The Deacon

There is a difficulty in allowing God’s word to form us. We must listen to Scripture — must dwell in the word. Clergy, including deacons, must face the immensity of Scripture itself and the unique responsibility of preaching Scripture. When practicing lectio divina, one might ask how much is God speaking and how much is one’s own voice.

The “sure norm” for teaching the Faith, according to Fidei Depositum, is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This guide proves itself a powerful voice for understanding the words of the Bible.

Catholics still see the Bible primarily in the context of liturgy, not personal study or devotion. The liturgy is the best place to understand the Bible. However, one must be formed through study and listening. This is how the deacon cooperates with the transformation God offers him. It is also how he cooperates in the transformation of those he serves.

This transformation affects every area of the diaconal ministry, including one’s approach to preaching, teaching and spiritual direction. It equips one to preach God’s word naturally and persuasively. While it may appear as only intellectual, this transformation involves ascetic sacrifice and communal service. However, the Scriptures themselves call for the renewal of our minds (cf. Rom 12:2). For this, the Catechism’s paragraphs on understanding Scripture hold incalculable value.

The Literal and the Spiritual

One of my favorite sections of the Catechism are the paragraphs covering “the senses of Scripture.” Knowing the different senses of Scripture — the different ways one can read and understand the Bible — brings accuracy and spiritual fruit to one’s reading.

Paragraph 115 first distinguishes between the two primary “senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual.” Paragraph 117 then lists the subsets within the spiritual as “allegorical, moral and anagogical.” It is the “concordance,” or consistency, among them that “guarantees all its richness to the living reading of the Scripture in the Church.”

The Catechism alludes to this agreement when describing the unity between the Old and New Testaments, referencing St. Augustine in saying, “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New” (No. 129). This idea of concordance will help unlock the Scriptures for deacons in their personal spiritual lives and their ministry to the Church.

There must be an agreement among the four senses, but Paragraph 116 states that the first sense is preeminent, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas: “All other senses of sacred Scripture are based on the literal.” There is not only agreement but a relationship between the literal and spiritual. The spiritual cannot disagree with the literal because it must build upon it. The second floor cannot work against its foundation or the house collapses.

The Senses Build on Each Other

When looking at the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses, one can find a similar relationship of agreement and progression from the first to the last. Recognizing this relationship will hone and deepen one’s reading of the Bible. This will bear its own spiritual fruit because the reader will see the relationship between each sense of Scripture.

Because the spiritual builds on the literal, misreading the plain words of Scripture will lead to misguided allegorical consequences. The Catechism calls the allegorical reading “a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ” (No. 117). To deny an actual Passover sacrifice with actual lamb’s blood during the Exodus undermines the parallel of the crucifixion of Jesus and the atonement, which in turn undermines the importance of the literal “remembrance” of the sacrifice in the Eucharist.

We move from this allegorical reading, which says that the Old Testament Passover lamb is meant to be seen in light of the new Passover in Christ (see 1 Cor 5:7), to the moral, which the Catechism says is meant “to lead us to act justly” (No. 117). In order to connect the moral sense to the allegorical, one has to look at the beginning of Part 3 of the Catechism, “Life in Christ,” which deals with the moral life.

This shows that the Catechism itself sees the moral life as our participation in the life of Christ. In order to participate in this life, we must see Christ in his fullness. This includes the signs, symbols and allegories that point to a bigger picture of him. When all Catholics, especially clergy, give moral or spiritual guidance, it is essential one keeps in mind the focus that the moral life is a participation in the life of Christ. It is this participation in the life of Christ, not just following rules, that leads one to the fourth sense of Scripture.

Pointing to a Deeper Vision

When we see the bigger picture of Jesus, one that includes the signs and symbols, it broadens our minds. Participation in the life of Jesus, which is a life ordered toward justice and goodness, broadens our wills. When our minds and wills have conformed more closely to the Master’s, we begin to experience the Beatitudes as Jesus presented them in Matthew 5 (also elucidated in Paragraphs 1716-1729).

This experience is a precursor to what the Christian life is leading us to, which is where the anagogical sense of Scripture comes in. The Greek word “anagoge” means “leading upward,” and the anagogical sense of Scripture teaches us to “view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance” (No. 117). Thus, “our true homeland” of heaven is where our moral life in Christ — which is based upon everything presented to us in the literal sense of Scripture — has been leading us.

The depth of the Bible, like so many scholars and saints have found, goes so much further than what is written on the page itself. The events, emotions and realities its words convey are just the beginning of its richness. By knowing the four senses of Scripture and the way they interact, the deacon can find order and beauty to inform his study, his “teaching,” his exhortation and “refutation,” his “correction” and illumination, and his comforting and “training in righteousness” (2 Tm 3:16). They will give him a unique approach to his preaching, teaching and pastoral ministry.

The Bible is leading us to God by faith. This leads to our reception of sanctifying grace. We respond to that grace in our actions. Finally, it ends with our soul’s eternal union with God. As we seek to walk more closely in discipleship, let us allow the Church to open our ears to God’s voice. This will open our minds to the ever-deepening resonances found therein.

MIKE SCHRAMM lives with his wife and seven children in southeastern Minnesota, where he teaches theology and philosophy. He manages The Journal of Absolute Truth, and his writing can also be found at Busted Halo, Catholic Insight and the Voyage Comics Blog.