Lexio Divina

Last weekend was the 5th out of 6 weekends for Level I CGS formation. (I've mentioned this group before, as there are 7 gentlemen participants. They call themselves the "Seven Sacra-men." This was better than their first option which was "The Seven Gifts to Women" which was voted down by the larger group. Ha). So it was a busy weekend and I had every excuse to skip out on the inaugural talk for the Catholic Culture Lecture Series which began last Saturday night.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Lest you think that I am going to find every excuse to title my articles with a Latin word from now on, the title of the first talk in the Diocese's once-a-month series was actually Lexio Divina, words which translate simply enough to "Divine Reading."

The speaker, Bo Bonner, is an assistant professor and the Director of Mission and Ministry at Mercy College in Des Moines and also has a show on Iowa Catholic Radio called The Uncommon Good. I'm lucky enough to have had a few conversations with him, and even one very enjoyable argument, so my expectations going in were fairly high. Yet for a super smart, obnoxiously well-read guy to give a talk on what really is just prayer, I wasn't sure how this would go. Would I hear a cerebral talk all about the ancient church fathers and why they thought we should take time everyday to pore over God's word? Would I hear how the Benedictines developed this practice over the centuries? Not even close.

Mr. Bonner offered a challenging warning to those of us who would attend a lecture series on Catholic Culture, or who think that the Catholic Church is going to have anything to offer to a crumbling culture, without seriously examining our own pride and lukewarmness in our faith lives. The word culture comes from the word that means to cultivate, to prepare for crops. You have to get down into the soil and get it ready for good seed. But do we have good seed to offer? He quoted a Latin phrase which is a favorite of my friend, Dr. Tom Neal, (who I now know did not make it up): "nemo dat quo non habet," which means: "You can't give what you don't have."

Mr. Bonner pointed out that Lexio divina is just divine reading. It is reading divine words, and letting the Divine read you. It is taking a bite out of the scripture and gnawing on it for a while. He made not a few references to food and took several opportunities to poke fun at his own love affair with food. "Have you ever tried to teach someone to chew? Well, I have. My kids are chokers. It's impossible." For a good portion of the talk, I wondered whether comedian Jim Gaffigan and Bo Bonner were related. 

I came away from the talk with a strong commitment in myself to take a bite out of the scriptures each day, and really chew on them. Let the divine words bug me. Let them seep into me. As we so often hear, "You are what you eat." Just reading God's word is not enough. We must allow ourselves to be cultivated by it, by God. Only then will we be prepared to do the hard work of building the Catholic Culture that this world needs.

The next talk in the Catholic Culture Lecture Series will also be held at St. Augustin parish in Des Moines while work is finished at the Pastoral Center. The speaker is Katie Patrizio whom we all love from our Summer Bible Institute. Her talk on Modern Intellectualism and Christianity is bound to be excellent as well! There will be hors d' oevers and drinks at 7pm and the talk begins at 7:30pm on February 24th. Q and A is done by 9pm. It is a free event!