Over the next few weeks, I’d like to offer a couple notes about the context in which lectio divina emerged, namely, its monastic context. I have a busy month ahead of me, so these will all be rather short pieces. Still, I think they help tell the “lectio story,” which helps us enter more deeply into a prayerful reading of Scripture. I argue that lectio must be understood within its monastic context to harvest its fruits, even if it is practiced outside of the monastery — which it often is.
Let’s begin this mini-series with this: Monks left society to seek the Lord. This was their sole aim, and they were so sold out they went to the fringes of society in their pursuit. This means the monastic movement wasn’t some fearful fleeing, or an idealistic flight. They weren’t trying to create something, or establish a new culture. The fundamental purpose was more simple than that. Amid the decadent culture, they were seeking something, or, rather, Someone. Pope Benedict XVI reiterates this, saying that the monks did not set out for the desert to create a culture or to preserve something from the past. Instead, “amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential…They were searching for God.”1
Emphasizing the singularity of the monastic focus and contextualizing lectio within it, Jean Leclercq, OSB (1911–1993) notes “the one end of monastic life is the search for God…monastic life has no purpose other than quaerere Deum. All of the monk’s activities, including his literary activity, can have no motivation other than spiritual.”2 We find this spiritual seeking emphasized throughout Scripture. In the Psalms, for example: “Seek out the LORD and his might; constantly seek his face” (Ps 105:4). And Jeremiah prophesies: “When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me” (Jer 29:13–14). Seek God. This was the point of monasticism, and it still is. Consequently, it’s also the point of lectio.
Sacred reading aids the monk in his search for God, because sacred reading is a search for God. It’s not the cold, faithless, critical study of an ancient text that’s symptomatic of modern Scripture scholarship. It’s an encounter with a living, breathing person — Jesus Christ. Thus, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis claims, “lectio’s goal can be no other than an encounter with the living Christ Jesus, the encounter in mutual knowledge and love that, naturally tending toward union, gradually transforms us into his very image and person.”3 Lectio divina describes the encounter between the seeker and Christ in the Sacred Page of Scripture (sacra pagina), drawing the reader into a life-transforming communion—restoring the image of Jesus Christ in those of us who have been disfigured by sin. Lectio is seeking the Lord, trying to hear his voice in the words of Scripture, and then seeking some more. At bottom, it’s nothing other than that. Mining the depths of the Lord, of his mystery, is a rather adventuresome affair, because the Lord’s mystery bottomless. In going to the depths, he carries us to the heights.
When we pray lectio divina, we enter into this age-old monastic movement of seeking God. This seeking is a good thing. It’s good because most of us tend to forget God as we go about our days. At least I do.
Benedict XVI, “Address to Representatives from the World of Culture.”
Leclercq, Love of Learning, 18. Emphasis added.
Leiva-Merikakis, “Are you afraid of the thief?”, 436.