ENZO BIANCHI Discussion around the bestseller The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher has led many people to want to know more about monastic principles. This book by the modern monastic prior Enzo Bianchi (of the Bose Community in Switzerland) explores lectio divia, which is a principle practiced in many monastic houses today. The Bible is ancient, enigmatic, and from a culture vastly different from our own. That's why most of us find it hard to read. So how can we understand its importance in the church, and how can it enrich our lives? Central to lectio divina is the conviction that to read the Bible faithfully and prayerfully is to learn an ancient art - by entering into dialogue with the God who speaks to each of us through the biblical page. Enzo Bianchi touches on the essentials of the history of lectio, from the brilliant thinker Origen in the third century to the development of historical criticism in the modern era. He explains how to do lectio and how to understand and implement its four "moments" - lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio. This is not simply a book about how to approach the Bible, because Scripture ultimately wants to lead us beyond itself, to the truth and mystery of Christ that can never be captured fully in the written word. Paperback 128 pages As a young Catholic layman, Enzo Bianchi founded the ecumenical monastic Bose Community in Italy in 1965 in the fervor of renewal of the Second Vatican Council. He is still the Community's prior. His books on the spiritual life have been translated into many languages. Paraclete also publishes Echoes of the Word and God, Where Are You? This is not your ordinary book about lectio divina. For one thing, it does not begin to give indications about the how-tos of the ancient spiritual practice until two-thirds of the way through the book. The reason for that is that the author thinks it is useless to know techniques if you do not understand that the underlying principle, in this case the sacramentality of the Bible as the work of God, a concept which has been underground in the western Church for a long time. Another difference from many contemporary books on lectio divina is that the author does not suggest that just any old text (or new text, for that matter) will do. Brother Enzo Bianchi, a Roman Catholic, is the founder and still prior of the ecumenical monastic Bose Community of men and women, which he and a few colleagues inaugurated in 1965 in northern Italy. Bianchi's deep understanding of Scripture and the early monastic tradition has made him an important voice of the post-Vatican II era, and his influence in the Church as the founder of a new ecclesial community has dramatically increased under the last two Popes. Pope Benedict XVI invited him to the Synod on the Word of God in 2008 and the Synod on the New Evangelization in 2012, and in 2014 Bianchi was appointed by Pope Francis as a consulter for the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. This is a book worth reading and rereading. --Jerome Kodell, O.S.B., Subiaco Abbey, American Benedictine Review