Lectio from Latin simply means reading.
Biblical Lectio is not just reading the text. Entering Lectio, we start praying, that is, staying, talking to God, who is our good Father and Brother, He is our Friend and Guide.
Lectio is the reading in the power of the Holy Spirit the text of the entire “fabric of the Word”. Just as the fabric has a weft and a warp, the history of God and the history of man – God and myself – are intertwined in the Word of God. The first thing we strive for in Lectio is to become aware of what the biblical text says in itself. We also look at the context of the fragment chosen for prayer – we do not listen to it randomly, but as a whole. During Lectio, we are accompanied by the question: What does the text of Scripture say in itself, what is the selected passage about? Then we are looking for a Word, a key sentence that will then “open” a given scene – it will remind us of what we read in one moment. So the text is not a pretext for our own thoughts, we are to read it carefully, slowly, pausing over each sentence, expression, meaning of words. We LISTEN to what the text says. Lectio takes us beyond the subjective understanding of the Word, introduces us to the realism of the Word.
“We are to hear what the Word wants to tell us, not what we want to hear”
A well-done Lectio protects us from illusions – images associated with a given passage of Holy Scripture. God activates in the concrete events of our life – in reality, not in an illusion. Illusions are dangerous to our spiritual life because we remain alone in them, instead of enjoying God’s presence in our real life.
Lectio is also filling ourselves with the Word, so that it may come to live in our heart, find a place in us, in our thoughts, desires, feelings, in our memory. Our level of intimacy with the Word of God is also important – the deeper this intimacy, the more precise Lectio should be. Every prayer with the Word of God is to be based on the backbone of the Church, thus:
We read the Text of Sacred Scripture in the community of the Church – then we will not fall into the illusion of our own interpretations.
Ways of reading
Let everyone find their own way: free reading, rewriting, interlining reading, memorizing – the Word of God wants to give himself to us so that we can accept it simply.
Obstacles to Reading
The Desert Fathers, from whom the practice of Lectio Divina is derived, already told us about the obstacles that we encounter when trying to go deeper into the Word of God. Here are a few of them:
Temptation “I already know it”
Listening to the Gospel at Masses, we know some of its passages almost by heart. This does not mean, however, that we have learned it deeply – no one is able to fully understand the content of the Word of God, because He is a Person – Jesus Christ, and the Gospel Cards show us the Person of Christ – the Son of God. So if we are tempted to leave out a sentence or word, we should dwell on it so that the reading is not superficial.
Temptation “I don’t understand, so I’ll skip this passage”
The places that are incomprehensible or those we run away from are most often “pregnant” with the Holy Spirit for us. Not only we do read the Word – the Word also reads our life, and if we don’t understand something in the text we probably don’t understand it in our life. God wants to lead us through all the dark valleys of our life and illuminate them with His Light.
The temptation to discourage “What am I going to do for an hour with such a short fragment?”
It is a temptation against generosity. In order for the Word to be given to us fully, we need to spend a lot of time alone with Him. Just as we want to spend time with the person we love, so also our true motivation is verified: do I really want to be with God in His Word? Do I really want to hear Him?
The temptation “I don’t want to read this …”
Appearing strong, difficult feelings or their complete absence while reading the Word of God, which result in rejection and abandonment of reading, can diagnose in us being in an illusion, or that the Word just exposes this illusion. The stronger the experience, the more the Word really wants to penetrate me, tell me, set me free. It is worth enduring this difficult moment and still reading.