00:00 – 00:33

Father Elias Correia Torres

Hello. My name is Father Elias Correia Torres, and today I offer you a meditation on Lectio Divina. When we first speak about Lectio Divina, of course, the object is relationship and particularly relationship with God. How amazing it is for us to consider that we have a God who desires to be in relationship with us, even though God is so much above us, yet he does.

 

00:33 – 01:00

Father Elias Correia Torres

He desires that personal knowledge of us, that personal conversation with us, and hence he says, I will be their God. They will be my people. And it’s not a general thing. It’s a very particular thing. He wants to be in direct knowledge with each of us. For us, sometimes the struggle with that relationship is how do we get into that conversation?

 

01:00 – 01:20

Father Elias Correia Torres

In any relationship, of course, it has to go in two ways. We speak to God, but somehow God needs to be able to speak to us too. And of course, the danger is when we get into some type of a pattern or habit where we feel like it’s not going in both ways that we speak, but we’re not hearing anything back.

 

01:20 – 01:49

Father Elias Correia Torres

And that is what we’re trying to avoid, because then our relationships can become dry and difficult, and people are tempted to let go of them. How do we enter into this conversation with God? For the monks, the learning of it began with the Word of God, the scriptures, and a process which they call Lectio Divina. And they learned that in prayer we speak to God.

 

01:49 – 02:18

Father Elias Correia Torres

And then in this practice of Lectio Divina, God can speak to us. The scriptures have this tradition. And in monasticism, to be the preeminent way for God to speak to us, for us to hear God’s voice speaking to us in the Word of God. Saint Benedict even refers to the scriptures and says, what passage of the Old or New Testament is not the best, most perfect way for us to hear God teach us?

 

02:18 – 02:55

Father Elias Correia Torres

And he refers to the scriptures as the medicine, the medicine of divine scriptures. So we have this real sense of the, respect and eminence that monks and Christians are invited to put onto Scripture, to listening to the Word of God in Scripture. Scripture is not the normal way we speak to everyone else, right? When I speak to a person, I expect to hear back in the same type of conversation and voice with which I am speaking.

 

02:55 – 03:33

 Father Elias Correia Torres

But Scripture is different, and so we have to bring to it a slightly different approach than when we speak to someone else. But the goal is the same to believe that in this process of Lectio Divina, when we engage the scriptures, literally, God is speaking to us. Just in the same way that I might speak to someone present to me, that is to say, live and directed at me personally and not, and not a general message for the whole world, but something directed precisely at me, something that is relevant to what I’m living.

 

03:33 – 04:01

Father Elias Correia Torres

The situation I’m experiencing, what I need to hear and grow in, and that God wants to speak. And that particular way to me when we speak about Lectio Divina, traditionally there have been several kinds of steps that I recognize, and it is first a reading, then a meditation, and then a prayer, and then a resting in God’s presence, which has been called contemplation.

 

04:02 – 04:28

Father Elias Correia Torres

And so just to describe some of these steps is not to make it a rigid, process, but to understand that these are all parts of what’s going on, and we may move freely between them, not in a, in a legalistic way, but in a very flexible way, as we’re inspired to do. The reading is a different reading than we might be used to.

 

04:28 – 05:03

Father Elias Correia Torres

Perhaps in a normal, typical reading, we learn to control what we want to read. We try to read fast to obtain all the information we want. But this reading as part of Lectio is a prayerful reading. Literally, we believe that God is speaking to us and so we want to prepare ourselves. We want to quiet ourselves. We want to perhaps place ourselves in God’s presence in the same way that if we’re going to meet someone important, we want to pay full attention to them.

 

05:03 – 05:37

Father Elias Correia Torres

We want to gather ourselves so that we too, can be listening with full attentiveness and reverence to this word that God is going to speak to me, and then we also choose then the passage we’re going to read. And there are different approaches. Some people will use the scripture passages from the daily mass, for example. Others will choose a book of the Bible and then just work sequentially through it, whereas the next day or the next time they practice Lectio, they’ll continue from where they left off. 

 

05:37 – 06:06

Father Elias Correia Torres

Either way, is acceptable, either way is fine. And the goal, though, is to be listening and to be, hearing this with reverence, with a thought of this is God speaking to me. And then to be listening well. The listening is also a very particular one because, God often likes to speak to us softly, gently, for example, is Elijah on the mountain.

 

06:06 – 06:45

Father Elias Correia Torres

He’s present with a roaring fire, a wind that rends the mountainside, and an earthquake that splits rocks. And God is not in any of those. God will speak to him in what he calls a tiny whispering sound. And so we need to be able to hear with that gentleness, listening for the word of God in that gentleness and that silent whispering sound, which is a calm, amazing, that God, who can obviously speak very loudly to us, chooses to speak to us in that quietness and that silence.

 

06:45 – 07:15

Father Elias Correia Torres

And yet he wants us to be trained to be able to hear him in all circumstances. And so he pulls us into being able to hear him even in the silence when we begin to read, we’re listening for that passage, that word that somehow connects to us, that we believe and understand is the word that God wants to speak to us on this particular day, in this particular moment.

 

07:15 – 07:45

Father Elias Correia Torres

So we’re reading slowly, or perhaps we can repeat the words as we were reading, just to make sure we don’t miss anything. We think about it as well, we consider how the words might relate to what we’re living, what we’re experiencing. And so this reading flows naturally into a meditation, into considering what this message that’s being spoken, why God is choosing to speak it to me.

 

07:45 – 08:11

Father Elias Correia Torres

It’s interesting that I invite that type of consideration. But precisely, even though I chose the passage to believe that God behind it actually chose it before I chose it, and that through it God will speak to me and that God will then reveal to me something he wants to say. We can even bring questions to the reading, perhaps questions we’re facing in life.

 

08:11 – 08:40

Father Elias Correia Torres

The monks had the tradition of asking God a question in prayer and then opening the book and believing that in what they’re going to read, they will hear an answer and that God will say something to them that is relevant and important. Not always the direct answer to that question, because sometimes, as even Jesus demonstrated, it’s good for God to give us something we need to hear rather than what we want to hear.

 

08:40 – 09:15

Father Elias Correia Torres

But God will speak in response to the conversation. And then after we’ve heard what God has said, to respond, what do we think about what God has said? What did our thoughts, what our reaction to what we’ve heard? It is very loose, very flexible, very relaxed. Often a formulation of Lectio Divina is that you’re just spending time with God or hanging out with God.

 

09:15 – 09:44

Father Elias Correia Torres

And in that sense, there’s no agenda. You’re not supposed to cover a certain amount of reading or cover a certain topic or accomplish anything. Just like with a friend, you hang out and just the time spent is its own blessing. And so sometimes you will hang out and in this process, feel like maybe nothing was, was directly clear in what God said.

 

09:44 – 10:18

Father Elias Correia Torres

And to then be unconcerned about that, to be at peace, knowing that when God speaks to us that speech itself is its blessing. Sometimes the understanding of what God is saying will come much later. Sometimes it will come in a flash of understanding as it connects with other events or further reading and prayer, and sometimes it may not come, and to be at peace, that whatever God wanted to give to us, we received.

 

10:18 – 10:48

Father Elias Correia Torres

The grace came in this process of love. So, sometimes we will just be comfortable knowing that we’re in God’s presence, resting in his presence, and hence we can perhaps enter into a sense of contemplation where nothing active needs to be done. But at peace. We’re relaxed and ready to, just be with God and know that we’re being blessed in that process.

 

10:48 – 11:15

Father Elias Correia Torres

In the process of Lectio Divina, we do have to cultivate a deep silence. Perhaps human beings are too comfortable with noise and activity around the world and around them, in what they’re doing. But to hear the voice of God, God invites us to a stillness. It is a work that has to be practiced to enter into that quietness, but it is a necessary aspect of Lectio.

 

11:15 – 11:45

Father Elias Correia Torres

And being able to listen is also why in Lectio we repeat the words we’re reading, to hear them, to let them sink in. It is often a practice that the monks, when they found a passage that particularly spoke to them and that they felt was relevant to them, would then try to memorize it, to interiorize it, and to repeat it throughout the day.

 

11:45 – 12:11

Father Elias Correia Torres

Afterwards. And that’s a very healthy practice for us. It teaches us then, the vocabulary of God and the Word of God. We learn how God speaks, how God thinks, and then to repeat it, to memorize it allows us to be transformed by it, to change the way we think and the way we speak as well. And this is a way of being transformed.

 

12:11 – 12:33

Father Elias Correia Torres

And changed in this encounter with God. And we know, of course, as we’re taught, the more we can meditate on the Word of God, the more we can consider it and think it and make it our own. More we can bring it to mind. We can purify our hearts, and we can be literally God’s presence in the world.

 

12:33 – 13:06

Father Elias Correia Torres

When we engage in the meditation of Lectio Divina, we’re invited to allow what we’re reading to interact with our life, the people we’re encountering, or we’re concerned about the events that are occurring, to engage in it as if it were relevant and directed at what we’re experiencing. It should be a word spoken personally to us, and we should find it intriguingly relevant.

 

13:06 – 13:37

Father Elias Correia Torres

Sometimes when we’re with a friend, they surprise us and they speak to us. Something unexpected that should be the same in our experience and relationship with God. Sometimes we’re going to hear something that we didn’t know, but we see immediately how it is important for us to learn. One aspect that’s recommended is perseverance. With Lectio, this is not a vending machine where we push a button and get exactly what we want.

 

13:37 – 14:17

Father Elias Correia Torres

This is a process. The time we spend with God allows God to bless us, to transform us. And so when we enter into this practice, Lectio Divina, it should be with a sense of persevering persistence. Commit to a certain amount of time that you will be engaging in the practice. Certainly the monks practice it every day, but to have some sense of not expecting results on some timeline of our own choosing, but believing that this time we spend with God is going to be good for us, and thereby to continue with it and to be sustained in it.

 

14:17 – 14:44

Father Elias Correia Torres

When we engage in Lectio Divina, sometimes in the quietness and the stillness, distractions will affect us. We should not be afraid of them. Often those are ideas and experiences that yearn to be integrated into our lives. We can offer just a quick prayer. We’ll find often that we can just keep going with the practices of Lectio Divina and not have any more struggles.

 

14:44 – 15:20

Father Elias Correia Torres

But to welcome that this time that we spend with God is a chance to integrate many aspects of our life in God’s presence and to offer that prayer for distractions. We will often feel that we have dealt with them, that we have somehow relieved them of their power over us. It is helpful as well in Lectio Divina, to try different methods, perhaps to write down some of our thoughts, perhaps to try different times of day.

 

15:20 – 15:50

Father Elias Correia Torres

Sometimes we’re more awake in morning or evening to experiment with how we find this helpful for us and that we can connect with God at different times. As we engage in the practice Lectio Divina. Important not to be anxious about it. You shouldn’t be worried about assessing how we’re doing or if it’s working. You believe that if we are in God’s presence, we are being blessed and to be at rest with it.

 

15:51 – 16:17

Father Elias Correia Torres

And we know that as we learn to hear God’s voice speak to us, or as Saint Benedict says, to listen with the ear of our heart, our own life will take on a different direction as God Himself will be walking with us. And in this conversation we’ll have a sense of his company as we engage in life and bring his presence to the world.

 

16:17 – 16:55

Father Elias Correia Torres

So we know that it is a blessing and that in this transformation, as we hear God in Lectio Divina will increasingly be able to hear God and everything else that happens in life too, the people we encounter, the circumstances, the events, and what a difference it will be in life when we know that God is walking with us and is not some distant figure, but someone who reveals to us how he is our closest friend.