LECTIO DIVINA

HERE ARE nearly as many ways of praying as there people who pray but certain methods stand out, hallowed by long use and their association with religious - men and women who consecrate their lives to prayer. Mention the Carthusians and some of us think of their founder, St Bruno, Patron Saint of a brand of pipe tobacco - or the most famous Charterhouse of all, La Grande Chartreuse, associated with a rather gruesome-looking green liqueur. The Carthusians are neither jolly pipe smokers nor bons viveurs: they are monks (and nuns) who live a largely solitary life of silence and contemplation - with a weekly walk 'in crocodile'. They stay apart even for most of the Divine Office, reciting it alone in their houses, meeting together in Church only in the middle of the night on weekdays, and for the day offices on Sundays and feast days.

The distinctive Carthusian prayer method is known as 'lectio divina' (divine reading), a method shared, it has to be said, with other orders too. In the words of Pope Benedict, 'lectio divina' is like a ladder with four rungs - reading, meditating, praying and contemplating - 'a ladder by which the Carthusian monks ascended from earth to heaven'. The genius of the method is not so much the ingredients - reading, meditating, praying, contemplating - but, like baking a cake, the bringing together of them to good effect. Whether baking a cake or climbing a ladder there is the sense of starting in one place and ending in another.

So often our reading of Scripture is hurried ( we know the story!) or thoughtless (no time to think about that now!). So often our praying is routine (a quick 'Our Father', a 'Hail Mary' and a 'Glory be') or self-centred ('help me pass my driving test!') So often meditating is left to others (Buddhists and TM enthusiasts) and contemplating ignored ('no time for that sort of thing!').

With a new Church Year dawning, it may be time to take up a spot of Lectio Divina. Half an hour in a quiet corner of the house. The Gospel of the Day (or a reading from last Sunday or from next Sunday). Slow reading. Imagining what it would be like to be part of the scene - a character, a bystander, someone close to Jesus. A conversation with God - more listening and silence than talking and noise. A few moments - an eternity - gazing on God, listening for the Spirit saying 'Abba Father' in our inmost depths. Finding Jesus at the centre. It may not work very well: after all there are days when we can't crack the crossword or do the Sudoku. But practice makes perfect.

May God bless you as you discover over and again the riches of the Word of God.

+ Andrew Ebbsfleet



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