{"id":24772,"date":"2009-07-02T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/how-to-do-lectio-divina\/"},"modified":"2013-10-17T10:08:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T14:08:04","slug":"how-to-do-lectio-divina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/how-to-do-lectio-divina\/","title":{"rendered":"How to do lectio divina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><i>My friends at St Louis Abbey posted this cheat-cheat on doing lectio divina encouraging us to dig deeply into this very necessary form of prayer. All good things are derived from the daily practice of lectio divina. As the monks will tell you, lectio is not only for monks but for the entire Church.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/lectio2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 20px 20px;\" alt=\"lectio2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/lectio2-thumb-260x345.jpg\" width=\"260\" height=\"345\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lectio divina is a way of getting in touch daily in a personal way<br \/>\nwith the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; it is a way of getting in touch\u00a0with Jesus Christ our Lord and our brother. It is away of reading centered on\u00a0God and, if you do it with faith you will be able to hear what he has to say to\u00a0you here at this moment.\u00a0\u00a0It is a\u00a0way of reading which is slow so that the words are savored in meditation. It moves\u00a0from the literal meaning to what only the Spirit can make clear to you. It\u00a0calls for action by your involvement and for passive surrender as it draws you\u00a0into the heart of God. It is disinterested; the text must be read for its own\u00a0sake and not for the achievement of having read it.<\/p>\n<p>Lectio is a way of experiencing Jesus Christ. You will\u00a0encounter him personally in the sacred scriptures because he is there hidden in\u00a0the pages of your Bible and you ought to believe in his presence with greater assurance\u00a0than if you could see him with your eyes.\u00a0\u00a0He has the same power there as he revealed in the gospels and he cures\u00a0you of your physical and moral ailments, brings his light to your everyday life\u00a0and leads you to eternal life.<\/p>\n<p>Your encounter is with the Word who loves you\u00a0unconditionally and is ever present and real in your life. From all eternity\u00a0God has had a plan for the whole course of your life, your personal\u00a0fulfillment, your vocation, your happiness. You will surely stray from the right\u00a0path and become alienated from your true self through serving other gods, if\u00a0you do not allow him to reveal himself to you daily through his word. It is in<br \/>\nyour Bible that the true story of your life is written. If you don&#8217;t at once<br \/>\nunderstand what you read, then have confidence that the Lord will reveal it to\u00a0you in his own time, because no word comes form the mouth of the Lord without\u00a0achieving in you the work he intended. If your thoughts and imagination get in\u00a0the way of your prayer, then fling them immediately before Christ.\u00a0\u00a0Make no attempt to master them by your\u00a0own strength, but try to turn back to your prayer.<\/p>\n<p>You ought to do lectio every\u00a0day, even if it is only one single verse of the Bible, because,\u00a0&#8220;It is not on bread alone that man\u00a0lives but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.&#8221; (Matthew\u00a04:4)\u00a0\u00a0Your reading of the word of\u00a0God should be deliberate, moving slowly from verse to verse, from word to word,\u00a0watching for the context, paying close attention to each passage, looking out\u00a0for the answers that are there in sacred scripture itself and the echoes they\u00a0evoke, watching the notes and marginal references and always treasuring silence\u00a0so as to make space to listen. You should know that the word you hear is\u00a0directed to you personally and individually. When you read the word of God, it<br \/>\nspeaks to you; when you pray, you speak to the word and so turn your prayer\u00a0into conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Your prayer may be simply staying with the word in silence,\u00a0or it may be a thanksgiving, or a petition, or praise, or blessing, or\u00a0contrition, or intercession, or one single word on which you pause and then\u00a0repeat at will, or it may be a prayer of inspiration. If you are taking part in\u00a0shared lectio, the way to share what the scripture has said to you is by means\u00a0of a personal comment spoken in the first person singular and applied to your\u00a0own life, or else it may be a prayer out loud offered directly to God.<\/p>\n<p>Jos\u00e9\u00a0Manuel Eguiguren Guzman of the Manquehue Movement, Chile; translated by Abbot\u00a0Patrick Barry, OSB<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friends at St Louis Abbey posted this cheat-cheat on doing lectio divina encouraging us to dig deeply into this very necessary form of prayer. All good things are derived from the daily practice of lectio divina. As the monks will tell you, lectio is not only for monks but for the entire Church. Lectio &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/how-to-do-lectio-divina\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to do lectio divina<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1790],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28838,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24772\/revisions\/28838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}