Lectio is about the word getting in you — assimilating it, knowing it my heart.
I have reproduced Sunday’s Gospel in a format called continuous script. I’ve deconstructed the text by pulling out all of the typical “helps” that allow us to read and skim quickly (e.g., spaces, punctuation, line breaks, etc.). Collectively, this encourage you to take time with this text and read more slowly. It provides an opportunity to pray lectio divina in a manner that’s more akin to how the first monastic communities that stand at the beginning of lectio some 1,500 years ago would have encountered a text. Sound out the text. Put the words of the Gospel on your lips and hear your own voice saying them. Incarnate them. Repeat lines or words that stand out. Keep repeating them. With each repetition, imagine that the seed of the word is being planted deeper and deeper into your heart.
Stop and smell the roses. Take time to meditate on the words or phrases that strike you. What might God be trying to say to you? Why? Why is this or that standing out? Is he trying to speak into particular parts of your life or particular memories? Have a conversation with him. And keep listening. What’s he trying to say?
Oh, and don’t forget to pay attention throughout the day. Your life will teach you and lectio divina can help you “key in” on what God’s saying in and through the circumstances he has provided for you. Lectio often provides me with open and unresolved questions, and I go into the “stuff” of my life with these questions looking for answers. Or, it provides me with a word or image, a “theme,” that can help sharpen my focus as I seek the Lord throughout the day.
If you’d like to read more about the continuous script (scriptio continua) format, please check out the intro to this presentation of the Gospel from a few weeks ago, or this article.
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This text comes from the Catholic Public Domain Version. You can find the official lectionary readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time here. You could also look up the passage in your own Bible. It is from Matthew 22:15–21.
On Saturday, I’ll offer some of my own reflections on this passage, and hopefully some of you will share your own in the comments section.
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