Trailer | S5: Ep 3 | Cardinal Collins | A Cardinal's View on the Positive Effects of Reading Scripture

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You think, well, I don't feel like that. I'm feeling great right now. But somewhere, someone else is feeling that way and maybe I pray this Psalm, not for myself, but for someone else. And I can enter into their experience or conversely, if I'm feeling, oh, it was a terrible day and I'm, oh I'm so distraught, everything's going wrong! I flip open the page and it's, you know, come into our joy to the Lord, serve the Lord of gladness. Well, I don't feel that way but maybe someone else does and maybe I need to get out of my own self. We implode into ourselves too much. Maybe I should pray for someone else, and not just for myself. So we lose ourselves in the Psalms, and they're better. It's nice when the Psalm expresses what I feel. It's better when it doesn't, because then it stretches me out of my own ego, and that's what we need to do.
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In this episode, listen to Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins being interviewed by well-known journalist Lorna Dueck. Cardinal Collins talks about the power of Lectio Divina - the contemplative and transformative practice of reading, praying with and meditating on Scriptures - and how engaging with the Scriptures not only impacts us personally but also positively affects the people around us.

His Eminence Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins is one of only 16 people in all of Canadian history to be appointed by the Pope to serve at the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Collins has served as a priest in Canada for 50 years, celebrating his golden jubilee in that role in May of 2023.

Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins, Archbishop Emeritus of Toronto (Canada) is a Canadian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the Metropolitan Archbishop of Toronto from 2007 to 2023. 

Ordained a priest in 1973, he holds a BA and MA in English, and a BA in theology. While studying in Rome, specializing in sacred Scripture and the Book of Revelation, he received his Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1978 and a Doctorate in Theology from the Gregorian University in 1986.

He has also served as Chancellor of the University of Saint Michael’s College and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, and Chair of the Board of Governors of Saint Augustine’s Seminary and of the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary.