Lectio Divina and "Liturgical Reading" in Some Medieval Texts

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 2012 Reading Through Prayer: Lectio Divina and "Liturgical Reading" in Some Medieval Texts Marie Schilling Grogan The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4253 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Reading Through Prayer: Lectio Divina and “Liturgical Reading” in Some Medieval Texts by Marie Schilling Grogan A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2012 ii © 2012 Marie Schilling Grogan All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Professor E. Gordon Whatley _________________ _________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Mario DiGangi _________________ ___________________________ Date Executive Officer Professor Steven Kruger __________________________________________________ Professor Michael Sargent __________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Reading Through Prayer: Lectio Divina and “Liturgical Reading” in Some Medieval Texts by Marie Schilling Grogan Advisor: Professor E. Gordon Whatley Prayer texts found in a variety of medieval genres merit more careful scrutiny from literary critical perspectives. Such attention to the verbal artifacts, prayers, that memorialize an activity of central importance in medieval culture, praying, deepens our understanding not only of the prayers and the works in which they are found, but also of the milieu that produced them. This study seeks to model such a critical turn by reading three particular works “through” the prayers that constitute, punctuate and frame them -- privileging the prayers as the starting points for the investigation of their literary and devotional settings. This vantage yields fresh insights into an Anglo-Latin prayerbook -- The Book of Nunnaminster, Cynewulf’s Old English poem Elene, and the Middle English prose Seinte Margarete of the Katherine Group. This approach reveals as well the high degree of association between prayer and reading in medieval culture where prayers are most often highly formal or formulaic texts intended to be read (rather than spontaneous speech) and praying is often figured as an interpretive activity akin to reading. Two medieval reading practices, lectio divina and “liturgical reading,” have shaped both the discrete prayers and the whole works examined here. The full appreciation of these texts, and perhaps many others, requires close attention to the prayers within them and an understanding of these habits of prayerful reading. v Acknowledgments I have twice, during the many years of work on this project, established study carrels in the coat closets of my homes. These tiny offices have seemed fittingly solitary and enclosed spaces from which to imagine the reading habits of the compiler of The Book of Nunnaminster, or the monastic poet Cynewulf as he is portrayed in the epilogue to Elene, or the anchoresses who would ponder Seinte Margarete. I have tried to demonstrate in this project that the physically isolated practice of lectio can participate in the corporate experiences of liturgy when the prayerful reader re-directs his or her attention to the communion of saints, the living and the dead, to whose faithful company the individual is always aspiring, from the contemporary medieval point of view. Likewise, even when alone in my closets, I hope I have always remained keenly aware of and deeply grateful to the supportive community of mentors, scholars, friends and family to which I belong and who have made my work possible. My thanks are due first to the faculty and students at the CUNY Graduate Center, both those presently there, with whom I have completed this work, and those from many years ago, with whom I began it. In that order I gratefully acknowledge the help of Michael Sargent, Steven Kruger, Pamela Sheingorn, Catherine McKenna, David Greetham, the late Martin Stevens, Robert Upchurch, and especially Scott Westrem, who advocated on behalf of my return after a ten-year absence from the program, and whose generosity as a teacher and scholar will always serve as inspiration and standard for my own endeavors in these areas. Even in the company of this group of gifted scholars and kind mentors, Gordon Whatley, my supervisor, stands out in his shepherding of this project to its completion. In his meticulous reading of many drafts and his constant encouragement, he might be compared to the pastor he has studied, Saint Erkenwald: vi Erat enim sapientia perfectus… caritatis radice plantatus (For he was perfect in wisdom ... and the plant of charity was rooted deep within him). Librarians at La Salle University and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia were ever-helpful in tracking down sources I needed. Administrators at Notre Dame High School, The Holy Child Middle School, and La Salle University were once or still are flexible in scheduling my classes around the demands of both graduate work and family; fellow teachers at all of these institutions have been more than colleagues. I am grateful for so many supportive friendships over the years. Friends far and near who have been especially encouraging of this project either at its start or as it neared its completion include Alisa Harding Stein, Tara Anderson, Margaret Waters, Patricia Mann, Ann Peters, Ellen St. Clair and Eileen Flanagan. Founding members Sister Mary Toole, SSJ, and Trish Joergensen, and all of the members of the Friday morning Parents’ Prayer group, as well as the extended family of the OMC School and Parish communities have taught me living lessons about prayer and communion that have informed my academic study of these subjects and enriched my life. My mother, Joan Edmonds Schilling first taught me both to say my prayers and to memorize poetry; her influence on this work and my life is immeasurable. In her absence here I find new consolation in the vision articulated in a Nunnaminster prayer of the realm ubi sancti sine fine requiescunt et ibi aepulentur omnes amici tui (where the saints rest without end and there all of your friends feast together), seeing there as well my dearly-missed father-in-law, John Patrick Grogan, and the Reverend James Devereux, S.J., my friend and teacher, whose work on the literary aspects of prayer was one inspiration for my own. My father, Richard Robert Schilling, has waited patiently for many years to see this particular dividend of the educational investments he so generously made and for which, and for all of his faithful loving support, I will vii always be grateful. I have been blessed by wonderful brothers by birth -- Richard Schilling and Andrew Schilling -- and sisters by marriage – Mary Strain, Maureen Colburn, and Margaret Schilling – whose company along with that of their husbands (Liam Strain and Mark Colburn) and children (Emilie, Henry, Liam, Colm, Grace, Thomas) has been essential to my happiness on this and every journey. I am grateful to my mother-in-law, Suzanne Grogan, whose loving presence in my children’s lives and my own has been itself a great gift and has also often enabled my work and travel. To my children -- Jack, who knew I could do it; Isobel, who shared my early mornings; Catherine, who colored some inspiration for the closet – I say, thank you for reading and praying with me every day. To my deorestan husband John, who, in his unfailing love and true companionship has supported me on this pilgrimage for as long as we have been married, I dedicate this work and say: your turn. viii Contents Acknowledgments page v Lists of abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chapter One 11 The Genre of Prayer and Types of Prayerful Reading: Lectio Divina and “Liturgical Reading” Chapter Two 43 Reading The Book of Nunnaminster, Building the Body of Christ: A Hermeneutics of Healing Chapter Three 121 Reading the Cross: Jewish Prayer, Conversion, and Incorporation in Cynewulf’s Elene Chapter Four 207 The Uses of Prayer in the Middle English Seinte Margarete: Reading the Texts of Tortures -- Blood, Fire, and Water -- Into Baptism Conclusion 298 Appendix 305 Works Cited 307 ix List of Abbreviations AS Anglo-Saxon. BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, ed. Bollandists. CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CCSA Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum ME Middle English. Nunnaminster The Book of Nunnaminster, ed. Birch. PG Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca. Ed. J.-P. Migne. 162 vols., with Latin translation. Paris, 1857-66. PL Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne. 221 vols. Paris, 1844-1864. SM Seinte Margarete. ME text as edited by Mack. Modern English translations in Millet and Wogan-Browne. 1 Introduction O Padre nostro, che ne’ cieli stai, non circunscritto, ma per più amore ch’ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai …1 Lines 1-24 of Canto XI of Il Purgatorio are a poetic expansion of the Lord’s Prayer uttered by the prideful band of souls bent low to the earth at the first cornice of Mount Purgatory. Because the lines are

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