Lectio Divina Workshop

1. Lectio Divina Workshop Week 2: The Process Marc Cardaronella

2. www.holycrosschampaign.org News announcement on the left column of the home page

3. Review • The necessity of meditative prayer for growth in the spiritual life • Using Scripture is highly recommended • This requires a certain kind of reading • Lectio Divina is a “Forbidding Discipline” • Read, Think, Pray, Live

4. The Process Lectio Read Meditatio Think Oratio Pray • Contemplation Contemplatio Live Operatio

5. Preliminaries • Transition: • I become aware of the love with which God looks upon me as I begin this prayer. • Gratitude: • I note the gifts that God’s love has given me this day, and I give thanks to God for them. • Petition: • I ask God for an insight and a strength that will make this prayer a work of grace, fruitful beyond my human capacity alone.

6. The Process • Read: • Read the text slowly and reflectively, allowing the words to penetrate your mind.

7. The Process • Think: • Read the text again. • This time, also read any notes accompanying the verses on the bottom of the page. • In this stage, you attempt to understand what is being said in a deeper way.

8. The Process • Think: • The literal and spiritual senses • They’re not completely removed from each other • We aim to get at the meaning the Holy Spirit intends, the spiritual sense for our lives today • The spiritual flows from the literal • We must understand the literal before we can discern the spiritual • This is where study notes help

9. The Process • Pray: • Read the text again and now, armed with the insight you've just gained from the last stage, respond back to God in prayer. • Prayer is a conversation and God is your conversational partner. He spoke to you through the insight and understanding you just gained in the last phase. Now, it's your turn to respond back to him with what is on your heart and mind.

10. The Process • “Solo: An Uncommon Devotional" by Eugene Peterson • God yearns to converse with you. And, he wants far more than just 'thanks for this, can I please have that' prayer….Respond to him in dialogue. Open your ears and your heart to hear his voice. Maybe God has challenged you. Tell him how you feel, but always remember that what he asks, he asks for your good. He is loving and merciful, not manipulative and harsh. If you come across something in your reading that you don't understand, tell him about it. Ask him about it. Fill your prayers with Scripture. Using the words you have read helps you ensure that your prayers line up with God's Word and intention for your life.

11. The Process • Pray: • Journal your prayer • The review • Technique: write the prayer like you would respond to someone's email • Technique: what jumps out at you • The contemplatio or contemplation

12. Goals of Prayer • Oriented toward union with God and love • This comes under two aspects: • An interior experience of God’s love • An “inside out” change of life • The first is a gift of God, no human technique can produce it • The second is also a work of God but requires our cooperation

13. Prayer methods are structure

19. Prayer methods are structure • “Prayer Primer” Fr. Thomas Dubay • “Method in meditation is like a scaffolding used to construct a building. It is a means to an end, not the end itself.” (p. 72)

21. Prayer methods are structure • “Prayer Primer” (p. 72) • “Just as in the case of scaffolding, prayer methods are not meant to be permanent. When they have achieved their purpose, we leave them aside. Otherwise, they can impede more simple and better prayer.” • “When one finds oneself united to God in a simple loving attention or yearning, the methods should be left aside. One has what they are meant to bring about.”

22. The Process • Live: • The last stage can be many different things. • A simple resting in the insight and prayer you've received from God's Word. • A concrete resolution for the day that comes out of your prayer. • A further reflection on the passage you've just read, thought and prayed about. • An encouragement that carries you through the rest of a busy and trying day. • It is a response of your life to what the Lord has spoken directly to your heart.

23. The Process • Live: • Lectio Divina is meant to make you a "contemplative in the world." • It makes you into an agent of God's illustrious plan for the universe. • A contemplative in the world carries a biblical and theological worldview into the world around them

24. The Process • Live: • We are meant to live the prayer of lectio in our everyday lives and to allow the world of the Bible into our every part of our world • This connection prepares us to let God work in our lives and change us into who we are truly meant to be…to fulfill the plan for our lives that was laid out before the beginning of time in the infinite mind of God

25. The Process • Live: • From the “Solo” introduction, "If you have taken God's Word to heart and truly made it part of you, it will by its very nature change you. And when it does, you will find yourself called to act. There will come a time when God takes you to the end of yourself then asks you to go further. He wants you to put yourself at his disposal, to go and do what he asks, even the impossible." • Lectio Divina is a primary means of preparation for that time.

26. Conclusion • Transition: • Aware of God’s presence with me, I prayerfully conclude this prayer • I use an “Our Father” prayed very slowly and meaningfully