"Read, Mark, Learn, and Inwardly Digest": On Eating Scripture

Sandro Botticelli, "Madonna of the Book" (ca. 1483)

“BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.”

The collect for this the penultimate Sunday of ordinary time was composed for the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549.  The prayer was originally paired with the readings for the second Sunday of Advent, and it draws its language from the epistle lesson for that day: Romans 15:4–13.  There we read, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope” (v. 4).  The acknowledgement clause of the collect (“who has caused all holy Scriptures, etc.”) corresponds to the first part of St. Paul’s sentence, and the collect’s aspiration clause (“that, by patience and the comfort of they holy Word, we may, etc.”) to the second part.  (The last phrase of the collect makes reference to Colossians 1:27.)  In the collect’s petition clause (“grant that we may, etc.”), we ask for what we need in order to maintain hope.  We ask God—“the God of steadfastness and encouragement”, “the God of hope” (Rom 15:5, 13)— for what we need to be the sort of people who can take courage from Holy Scripture and so hold steadfast to our hope in Christ.  And what we need is to truly hear the words of Scripture.  Accordingly, we pray for the grace to hear the words of Scripture, “so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).

The collect recognizes, with the long tradition of the church, that hearing the Word of God in the manifold words of Scripture is demanding.  To drive the point home, the collect glosses “hear” with a concatenation of verbs: “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.”  Scripture does not instruct us in hope automatically; rather, we must chew, ingest and ruminate on the words of Scripture in order to discern in them the comfort (in the sense of the late Latin confortare, “greatly strengthen”) of God’s holy Word.  What is offered to us in the words of Scripture sometimes does not seem palatable, but when we “inwardly digest” it we will, like the prophet Ezekiel, find it sweet as honey in our mouths (Ezek. 3:3).  We will discover the sweetness of Christ, “for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man.”*  Tasting for ourselves the goodness of the Word become flesh increases our appetite for our Lord.

In the end, learning to hear the Word is a matter of love.  “Hunger for the Word is a need of love. […] It is the discovery of the mystery of a Person deeply loved, in whom every truth comes together like the lines on his face.  He is the Truth, and every text of Scripture speaks of him.”**  Reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting the words of Scripture is a primary way we “seek his face always” (Ps. 105:4).  Thus, Augustine exhorts us in this life of our pilgrimage to “treat the Scripture of God as the face of God.  Melt in its presence.”***

*Article VII, Articles of Religion.

** Mariano Magrassi, Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina, trans. Edward Hagman (Liturgical Press, 1998), p. 65.

*** Augustine, Sermon 22.7, PL 38.  Translation from Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (Yale, 2003), p. 50.