Meditating on the Bible: Why and how?

"This verse from Deuteronomy is taken up by Jesus - in Matthew 4:4 - in response to one of Satan's temptations in the desert. The Bible is the Word of God. To meditate on the Bible is to learn to listen to God, to know him better and to understand what he expects of us every day. For his word is alive and active. You don't need to be an exegete or a great theologian; meditating on Bible passages or verses is accessible to everyone, and can be done every day. Here are a few guidelines to help and support you in your Bible meditations!

What does it mean to meditate on the Bible?

Meditation is a form of prayer very much present in the Christian tradition. While it can take many different forms, it is an action that engages our whole being: mind, heart and body. Meditating on the Bible is therefore different from reading the Bible.

It'san encounter with God through His word. To meditate, then, is first and foremost :

• listening, making ourselves available to this Word,
  "Listen, Israel" (Deuteronomy 6:4).
• trying to understand it, to retain it 
  "He who received the seed into the good soil is he who hears the Word and understands it: he bears fruit a hundred, or sixty, or thirty to one. "( Matthew 13:23)
• but also to feed on it. 
  That is to say, to let it touch us, to inscribe itself in us, so that it remains in us and bears fruit in our lives.
  "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you want, and it will come true for you" (John 15:7).

Why meditate on the Word of God?

The Bible itself gives us some very good reasons for meditating on the Scriptures: 

• God's Word is truth forever:
  "The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever" (Isaiah 40:8)
  "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
• The Word of God takes us into the intimacy of Jesus: "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice. " (Luke 8:21)
• The Word of God guides us in our lives:"Your word is the light of my feet, the lamp of my path" (Psalm 118 (119), 105).
• The Word of God transforms us:"The rain and snow that come down from heaven do not return there without watering the earth, without fertilizing it and making it germinate, giving seed to the sower and bread to him So my word, which proceeds from my mouth, will not return to me without result, without having done what pleases me, without having accomplished its mission. "(Isaiah 55:10-11)

Each of us can experience the comfort, strength, joy and hope that a Gospel text or Bible verse can bring. To do so, we must welcome it with simplicity and wonder, realizing that, through the Bible, it is God himself who speaks to each of us,here and now.

How do we meditate on the Bible?

We don't have to read the whole Bible to meditate on it. While the different books of the Bible illuminate each other and form a whole, we can also begin to meditate on the Bible, through certain texts that are more accessible than others, or verses that are more relevant to us in certain contexts of life.

Meditating on the Gospels: Jesus is with me every day

The Gospels in the New Testament retrace the life and teachings of Jesus. In them, we discover the face of Christ and, through him, that of the Father. "If you know me, you will know my Father too. Even now you know him, and have seen him" (John 14:7).

In the Gospels, Jesus also shows us the way. His parables and teachings shed light on our lives.

There are many traditions of Christian meditation based on the Bible, such as lectio divina, Ignatian meditation and the Rosary. We can also simply read a gospel passage  each day (one after the other, or taking the gospel of the day , for example), taking the time to visualize the scene, and asking ourselves how this passage speaks to us about Jesus, about ourselves, about what God expects of us.

Discover a few questions to help you meditate on a biblical text, as well asan example of guided meditation on a gospel text.

Meditating on the psalms: living everything with God

The Old TestamentBook of Psalms contains 150 psalms, originally sung poems. They express all the emotions that can run through the human heart: anger, fear, joy, sadness, hope, praise...

Meditating on them helps us to live out our emotions and the events of our lives, entrusting them to the Lord. Through the psalms, God gives us the words to express what's deepest in our hearts. To read the psalms aloud, to let them resonate within us, to recite them, is to let our soul vibrate with the Lord.

Discover an example of a guided meditation on a psalm, as well as a suggestion of psalms to meditate on according to what you're experiencing.

Meditating on a Bible verse: A light in my day

It's not necessarily necessary to read a long passage from the Bible to be nourished by God's Word. A verse, a few words, can help us find comfort, strength and courage, hope and peace.

The desert fathers practiced manducation, a  form of meditation on the Word of God based on the repetition of a Bible verse. Indeed, to really let oneself be penetrated by these words, repetition is important. But here too, beyond simple recitation, meditation mobilizes our whole being: 
- our mind - inspired by the Holy Spirit - to understand what is being said to us and discern what it means in the context of our lives,
- our body, through recitation, breathing and the sensations we experience
- our heart, by listening to the emotions it arouses.

Discover an example of guided meditation around a Bible verse, as well as a list of verses to meditate on according to circumstances.

Meditate on the Bible every day

Every day, pray and meditate the daily Gospel through commentaries from great spiritual leaders.