Lectio Divina: diving deep to hear (I)

The four stages of lectio divina (lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio) invite the one praying to allow the Word of God to deepen and take root in the heart in an organic way where one step leads naturally to the next.

In the first phase Lectio … I hear the WORD … God is communicating his love … I tune in to the revelation of God. I read … and re-read … I slow down.

Jesus Stills a Storm
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
(NRSV Mark chapter 4: 35-41)


The lectio or reading Ghislaine Salvail reminds us ‘constitutes an opening’. It is an entry point, a threshold. I read the text as a personal communication from the One I love. As I read I let the words come alive, hearing them as for the first time. I read and re read, slowly, reflectively. This helps to ‘engrave the text on the memory’. (Ghislaine Salvail, At the Crossroads of the Scriptures: An Introduction to Lectio Divina: pp. 45-6)