Each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the
Lord’s law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers…
(Carmelite Rule: Chapter 10).
Lectio Divina (‘holy reading/listening’) is the ancient
method of prayerfully reading the Bible, the Word of God. Originally cultivated
by monastic orders – but now an important part of the lives of many Christians
from different traditions – lectio divina enables us to contemplate God and
God’s will in our lives. If prayed regularly, lectio can deepen our
relationship with God.
A prayerful reading of the Bible within what is
traditionally called lectio divina is
an urgent task if we are to be faithful to what God asks of us today. It is
something like curing the veins when the blood which keeps us alive has to
flow. To this end, we offer:
●Ten words of advice about the
‘mystical’ life which must guide our prayerful reading of the Bible; that is,
the light which needs to be in our eyes when we do our lectio divina. In these words of advice, reference is made to the Carmelite Rule, written by Saint Albert
of Jerusalem in the early thirteenth century (the paragraph numbering follows
that agreed by the Carmelite and Discalced Carmelite Orders in 1999).
●Ten points of orientation (the least
possible) for personal and daily reading of the Bible (each person will
gradually develop his or her own way of communicating with the Word of God).
●Seven suggestions for reading the Word
of God in groups; in these there is a reflection of the tradition of the ‘four
steps’ of Lectio Divina.
The Process of Lectio Divina
1.When you begin a lectio divina of the Bible you are not concerned with study; you
are not going to read the Bible in order either to increase your knowledge or
to prepare for some apostolate. You are not reading the Bible in order to have
some extraordinary experience. You are going to read the Word of God in order
to listen to what God has to say to
you, to know his will and thus ‘to live more deeply in allegiance to Jesus
Christ’ (Carmelite Rule: Chapter 2).
There must be poverty in you; you must also have the disposition which the old
man Eli recommended to Samuel: ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening’ (1 Samuel
3:10).
2.Listening to God does not depend on you
or on the effort you make. It depends entirely on God, on God’s freely-made
decision to come into dialogue with you and to allow you to listen to the voice
to God. Thus you need to prepare yourself
by asking him to send his Spirit, since without the Spirit of God it is
impossible to discover the meaning of the Word which God has prepared for us
today (cf. John 14:26; 16:13; Lk 11:13).
3.It is important to create the right surroundings which will facilitate recollection
and an attentive listening to the Word of God. For this, you must build your
cell within you and around you and you must stay in it (Carmelite Rule: Chapters 6 & 10), all the time of your lectio divina. Putting one’s body in the
right position helps recollection in the mind.
4.When you open the Bible, you have to be
conscious that you are opening a Book which is not yours. It belongs to the community. In your lectio divina you are setting foot in
the great Tradition of the Church which has come down through the centuries.
Your prayerful reading is like the ship which carries down the winding river to
the sea. The light shining from the sea has already enlightened the dark night
of many generations. In having your own experience of lectio divina you are alone. You are united to brothers and sisters
who before you succeeded in ‘meditating day and night upon the Law of the Lord
and keeping vigil in prayer’ (Carmelite
Rule: Chapter 10).
5.An attentive and fruitful reading of
the Bible involves three steps. It has to be marked from beginning to end, by
three attitudes:
First Step/Attitude –
Reading: First of all, you
have to ask, What does the text say as
text? This requires you to be silent.
Everything in you must be silent so that nothing stands in the way of your
gleaning what the texts say to you (Carmelite
Rule: Chapter 21) and so that you do not make the text say what you would
like to hear.
Second Step/Attitude – Meditation:
You must ask, What does the text say to
me or to us? In this second step we enter into dialogueCarmelite Rule: Chapter 10). In this way
‘the Word of God will dwell abundantly on your lips and in your heart (Carmelite Rule: Chapter 19). with the text so that its meaning comes across with
freshness and penetrates the life of the Carmelite today. Like Mary you will
ponder what you have heard and ‘meditate on the Law of the Lord’ (
Third Step/Attitude – Prayer:
Furthermore, you have to try to discover What
does the text lead me to say to God? This is the moment of prayer, the moment of ‘keeping watch in
prayer’ (Carmelite Rule: Chapter 10).
6.The result, the fourth step, the
destination of lectio divina, is contemplation. Contemplation means
having in one’s eyes something of the ‘wisdom which leads to salvation’ (2 Timothy
3:15). We begin to see the world and life through the
eyes of the poor, through the eyes of God. We assume our own poverty and
eliminate from our way of thinking all that smacks of the powerful. We
recognise all the many things which we thought were fidelity to God, to the
Gospel, and to the Tradition; in reality they were nothing more than fidelity
to ourselves and our own interests. We get a taste, even now, of the love of
God which is above all things. We come to see that in our lives true love of
God is revealed in love of our neighbour (Carmelite
Rule: Chapters 15 & 19). It is like saying always ‘let it be done according
to your Word’ (Luke
1:38). Thus ‘all you do will have the Lord’s
word for accompaniment’ (Carmelite Rule:
Chapter 19).
7.So that your lectio divina does not end up being the conclusions of your own
feelings, thoughts and caprices, but has the deepest roots, it is important to
take account of three demands:
First Demand: Check the result of your reading with the community to which you belong (Carmelite Rule: Chapter 15), with the faith of the living Church.
Otherwise it could happen that your effort might lead you nowhere (cf. Galatians 2:2).
Second Demand: Check what you read in the Bible with what is going on in life around you. It was in confronting
their faith with the situation existing around them that the people of God
created the traditions which up to today are visible in the Bible. The desire
to embody the contemplative ideal of the Carmelite Order within the reality of
‘minores’ (the poor of each age) brought the first Carmelite hermits to become
mendicants among the people. When the lectio
divina does not reach its goal in our life, the reason is not always our
failure to pray, our lack of attention to the faith of the Church, or our lack
of serious study of the text. Oftentimes it is simply our failure to pay
attention to the crude and naked reality which surrounds us. The early
Christian writer Cassian tells us that anyone who lives superficially – without
seeking to go deeper – will not be able to reach the source where the Psalms
were born.
Third Demand: Check the conclusions of your reading with the results of biblical studies which have shown the literal
meaning of the words. Lectio divina,
it has to be said, cannot remain chained to the letter. The Spirit’s meaning
has to be sought (2 Corinthians 3:6).
However, any effort to identify the Spirit’s meaning without basing it in the
written word would be like trying to build a castle on sand (
St. Augustine). That would be a way of
falling into the trap of fundamentalism. In this day and age, when so many
ideas are flying about, common sense is a most important quality. Common sense
will be nourished by critical study of the written word. So that we will not go
astray on this point, the Carmelite Rule tells us to follow the example of the
Apostle Paul (Carmelite Rule: Chapter 24).
8.The Apostle Paul gives various bits of
advice on how to read the Bible. He himself was an excellent interpreter. Here
are some of the norms and attitudes which he taught and followed:
When you set yourself to read the
Bible…
(a) Look upon yourself as the one to whom the word is addressed, since
everything was written for our instruction (1
Corinthians
10:11; Roman 15:4). The Bible is our book.
(b) Keep faith in Jesus Christ in your eyes, since it is only through
faith in Jesus Christ that the veil is removed and the Scripture reveals its
meaning and tells of that wisdom which leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Timothy
3:15; Romans 15:4).
(c) Remember how Paul spoke of
‘Jesus Christ Crucified’ (2 Corinthians
2:2), a ‘stumbling block for some and foolishness for others’. It was this
Jesus who opened Paul’s eyes to see how, among the poor on the outskirts of
Corinth, the foolishness and the stumbling block of the cross was confounding
the wise, the strong, and those who believed themselves to be something in this
world (1 Corinthians 1:21-31).
(d) Unite ‘I’ and ‘We’: It is never a question of ‘I’ alone or ‘We’
alone. The Apostle Paul also united the two. He received his mission from the
community of
Antioch
and spoke from that background (Acts 13:1-3).
(e) Keep life’s problems in mind, that is, all that is happening in the
Carmelite Family, in the communities, in the Church, and among the people to
which you belong and whom you serve. Paul began from what was going on in the
communities which he founded (1
Corinthians 10:1-13).
9.When you read the Bible, be always
aware that the text of the Bible is not only a fact. It is also a symbol (Hebrews
11:19).
It is both a window through which you see what happened to others in the past
and a mirror in which you can see what is
happening to you today (1 Corinthians
10:6-10). A prayerful reading is like a gentle flood which, little by
little, waters the earth and makes it fruitful (Isaiah 55:10-11). In beginning to dialogue with God in lectio divina, you grow like a tree
planted near streams of water (Psalm 1:3).
You cannot see the growth but you can see its results in your encounter with
yourself, with God, and with others. The song says: ‘Like a flood that washes
clean, like a fire that devours, so is your Word, leaving its mark upon me each
time it passes’.
10.One final point to be born in mind: When
you do a lectio divina, the principal
object is not to interpret the Bible, nor to get to know its content, nor to
increase your knowledge of the history of the people of God, nor to experience
extraordinary things, but rather to discover,
with the help of the written Word, the living Word which God speaks to you
today, in your life, in our lives, in the life of the people, in the world
in which we live (Psalm 97:5). The
purpose is to grow in faith, like the prophet Elijah, and to experience more
and more that ‘the Lord lives, and I stand in his presence’ (1 Kings 17:1;
18:15).
Ten points for
personal Lectio Divina
The attitude of the faithful disciple:
The Lord God has given
me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a
word the one that is weary. Morning by morning God wakens, wakens my ear to
hear as those who are taught. (Isaiah50:4).
1. Opening
prayer: an invocation of the Holy Spirit
2.Slow
and attentive reading of the text
3.A
moment of interior silence, to recall what I have read
4.Look
at the meaning of each phrase
5.Bring
the word into the present, ponder it in relation to my life
6.Broaden
my vision by relating this text to other biblical texts
7.Read
the text again, prayerfully, giving a response to God
8.Formulate
my commitment in life
9.Pray
a suitable psalm
10.Choose a
phrase which captures the meaning and memorise it
The Lord God has opened
my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to the smiters… For the Lord God helps me; therefore I
have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he
who vindicates me is near. (Isaiah 50:5-8).
Seven suggestions
for group Lectio Divina
Jesus stood in
their midst and said: Peace be with you. Then he opened their minds to
understand the scriptures. (Luke 24:36, 45).
And Jesus said: the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
in my name, will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that 1
have said to you ... the Spirit will guide you into all the truth. (John
14:26;
16:13).
1.Welcome and prayer
- A word
of welcome and of sharing expectations.
- Opening
prayer, asking for the light of the Holy Spirit.
2.Reading of the text
- Slow and
attentive reading, followed by a moment of silence.
-
Remaining silent, allowing the Word to come.
- Repeating
the text by asking each one to recall a word or phrase from it, until the whole
text is heard again.
3.What does the text say?
- Share
impressions and questions as to what the text is saying.
- If necessary, read the text again and help one another to
understand it.
- A moment of silence in order to assimilate all that has
been heard.
4.Its meaning for us
- Ponder
the text and discover its meaning for today.
- Apply the meaning of the text to
the situation in which we live today.
- Broaden the meaning, by relating this text to the other
texts in the Bible.
- Situate the text in God's plan which is accomplished in
human history.
5.Pray with the text
- Read
the text again with great attention.
- A moment of silence in order to prepare our response to
God.
- Share, in
the form of intercessions, the lights and strengths which have been received.
6.Contemplation and commitment
- Formulate
the commitment to which the prayerful reading has led.
- Choose a
phrase which captures the whole message in order to take that phrase with you
throughout the day.
7.A psalm
- Pick a psalm which is in tune with all that has been
experienced in the meeting.
- Conclude the meeting by reciting the psalm.
And when they heard it,
they lifted their voices together to God and said, 'Sovereign Lord, who made
the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who by the mouth
of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, 'Why did the
Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth set
themselves in array and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and
against his Anointed.’… And now Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to
your servant to speak your word with all boldness...’ And when they had prayed,
the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. (Acts4:24-26, 29,
31).