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A metaphor of a river is an invitation for
us to dive in and start swimming with the flow of this practice called
Lectio Divina.
So, how
do we start? Prayer is about God and the word prayer is
our heart’s desire to relate to God. Prayer is this
longing. A traditional method is to discover which
revelatory text (explained below) holds a personal invitation for us at
this time.
There are three revelatory texts: Scripture, Nature and
Experience: |
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1. |
Scripture is the hallowed medium of
words written by those who have had the encounter with
God. These words were memorized, treasured and ever so
carefully preserved by saints and scholars that have
gone before us. Scripture has many layers of meaning
using the senses of text that range from literal to
mystical. Our Christian Scriptures consists of the
Bible, however you might be invited to use another
inspired text such as The Cloud of the Unknowing,
or Story of a Soul, or John Cassian’s
Conferences. |
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2. |
Nature is the original book of God’s
revelation. Natural contemplation is a door that can
sustain many of us and from time to time there is an
actual encounter with beauty. If this is your door to
the holy your lectio is to stay with your experience of
nature the way a reader would linger long and lovingly
over a text. |
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3. |
Experience is a revelatory text for many
of us from time to time. This experience could be the
birth of a child, near-death event, or sudden loss or
change in one’s life. God breaks in with living color
through our experience. We need not miss this
opportunity to meet God in the now of it and not later
in another realm. |
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It is helpful to select a revelatory
text from either Scripture, Nature or Experience and
start doing Lectio Divina. This takes a lifetime, but
now is a good time to start. When we find our revelatory
text we can stay with it for almost a year or so. These
pages will guide you with the classic method of opening
the senses of the text and opening the senses of your
heart. Benedict called this the ‘ear of the heart’. |
