Lectio Divinia

The Meditative way of reading the Bible opens us to converse with and become friends with God

It was likely Lent or Advent, and a Franciscan priest named Fr. Philip Blaine was sitting across from a group of ten of us, the fluorescent light waxing a glow on him as his black habit grazed the linoleum floor. After an opening prayer, he explained that lectio divina, divine or sacred reading, is like chewing on the word of God, savoring each bite, allowing God to use Scripture to speak to the ear of our heart.

I was in my late twenties, and the closest I had come to learning how to pray like this had been in a high school prayer group when, each week, one of the Sisters of St. Joseph asked us to reflect on how we thought a particular passage pertained to our life. Sometimes I found the passages consoling, other times challenging, but almost always I felt engaged with God’s word, more than I ever had before praying with this group.

After high school, though, I went back to experiencing Scripture only at Mass as something to understand but not necessarily to let seep into my heart and speak to me. It wasn’t until this evening with Fr. Philip that my memory and desire for this kind of prayer was reignited, when I was given the name for what I had only begun to experience years before.

In lectio divina, rather than searching for the words for our prayers, the words are offered to us through Scripture and in the way the Holy Spirit attracts us to certain phrases.

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