Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Praying the Scriptures

Lectio Divina, a spiritual discipline practiced for more than a thousand years, has undergone a recent resurgence in popularity. Father Pennington introduces the method of contemplative listening that opens us to an experience of God’s presence through the sacred scriptures.

Anyone who desires to learn how to pray with, from and through the sacred scriptures will be enriched by this book. The author, well known for his work in the area of centering prayer, describes lectio divina as ‘the art of letting God, our Divine Friend, speak to us through his inspired Word.’

The book’s ten chapters describe the interaction between the text(s) of sacred scripture and the reader. Since the term lectio divina is Latin for ‘divine reading,’ and not a common household term, the author explains the notion of lectio as a reading of the biblical text for spiritual meaning. Pennington provides a simple, three step method of taking the biblical text with reverence and calling upon the Holy Spirit, listening to God speaking through the text and responding to God, and finally choosing a word or a phrase to take with you from the text for further pondering and meditation. This method is used throughout the book with specific biblical texts and challenges the reader to do likewise. The writing style at times is a little disjunctive and confusing for the reader and the epilogue on Mary seems to be out of place. Yet the genius of the book comes from its presentation of the importance of understanding sacred scripture within its original context and within the ongoing context of the praying church.

The classical sense of scripture—literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical—are both explored and related to prayer and contemplation. This reviewer would have appreciated a larger development of this relationship. The book has an appendix which provides a helpful ritual for enthroning the sacred scriptures in the home. All in all, the book is a good attempt to call us all back to that monastic tradition of not only reading and hearing the Word of God in liturgy, but also praying with the Word.—Arthur Zannoni, author and consultant in the field of biblical studies and Catholic-Jewish relations