+FRESHENING OUR EXPERIENCE OF LECTIO DIVINA 11 Feb. 2024
This morning I thought to present some aspects of our practice of Lectio Divina in view of our common effort during the coming holy season of Lent. We will be receiving our Lenten books next Sunday which are to help us to enter more fully into this sacred time before Easter. Though Lectio Divina is usually thought of in terms of reading Sacred Scripture, it applies as well to any serious spiritual reading.
I will be drawing heavily from Wikipedia’s presentation of the topic which is quite thorough. Lectio Divina is to promote communion with God and appreciation of God’s Word to us, not as something to be studied but as a Word living and active in our lives. The development of this art has had a long history.
Its roots “go back to Origen in the 3rd century, after whom Ambrose taught them to Augustine of Hippo.[6][7] The monastic practice of Lectio Divina was first established in the 6th century by Benedict of Nursia and was then formalized as a four-step process by the Carthusian monk Guigo II during the 12th century. In the 20th century, the constitution Dei verbum of the Second Vatican Council recommended Lectio Divina to the general public and its importance was [again] affirmed by Pope Benedict XVI at the start of the 21st century.”
From Origen on into our own time, our spiritual reading is to be an encounter with Christ. This discipline is to fructify the whole of our live as monks. What we learn from it penetrates our practice of the Divine Office and allows God’s Word to flow into the whole of our lives. According to Jean Leclercq, OSB whom many of us remember from his visits to our community years ago:
[For our own Order] “..the founders of the medieval tradition of Lectio Divina were Saint Benedict and Pope Gregory I. However, the methods that they employed had precedents in the biblical period both in Hebrew and Greek. A text that combines these traditions is Romans 10:8–10 where Apostle Paul refers to the presence of God’s word in the believer’s ‘mouth or heart’.”
In other words, our practice of Lectio is really grounded in Scripture itself. Perhaps the most influential person, however in the exercise of its practice came from the Carthusian monk Guigo II in his bookThe ladder of Monks that is subtitled “a letter on the contemplative life” and is said to be “the first description of methodical prayer in the western mystical tradition.”
Historically, Lectio Divina has been a “community practice’ performed by monks often gathered in the same room. With our own Lenten reading this community aspect is brought to the fore and can be a wonderfully supportive element. Also this Sacred Reading “has been likened to ‘feasting on the Word’: first, the taking of a bite [by reading a paragraph or two]; then chewing on it [by reflecting on the text]; savoring its essence [by prayer] and, finally, ‘digesting’ it and making it part of the body [by contemplation].” Our spiritual reading leads us into real experience of the Lord Jesus and communion with Him.
Each of the stages of our encounter with the Word paves the way for the next until we are caught up in its embrace. As we begin reading our Lenten book, it is good to do so with a calm and tranquil state of mind. To do this, it is helpful to say a simple prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to guide our reading, to help us realize we are in a sacred presence.
Then it is good to be aware that in our Lectio Divina “it is less a practice of reading than of listening to the inner message” God wishes to communicate to us through out exposure to the text. We are “not seeking information or motivation, but communion with God. The second movement of meditating on a text is “not to try to assign a meaning to it but to wait for the action of the Holy Spirit to illuminate the mind, as the passage is pondered upon.” In pondering a text “it is held lightly and gently considered from various angles,” keeping the mind open “and allow the Holy Spirit to inspire a meaning for it.”
This leads right into prayer with the text where one responds to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so as to share in a “loving conversation with God who has invited us into an embrace.”
Finally, in and out of this prayerful attentiveness there may arise a real communion with the living God. Our Catholic Catechism speaks of this as a “Contemplative prayer in silence, a symbol of the world to come’ or ‘silent love.’ Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable to the ‘outer’ man, the Father speaks to us his incarnate Word, …in this silence the Spirit…enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus.”
St Bernard spoke of this working of the Holy Spirit as “a kiss by the Eternal Father” which allows us to experience union with God. Richard Rolle, in the 14th century, viewed this contemplative awakening as what leads us to union with God in love.