Meditatio literally means exercise, it is meditation on the Word we have read.
During Meditatio we ask ourselves: What does the Word of God say about me, about my life, about my decisions, about my desires? In Meditatio, we are filled with the Word of God.
Meditatio can be organized according to the following stages:
- Collecting the Word
- Keeping the Word
- Confrontation with the Word
These stages can be compared to the work of a bee. She collects nectar first. We also collect the Word of God from various places of Scripture, sometimes from a close context, simple associations, memories or using footnotes. Remembering that the Word is one and is one, we discover something that is very important and beautiful in Lectio Divina:
“The Word itself comments the Word – the Scriptures describe us the same reality, they have common threads and features.”
Coming back to the symbolism of the bee: We gather the precious food of the Word. There doesn’t have to be a lot of it. The rule is always simple: in depth rather than in quantity. Word Retention is an internal process of “chewing” the Word. The Word looks for a place in us where He could live, be at home. This is very well reflected in the Greek term “μελετάω – meletao” – to think, think, have care, look after carefully. At the root of the word there is honey (μέλι – meli gr. – honey). We are to care for the Word, engage in it, chew it so that it becomes “sweet as honey” in the mouth (see Ezekiel 3: 1-3). In practice, this is done over the length of time we spend on Meditatio – our human condition needs a minimum of 20 minutes to settle down and focus on a given passage of Scripture. Therefore, in retreat conditions, we spend a full clock hour on meditatio (as well as on Lectio, Oratio and Contemplatio).
The final stage of Meditatio is the confrontation of our life with the Word of God.
We discover more than once that our life is very different from what the Word of God offers us. Often, where the Word speaks of joy, we encounter sorrow. It is a beautiful moment to begin the next stage: Oratio – Prayer, and therefore a conversation with God.