The present article is a re-post of the one that used to be housed in the old articles' section of AgustinongPinoy. This was subsequently reprinted as part of a longer article on the reading of the Scriptures in the Order of St. Augustine in Augustinian Legacy, vol. 1, number 1, pp. 20-37.

Fr. Agostino Trape, OSA describes the way Augustine reads Scriptures in these words:

(I)t is not only reading which could be called a superficial activity, it is not only that study which is only an intellectual activity, not only that meditation which can be reduced to simple internal introspection...but also and above all, it is a combination of listening and dialogue. It involves listening in faith and docile obedience to Him who is present in man and speaks to him, and reveals his love to him and invites him to respond in love...In this listening-dialogue, which is the most beautiful and fruitful form of meditation, prayer takes on, equally spontaneously, the highest forms of contemplation which are, ... wonder, admiration, gratitude, adoration, praise, expectation that faith will be replaced by vision and that the divine word of the Scripture, which sounds in time, will give way to the Word which sounds in eternity; which sounds, not through the mediation of signs and creatures, but by itself, immediately. (1)