all have our own room with one bed in it. We do speak again at the last dinner we have, on Sunday.

The retreat master gave three conferences throughout the day, and when it was time for questions we raised our hands and asked. There was one Mass a day, and a schedule for confessions was posted and we signed up for a particular time slot.

The rest of the schedule included Stations of the Cross, Rosary, and a short Morning and Evening prayer all together.

If we needed to ask our retreat captain about something such as lowering the air conditioning in our room, etc., she told us which room she was in and we could contact her.

I found that it was made much easier to focus by having a silent retreat. When we sat down to dinner, after helping ourselves at the buffet, we either ate quietly or read a spiritual book, or wrote down notes.

The retreat captain gave any necessary announcements during the meal time.

I now only want to attend silent retreats, as I find them to be more spiritually profitable.
 
  1. Following is taken from linked site.
    Site is not Catholic, per se, but link is valid re spiritual reading.
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Z0v18_IDb0YJ:catholic-practices.suite101.com/article.cfm/history-of-retreat-centers-in-the-church+catholic+practices,+spiritual+reading&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

What is a Retreat?
A retreat is a specific amount of time-a day, weekend, or month- devoted to developing relationship with God through prayer, penance, spiritual reading, and worship away from one’s ordinary routine. Retreats are common for individual believers and groups within the Church who seek rest and connecttion with God beyond what is offered at the local church.
  1. More helpful is use of the term with explanation as found in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MYGP3U11pCgJ:www.newadvent.org/cathen/06306a.htm+catholic+encyclopedia,+spiritual+reading&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

As long as the association remained under the guidance of men like Suso and Tauler, masters in the spiritual life, it was preserved from blemish. Suso was the founder of the Children of Mary, and, in an age that witnessed the decadence of scholasticism or scientific theology, both friends based all their mysticism on Catholic doctrine, particularly on the solid system of St. Thomas. As Suso’s “Book of the Eternal Wisdom” was composed for spiritual reading, so was his “Book of Truth” written to refute the errors and fanatic excesses of the Beghards and the Brethren of the Free Spirit.
  1. Another example from the community practices of St. Vincent de Paul:
newadvent.org/cathen/03605a.htm

The rule and constitution have remained unchanged since the days of St. Vincent. To his successor, as Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, the sisters vow obedience. He ratifies the election of the mother general divided into several provinces governed by a visitatrix and a director, a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, who are appointed by the central government. There is no distinction among the sisters; those from the highest as from the humblest walks of life associate together as servants of the poor. The hour of rising is everywhere at four o’clock; then followed meditation and Mass and usually Communion. At noon there is their particular examination of conscience which is made again before supper. In the afternoon there are spiritual reading and another meditation. No office is recited, for “Charity is your office”, said St. Vincent. All the rest of the time is given to the poor. He used to tell them that when they left prayer to wait on the poor they were leaving God for God.
Code: 
IOW, Spiritual Reading is a practice proposed and favored by the Church.
It is a necessary component for those who live in community as consecrated religious.
 
On Reading of Sacred Scripture:

Pope Benedict XVI Weds Audience Nov 15th 2007 ( Regarding St. Jerome 4th Cent)

Truly “in love” with the Word of God, he asked himself: “How could one live without the knowledge of Scripture, through which one learns to know Christ himself, who is the life of believers?” (Ep. 30, 7). The Bible, an instrument “by which God speaks every day to the faithful” (Ep. 133, 13), thus becomes a stimulus and source of Christian life for all situations and for each person. To read Scripture is to converse with God: “If you pray”, he writes to a young Roman noblewoman, “you speak with the Spouse; if you read, it is he who speaks to you” (Ep. 22, 25). The study of and meditation on Scripture renders man wise and serene (cf. In Eph., Prol.). Certainly, to penetrate the Word of God ever more profoundly, a constant and progressive application is needed. Hence, Jerome recommends to the priest Nepotian: “Read the divine Scriptures frequently; rather, may your hands never set the Holy Book down. Learn here what you must teach” (Ep. 52, 7). To the Roman matron Leta he gave this counsel for the Christian education of her daughter: “Ensure that each day she studies some Scripture passage… After prayer, reading should follow, and after reading, prayer… Instead of jewels and silk clothing, may she love the divine Books” (Ep. 107, 9, 12). Through meditation on and knowledge of the Scriptures, one “maintains the equilibrium of the soul” (Ad Eph., Prol.). Only a profound spirit of prayer and the Holy Spirit’s help can introduce us to understanding the Bible: “In the interpretation of Sacred Scripture we always need the help of the Holy Spirit” (In Mich. 1, 1, 10, 15).

A passionate love for Scripture therefore pervaded Jerome’s whole life, a love that he always sought to deepen in the faithful, too. He recommends to one of his spiritual daughters: “Love Sacred Scripture and wisdom will love you; love it tenderly, and it will protect you; honour it and you will receive its caresses. May it be for you as your necklaces and your earrings” (Ep. 130, 20). And again: “Love the science of Scripture, and you will not love the vices of the flesh” (Ep. 125, 11).

For Jerome, a fundamental criterion of the method for interpreting the Scriptures was harmony with the Church’s Magisterium. We should never read Scripture alone because we meet too many closed doors and could easily slip into error. The Bible has been written by the People of God and for the People of God under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Only in this communion with the People of God do we truly enter into the “we”, into the nucleus of the truth that God himself wants to tell us. For him, an authentic interpretation of the Bible must always be in harmonious accord with the faith of the Catholic Church. It is not a question of an exegesis imposed on this Book from without; the Book is really the voice of the pilgrim People of God and only in the faith of this People are we “correctly attuned” to understand Sacred Scripture. Therefore, Jerome admonishes: “Remain firmly attached to the traditional doctrine that you have been taught, so that you can preach according to right doctrine and refute those who contradict it” (Ep. 52, 7). In particular, given that Jesus Christ founded his Church on Peter, every Christian, he concludes, must be in communion “with St Peter’s See. I know that on this rock the Church is built” (Ep. 15, 2). Consequently, without equivocation, he declared: “I am with whoever is united to the teaching of St Peter” (Ep. 16).

Pope Benedict XVI Audience Oct 28 2009

…is also important to set aside a certain period each day for meditation on the Bible, so that the word of God may be a light that illumines our daily pilgrimage on earth.

Pope Benedict XVI Address to Synod of Bishops Oct 6 2008

Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent….

……exegesis, the true reading of Holy Scripture, is not only a literary phenomenon, not only reading a text. It is the movement of my existence. It is moving towards the Word of God in the human words. Only by conforming ourselves to the Mystery of God, to the Lord who is the Word, can we enter within the Word, can we truly find the Word of God in human words. Let us pray to the Lord that he may help us search the word, not only with our intellect but also with our entire existence.
 
Some Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI on Lectio Divina

“Note what Saint Jerome said in this regard: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (PL 24,17; cf Dei Verbum, 25). A time-honoured way to study and savour the word of God is lectio divina which constitutes a real and veritable spiritual journey marked out in stages. After the lectio, which consists of reading and rereading a passage from Sacred Scripture and taking in the main elements, we proceed to meditatio. This is a moment of interior reflection in which the soul turns to God and tries to understand what his word is saying to us today. Then comes oratio in which we linger to talk with God directly. Finally we come to contemplatio. This helps us to keep our hearts attentive to the presence of Christ whose word is “a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet 1:19). Reading, study and meditation of the Word should then flow into a life of consistent fidelity to Christ and his teachings.”
(Message to the Youth of World Youth Day 9 April 2006)

“Among the many fruits of this biblical springtime I would like to mention the spread of the ancient practice of Lectio divina or “spiritual reading” of Sacred Scripture. It consists in pouring over a biblical text for some time, reading it and rereading it, as it were, “ruminating” on it as the Fathers say and squeezing from it, so to speak, all its “juice”, so that it may nourish meditation and contemplation and, like water, succeed in irrigating life itself.

One condition for Lectio divina is that the mind and heart be illumined by the Holy Spirit, that is, by the same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures, and that they be approached with an attitude of “reverential hearing”.” Angelus Nov 6 2005
 
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