LECTIO DIVINA
Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina by Thelma Hall (New York: Paulist Press, 1988) gives an excellent history, description, and overview of this prayer form. It includes an extensive section of themes and suggested scripture texts.
Basil Pennington has published a good beginning text on Lectio Divina called Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice (New York: Crossroad, 1998)
Michael Casey has written a text on Lectio Divina for those more advanced in its practice. It would be a good book to read after you had practiced this method for some time. The book is entitled Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, MO: Triumph Books, 1996)
LECTIO DIVINA
Lectio Divina is a Latin phrase that means sacred reading. It is a method of prayer that primarily has to do with praying scripture.
It is one of the oldest and most popular prayer forms in our Catholic prayer tradition. It is commonly associated today with St. Benedict and Benedictine spirituality. At the beginning of the sixth century when he wrote the Rule of St. Benedict, he made it a primary prayer form for the monks and religious women who followed his monastic rule.
The word reading does not do justice to what Lectio Divina is all about. It is different from what we do when we read a book for information or entertainment. It is more than just reading the Bible. It is more than just studying the Bible. It is more about hearing God speaking to us in a unique and personal way through the inspired Word. We go to lectio to come to know and to love God by being with God through our sacred reading. We depend on the Holy Spirit acting through the gifts of the Spirit to bring us to this experience.
The method of Lectio Divina is most frequently used to pray a selected passage from scripture. But it can also be applied to spiritual reading. You can take a book of spiritual reading and apply to it the method of Lectio Divina. In this way, you pray a book rather than just read it for information or inspiration. Instead of reading large sections of a book, you would limit yourself to reading a paragraph, or even a few sentences from the book.
There are four simple parts to Lectio Divina. Lectio, meditation, oratio and contemplatio.
1. The first part of this prayer form is called lectio (reading). You begin by opening yourself up to God in faith. You read the Word of God with prayerful attentiveness, silently, aloud or in a whisper. Read through the passage two times. Read it the first time with your mind to know what it says, to understand it. It might be helpful beforehand to have read a commentary about the passage. Read it also with your heart to get a sense of the emotional tone of the passage. Read it a second time slowly and prayerfully. In your reading, you make an act of faith that God will guide you to the word, phrase or verse in the biblical text through which God wants to speak to you or to nourish you. As you read through the text a second time, stop when you feel drawn or attracted to a given word, phrase or verse in the sacred text. At this point you move on to meditatio.
2. Meditatio (meditation): Stop at and stay with the word, phrase, or verse that caught your attention. Slowly repeat the word, phrase or verse. Savor it and allow it to sink into your mind and heart. Welcome the Word of God into your life. Let this Word that was written long ago speak to you in terms of your own life situation today. Hear this Word of God as if it were a love letter written by God to you. Allow God to work through your mind, your intellect, your reason to help you personalize this word and apply it to your own life situation. What does God want to say to you? Don't force your prayer, but allow God to lead you to new insights and meanings. Pay attention to your thoughts and images. God may also want to speak more to your heart than to your mind. What feelings are stirred within you? Stay with this word as long as there is feeling, insight and understanding. Be patient if nothing seems to be happening. Let go of your agendas about what this word has meant to you in the past. When you feel like you have drawn all that you can from this word, you are ready to move on to oratio.
3. Oratio (prayer response): In oratio you enter into a spontaneous, loving dialogue with God. Talk to God as you would talk to your closest and most intimate friend. Be totally honest about what you are thinking and feeling, no matter what it is. What do you want to say to the God who loves you just the way you are? What are your reactions to the insights and understandings that you came to in your period of meditatio? Let your response to God be expressed through praise, thanksgiving, contrition or petition or through decisions, resolutions or commitments. God is interested in everything that you have to say and will not judge you. You have listened to God speaking to you through the words of Scripture, and now you make a personal response to the Word of God as it has been revealed to you. After you have dialogued with God, you are ready to move on to contemplatio.
4. Contemplatio (contemplation): This is a time to be quiet, to just rest with God without any need for words or images. In our society, we say, “Don’t just sit there, do something.” In contemplation, we say, “Don’t just do something. Sit there.” In contemplatio, go back to your word, phrase, or verse. Simply repeat it over and over. Then rest for a time in loving silence. If distracting thoughts or feelings come into your mind, return to your word or phrase. Rest with God. Be present to God just as you would be present to your best friend. There is nothing you have to do or accomplish. Invite God to simply be present with you in the silence. Trust that God is working within you, transforming you even though you may not feel like anything is happening. Humbly accept whatever happens in this time of prayer light or darkness, richness or dryness. Even if it does not seem like anything is happening, make an act of faith that God is doing God's work in you in God's own time and way.
After completing the four steps, you can stop and end your prayer. You can also continue reading on in the scriptural text until you find yourself drawn to the next word, phrase, or verse. You then repeat the process. You can continue through your text in this way as long as you feel drawn to do so.
Thomas Keating says that Lectio Divina is the most traditional way of cultivating friendship with Christ. It is a way of listening to the texts of Scripture as if you were in conversation with Christ, and he were suggesting the topics of conversation.
St. John of the Cross paraphrased Luke 11:9 to describe Lectio Divina in this way: Reading, you should seek. Meditating, you will find. Praying, you shall call. Contemplating, the door will be opened to you.
A rural southern minister described it in this way: I reads myself full; I thinks myself clear; I prays myself hot; I lets myself cool
Dom Marmiom, a 20th century spiritual writer, describes it in this way: We read (lectio) under the eye of God (meditatio) until the heart is touched (oratio) and leaps to flame (contemplatio).
When doing Lectio Divina, it is suggested that there is value in writing out the passage that you are going to pray. It can give you a new insight into the passage.
In Lectio Divina, the point is not to read large passages of scripture or to get through an entire gospel or book of the Bible. Less is more. It is far better to meander, to savor, to reread, to repeat, to mull over a few words. Our point is not progress or achievement but spiritual nourishment.
It is suggested that you create a Lectio Divina journal in which you write down the words, phrases, scenes that you were drawn to in your lectio. In reading back over them over a period of time, you might discover themes or patterns or ways in which God might want to be present to you.
The four steps of Lectio Divina can be used interchangeably. You may spend more time one day with one of the steps and the next day be drawn to spend more time with a different one of the steps. Trust your instincts, and stay where you find fruit.
Michael Casey in his book The Undivided Heart writes this of Lectio Divina: "It is wrong to think of Lectio Divina as being like a quick trip to the refrigerator. It is more like the regular meals which constitute life's basic source of energy. It is quite important that we are convinced that it is impossible for us to remain genuine followers of Christ without continued contact with his Word."
The impact of this prayer often comes after the prayer is finished. God may work outside the prayer to help you experience and live out of fruits of the Spirit. You may find as you use this prayer that you are thinking and living differently.
How might you go about choosing passages to read for your lectio?
1. One method could be what I call scriptural roulette. You simply open the text at random and begin reading. This was the inspiration for St. Augustine – take and read.
2. Another approach would be to pray the daily lectionary, either the first reading or the gospel. This way your lectio is broken up into small, workable passages.
3. Another approach would be to take a gospel or a book of the Bible that you feel drawn to and to pray it from beginning to end over a longer period of time.
4. Thelma Hall in her book To Deep for Words offers a thematic approach to using lectio. She offers in the back of her book fifty scripture themes for prayer. This would allow you to explore a specific theme through different books in the Bible.
With regard to our choice of scripture passages, we should not simply pray those passages that please us, the warm and fuzzy passages of Scripture. It is also important that we be willing to wrestle with and be open to the "hard sayings" of the scriptures. It might be important for us to dialogue with God when we find something in the text that disturbs or challenges us.
WHY DO I LIKE THIS WAY OF PRAYER?
It is versatile:
A. It fits with all personality and temperament types.
B. It can be used to pray scripture or spiritual reading.
C. It makes use of all styles of prayer: vocal prayer, mental prayer and contemplative prayer.
LECTIO DIVINA (SARCED READING)
1. The first part of this prayer form is called lectio (reading). You begin by opening yourself up to God in faith. You read the Word of God with prayerful attentiveness, silently, aloud, or in a whisper. Read through the passage two times. Read it the first time to understand it and its historical context. It might be helpful beforehand to have read a commentary about the passage. Read it a second time slowly and prayerfully. In your reading, you make an act of faith that God will guide you to the word, phrase or verse in the biblical text through which God wants to speak to you or to nourish you. As you read through the text a second time, stop when you feel drawn or attracted to a given word, phrase, or verse in the sacred text. At this point you move on to meditatio.
2. Meditatio (meditation): Stop at and stay with the word, phrase or verse that caught your attention. Slowly repeat the word, phrase or verse. Savor it and allow it to sink into your mind and heart. Welcome the Word of God into your life. Let this Word that was written long ago speak to you in terms of your own life situation today. Hear this Word of God as if it were a love letter written by God to you. Allow God to work through your mind, your intellect, your reason to help you personalize this word and apply it to your own life situation. What does God want to say to you? Don't force your prayer, but allow God to lead you to new insights and meanings. Pay attention to your thoughts and images. God may also want to speak more to your heart than to your mind. What feelings are stirred within you? Stay with this word as long as there is feeling, insight and understanding. Be patient if nothing seems to be happening. Let go of your agendas about what this word has meant to you in the past. When you feel like you have drawn all that you can from this word, you are ready to move on to oratio.
3. Oratio (prayer response): In oratio you enter into a spontaneous, loving dialogue with God. Talk to God as you would talk to your closest and most intimate friend. Be totally honest about what you are thinking and feeling, no matter what it is. What do you want to say to the God who loves you just the way you are? What are your reactions to the insights and understandings that you came to in your period of meditatio? Let your response to God be expressed through praise, thanksgiving, contrition, or petition or through decisions, resolutions or commitments. God is interested in everything that you have to say and will not judge you. You have listened to God speaking to you through the words of Scripture, and now you make a personal response to the Word of God as it has been revealed to you. After you have dialogued with God, you are ready to move on to contemplatio.
4. Contemplatio (contemplation): This is a time to be quiet, to just rest with God without any need for words or images. In contemplatio, go back to your word, phrase or verse. Simply repeat it over and over. Then rest for a time in loving silence. If distracting thoughts or feelings come into your mind, return to your word or phrase. Rest with God. Be present to God just as you would be present to your best friend. There is nothing you have to do or accomplish. Invite God to give you new insights or to simply be present with you in the silence. Trust that God is working within you, transforming you even though you may not feel like anything is happening. Humbly accept whatever happens in this time of prayer light or darkness, richness or dryness. Even if it does not seem like anything is happening, make an act of faith that God is doing God's work in you in God's own time and way.