![\"Senses\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Senses.png\")
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Let’s look at each of these senses in turn…
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Primary Sense\u00a0#1: Literally starting at the beginning<\/h2>\n
Every Scripture passage has a “literal sense”<\/span><\/em>. This\u00a0is the meaning which\u00a0the author intended\u00a0to communicate to the\u00a0reader.<\/p>\n We come to understand the literal meaning of a passage through careful exegesis. Identifying\u00a0the genre of the document is very important here. Knowing whether the book\u00a0I’m reading is history, poetry or parable will greatly affect how I understand it. Likewise, it is important to understand\u00a0the idioms, phrases and allusions found in the text\u00a0and how these would have been understood by readers\u00a0at the time of authorship. For example, the Song of Songs\u00a0might have been pretty fancy stuff\u00a0in the ancient world, but I can assure you that if I told a girl that her hair looked like a “flock of goats”<\/em><\/span> (Song of Songs 6:5<\/a>), I would probably get slapped!<\/p>\n It is important to distinguish this understanding of Scripture from\u00a0“literalism”<\/em><\/span>. The two are not the same. For example, if I wrote\u00a0“It’s raining cats and dogs outside!”<\/em><\/span>, a literalist<\/strong> understanding of the text (devoid of idiomatic nuance) would lead the reader to conclude that household pets were falling from the sky, possibly due to some unexpected zoo air freight tragedy! A literal<\/strong> reading, however, would recognize\u00a0that this is a colloquial expression\u00a0used in present-day English which is meant to indicate a particularly heavy downpour of rain.<\/p>\n It’s now nearly time to examine\u00a0to the spiritual senses of Scripture. However, before we do so, it must be emphasized that, when reading Scripture,\u00a0we always begin with the literal sense<\/strong>. Before examining a passage of Scripture for possible spiritual senses, we must first have established the literal sense as our foundation:<\/p>\n “[The interpreter’s] foremost and greatest endeavor should be to discern and define clearly that sense of the biblical words which is called the literal”<\/em> – Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu<\/span><\/p>\n With that said, let’s now look at the spiritual senses, as identified in\u00a0the Catechism.<\/p>\n All human literature has a literal sense, but because Sacred Scripture additionally has\u00a0God as its author (in partnership with\u00a0the human authors), sometimes there are also spiritual senses to the text. It is worth noting that not all passages\u00a0will have a spiritual sense and some of these spiritual meanings will be\u00a0clearer and more substantial\u00a0than others.<\/p>\n Since God is the master storyteller,\u00a0“realities and events…can be signs”<\/em><\/span>. Since nothing in Scripture is an accident, events can be\u00a0pregnant with deeper meaning. In the same way that men write books, God writes history. He\u00a0uses the things of\u00a0this world as\u00a0visible signs to point to spiritual truths\u00a0and communicate eternal realities.<\/p>\n This way of understanding Scripture isn’t something we invented in the 21st Century. This approach\u00a0is found in Jesus’ ministry<\/a>, as well as in the writings of St. Paul<\/a>. It\u00a0continued in the early centuries of the Church, with Fathers such as Justin, Athanasius, Ambrose and Augustine making\u00a0great use of spiritual senses\u00a0of Scripture:<\/p>\n “And the offering of fine flour…which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified with leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed”<\/em> – St. Justin Matyr, Dialogue with Trypho (2nd Century)<\/span><\/p>\n Before we look at the different categories\u00a0of spiritual sense, it is worth pointing out the danger which is present with this kind of reading\u00a0of Scripture. In looking for spiritual senses, we may end up over-spiritualizing the text, so much so that we end up divorcing it from\u00a0its literal context. This is a mistake which must be avoided. Just because the text\u00a0has a spiritual meaning\u00a0doesn’t mean that it\u00a0does not also affirm a historical reality. For example, the Gospels contain many spiritual meanings, but the Second Vatican Council strongly\u00a0affirms that the Gospels also tell us what Jesus “really did and taught”<\/em> <\/span>(Dei Verbum). As noted in the previous section, the spiritual senses are built upon<\/strong>\u00a0the literal sense. To quote Scott Hahn, “What the soul is to the body, the spiritual sense is to the literal. You can distinguish the two; but if you try to separate them, death follows”\u00a0<\/em><\/span>(Scripture Matters).<\/p>\n Over the years, there have been\u00a0a number of different ways to\u00a0categorize the spiritual senses of Scripture, but the Catechism\u00a0gives us three groupings:<\/p>\nPrimary Sense\u00a0#2: Let’s get spiritual<\/h2>\n
Subsenses<\/h3>\n
![\"BibleRosary\"](\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/BibleRosary.jpg\")
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