A special but essential spiritual practice for monks is the Lectio Divina. This is the slow, attentive, penetrating reading and absorption of the Word of God that lies behind the ‘words’ of the Scriptures, waiting there in silence to speak to them personally. “Des verbes au Verbe,” - “from the words to the Word” - says the French theologian, Jean-Luc Marion.
In the second instance, texts that enhance and deepen the meaning of the Scriptures are also used for the Lectio Divina. Preferably the writings of the Church Fathers such as Saint Augustine, or the writings of the old monastic authors such as Johannes Cassianus. Or the spiritual authors from the Middle Ages such as Bernard van Clairvaux.
The Lectio Divina is a part of prayer because the monks are receptive and silent during the Lectio Divina, just as in prayer, in order to hear the Voice of God. They dwell patiently and persistently on the words of the Scriptures, they read them slowly and quietly, one by one, they cherish them, feel them with their fingers as it were. And they consider them sincerely and receptively, until their true meaning - reaching to them in their own lives - is given to them and breaks through the ‘lifeless’ letters.
In the Lectio Divina, Jesus is also the reader in them and in the text they are reading - as the Word. In the Middle Ages, they also spoke of Jesus as from the Book. The practice of the Lectio Divina in any case leads to a growing identity with Christ.
In fact, the Lectio Divina is the essence or the core of all reading. The monks spend the best times of the day on it, preferably in the early morning after the vigil.
The practice of the Lectio Divina does not rule out other forms of reading. All reading that is conducive to a life of prayer, and which thus increases the love of God and of our fellow men, can be used. Nevertheless all spiritual reading, all reading even, only derives its ultimate meaning and efficiency from the regular practice of the Lectio Divina.
