What is Lectio Divina?

Lectio Divina is: With the help of the Holy Spirit, to listen to the daily Word Jesus wants to give me and to put it into practice.

“the daily Word”: is an allusion to the fact that in the Mass Jesus comes to speak to us personally, through the daily readings (please find them here, under “readings”)

So it is all about:

1- listening to the Word that Jesus wants to give us,

2- and putting it into practice.

You’ll certainly notice that practising Lectio divina is one of the best ways to love God:

– “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

– “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21)

– “If a man loves me, he will keep my word” (John 14:23)

– “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (John 15:10)

To love Jesus-God is the First Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Mt 22:37-38). We just saw that “to love” means to put into practise the word. This then means that if the first commandment is to love God-Jesus “with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind”, this means that we should seek to listen to Jesus’ Word and put it into practise “with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind”.

This gives us an idea of the type of commitment (and a priority) we need to have for Lectio Divina.

The best and quickest way to get to know Lectio Divina is simply either to attend the pre-recorded Solid Foundations 000 Course, or the pre-recorded Three Days on Lectio Divina Course, or to read this book “Lectio Divina at the School of Mary”.

Now, let us look at the steps to Lectio Divina in greater detail.

LECTIO DIVINA 15 STEPS

I- Preparing

1- Sit in a quiet place

2- In the presence of Christ; entering in my conscience

3- Consider His desire to speak to me

4- I choose Him again as my First priority

5- I give myself to Him, unconditionally

II- Listening

Active phase: seeking understanding

6- Read (1) in order to understand the text

Listening phase: asking for the help of the Holy Spirit

7- Read (2) in order to discover Christ’s will

8- Read (3) until I see only one light

9- Read (4) until the light becomes clear

10- Write down the words from the readings that touched me

III- Realisation

11- Asking the Holy Spirit’s help in order to put into practice the Word

12- Giving thanks, being immersed in Him

13- Putting into practice the Word I received

14- Echos during the day

15- In the end of the day: giving thanks

Detailed Process of Step II: “Listening”

Now, let us consider the middle part (II- Listening) in greater detail. It is the most challenging part. Let us see, step by step, its sequence of events: how the different levels of reading occur, how the different texts are read, what happens and what we expect to find. This way we ensure that our listening process is allowing the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit to work instead of us :

II- Listening

1- The « First Reading »

– We read the « First Reading » in order to understand the letter of the text.

– If we find some difficulty in the text, a passage or a word that we don’t understand, we try to find clarity by doing a little research : we read the footnotes, we see parallel occurrences in the Bible of the same concept or word. This can easily take 10 to 15 minutes.

– We re-read in order to discover Christ’s will. We open ourselves up to His presence, to the action of the Holy Spirit and we adopt a prayerful attitude while reading, attentive to the Lord, saying for instance : « what do you want me to do O Lord today ? »

– He might want to talk to us through the difficult passage we found. Why not?

– We re-read 4 to 5 times the entire text, while praying. Slowly. The attention is fully on the Risen Lord who is present with us and wants to talk to us.

– We might find that He will use a passage, a verse, an expression or a word to convey to us His message, His light.

We might, as well, not find anything as yet, especially if the First Reading is from the Old Testament.

2- The « Gospel »

After having hit the wall of the apparent silence of Jesus, which often happens, we move on to the Gospel.

– We read the Gospel : first and foremost to understand the literal meaning of the text.

– If we find a difficulty in the text, a passage or a word that we don’t understand, we try to find clarity by doing a little research : we read the footnotes, we see parallel occurrences in the Bible of the same concept or word. This can easily take 10 to 15 minutes.

– We re-read in order to discover Christ’s will. We open ourselves up to His presence, to the action of the Holy Spirit and we adopt a prayerful attitude while reading, attentive to the Lord, saying for instance : « what do you want me to do O Lord today? »

– He might want to talk to us through the difficult passage we found. Why not?

– We re-read 4 to 5 times the entire text, while praying. Slowly. The attention is fully on the Risen Lord who is present with us and wants to talk to us.

– We find : one, two or even three different passages where we feel Christ is talking to us. If it is two to three passages, we will not yet know which one of them is the one Jesus will use today to talk to us. Therefore we won’t yet know which message it will be.

3- Back to the « First Reading »

Now we go back to the First Reading with Jesus’ new Light and Presence.

– We read again the First Reading, bearing in mind Jesus’ Light freshly given to us.

– An area in the First Reading text starts to be illumined by Jesus, starts to talk to us, saying to us (despite the differences between the two texts) the same thing concerning one of the lights we perceived in the Gospel. The First Reading sifts and discards from amongst the various choices (1, 2 or even 3), removing thus any possible hesitation, confirming the light through comparison with the second text (which is miraculous in itself), giving us a stronger, more affirmed message, through the two different texts.

– We write down only the two chosen passages from the two readings (First Reading and Gospel) He is using to talk to us.

4- Back and forth: one Light

– We now go back and forth between the two passages only which He is using to talk to us. We read them while praying, wanting to know His Will, to understand it.

– We notice and understand the one message here and there in the two texts.

– We notice that it is a general message (example : mercy).

5- A clear light

– We continue to dwell in the actual passages asking the Lord to be more specific in His Message to us, showing us clearly His Will, showing us the act He wants us to perform (example : forgive this person). We are praying, begging for the Light of God to land on our will, exposing all our being to it.

– The message is made clear and concrete by the Lord.

– We write down briefly what we have understood from the 2 passages.