Lectio Divina

Find a quiet place. Begin with a brief prayer to the Holy Spirit. Then move slowly through four movements:

1. Lectio -- Read the passage slowly, two or three times. Listen for a word or phrase that catches your attention.
2. Meditatio -- Ponder that word. Turn it over in your heart. Let it meet your life today.
3. Oratio -- Respond to God in prayer, however the Spirit moves you.
4. Contemplatio -- Rest silently in God's presence. Set words aside and simply be with him.

Ten to fifteen minutes is enough to begin. The fruit is often hidden; trust the practice.

The roots of Lectio Divina reach to Origen of Alexandria in the third century, who called it theia anagnosis, divine reading. Saint Ambrose taught Saint Augustine to read Scripture meditatively, and Saint Benedict in the sixth century made prayerful reading a pillar of monastic life in his Rule.

In the twelfth century, the Carthusian monk Guigo II wrote The Ladder of Monks, giving the practice its classic four rungs: reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation.

For centuries the practice belonged mostly to monasteries. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum (1965) reopened Scripture to all the faithful, and Pope Benedict XVI's Verbum Domini (2010) explicitly urged every Catholic to take up Lectio Divina as a daily encounter with the living Word.

• Saint Benedict of Nursia
• Saint Gregory the Great
• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
• Saint Teresa of Avila
• Saint John of the Cross
• Saint Ignatius of Loyola
• Saint Therese of Lisieux
• Saint Padre Pio
• Saint Ambrose of Milan
• Saint Augustine of Hippo