Those practicing lectio divina steep themselves in the words of a text, becoming one with them, lingering over them, taking them into the heart and mind deeply, repeatedly, slowly, meditatively, even memorizing the words.
“Lectio Divina: That wonderful Christian, monastic practice of deeply reading, ingesting, pondering, meditating, sitting in the presence of small bits of sacred text until the thing breaks open in your heart.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga Nov 2015, 12:33 Day 1.5c Afternoon Teaching Part 3 of 4.
“Traditionally, in Benedictine monasticism, Ora, prayer alone, was Lectio Divina. As a matter of fact, it was Saint Benedict who invented the term Lectio Divina. Sacred reading, divine reading is what it literally means. It’s right there in the rule describing how monks are to spend their time during Lent. And that’s the first time that this term makes its appearance in Western literature. But it doesn’t mean the whole sort of full, intricate system of praying through scripture that we’ve developed nowadays, but it implies that. What it means is a sacred, prayerful reading of small parts of a sacred text. In Benedictine monasticism, the sacred texts were not just the Bible, the books of the Bible, because it hadn’t yet become customary to put all the books together and call it the Bible. They were separate books. So it was not just that source that they read. They also read Ovid. They read Virgil.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga Nov 2015, 11:05 Day 2.2b Morning Teaching Part 2 of 3
“The practice of Lectio Divina as the baseline for beginning to awaken what we call integral knowing, the unitive imagination, or the capacity to read this map that connects the visible and the invisible. It’s a very specific method for reading, for breaking open a piece of holy writ, of scripture. And it’s also in a general way a description of the progress, the spiritual progress one makes along the journey. The most powerful assumption that is made when we talk about it, is that the word of scripture is living word. That is, it is not the dead record of a teaching that was written down and transmitted to somebody sometime in time. Every sacred teaching has a timeless coefficient. It exists also in that Imaginal realm, in that realm which is not bounded by time or specific location. And from that realm, it downloads right into the circumstances of your life with immediate effectiveness and relevance. The operating term for the monks is we ingest scripture, we eat scripture. It’s a real process of going deeply, deeply into it and allowing it really to become food for the sacred emergence of that other in us, that soul, that self or child of God within us.” Cynthia Bourgeault, In the Wake of St. Brendan, Wake 02-03.
“The lectio divina is a discipline far more profoundly engaged with a text than even the most attentive ‘reading.’ Lay or monastic, those practicing lectio divina steep themselves in the words of a text, becoming one with them, lingering over them, taking them into the heart and mind deeply, repeatedly, slowly, meditatively, even memorizing the words. Cloud of Unknowing, Carmen Acevedo Butcher translation, p251
“The process works like this:
- Sit in a quiet place, and read your chosen passage slowly and aloud if possible. As you do so, allow yourself to be drawn to a sentence, a phrase, or even a single word that seems to attract your attention. You may want to sit for a few moments in silence and then read the passage again.
- Quietly allow your faculties (your reason, imagination, memory, or emotions) to begin to work with this passage. It will be a different experience every time. Sometimes the passage might trigger an association from your own life, or it might stimulate you or confuse you or even make you anxious. See if you can discover why. Or you might be struck by a certain wordplay or turn of phrase or even take the part of one of the characters if the passage you’re working with is a drama. For example, if you were reading the parable of the Prodigal Son, you might find yourself identifying with the older brother, the younger brother, or both in turn. Again, why? This is a wonderful way to bring your own life experience into an engaged dialogue with the scriptural text. It’s all about encounter: a “heart to heart” between your own being and the biblical text.
- If feelings arise in you from this “heart to heart” that seem to want to shape themselves into a prayer (whether spoken or unspoken), let this happen. Sit with the feelings and allow the words— or sometimes even the tears – to come. If there are no strong feelings, don’t try to fake them or force them.
- Spend a few minutes sitting in silent meditation, letting all thoughts and feelings go and simply “resting in God” – the original monastic understanding of the term contemplation.
- If you only have a few minutes, do step one and call it good; you will actually have accomplished far more than you imagine. Those words you’ve spoken aloud and consciously engaged will resonate in your subconscious all day, quietly but subtly shifting the things you notice and the way your day unfolds.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Wisdom Way of Knowing, p108-110.
For those not familiar with Lectio Divina, this Logion from the Gospel of Thomas would be a good start. Follow Cynthia’s instructions with this short sacred text:
Logion 2
Yeshua says...
If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.
When you find, however, you will become troubled.
Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder you will reign over all things.
Your sovereignty will be your rest.
All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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