Meeting Scripture Through the Illuminated Word



The Saint John's Bible — sacred art and contemplative tool

by Phil Fox Rose

November 24th, 2010

Excerpt:

The Saint John’s Bible needs no more justification than any religious art, but gains added weight because of the mystical importance in Christianity of the Word of God; the Bible is not dead text but living Word. “The illuminations are not illustrations,” says Michael Patella, OSB, chair of the committee that oversees the artwork. “They are spiritual meditations on the text.”

The potential of The Saint John’s Bible’s is most obvious in this idea of using it for a kind of lectio divina, the traditional contemplative method of sacred reading. They call it visio divina.

What I like about what we are doing is that we’re connecting the illumination with the text. — Barbara Sutton“The second movement in lectio is meditatio, and meditating on the illuminated word is one aspect of meditatio,” says Barbara Sutton, Associate Director of Formation and Outreach at Saint John University’s School of Theology/Seminary. “What I like about what we are doing is that we’re connecting the illumination with the text.” the rest image