Lectio Divina: How to Pray with Scripture

Lectio divina is prayer, not study. You read in order to meet someone, not to master a text. The Catechism names it as one of the classic forms of Christian meditation, alongside the Rosary, and describes meditation as engaging thought, imagination, emotion and desire so that faith deepens and the heart is converted. ⁶ It adds that such reflection is of great value but that prayer should go further, toward union with Christ himself. ⁶ Lectio divina is built to make that move: it begins with words on a page and ends, if God gives it, in quiet.

The Catechism also ties it to the Church’s liturgy. In lectio divina, it says, the Word of God is read and meditated until it becomes prayer, and the practice is rooted in the liturgical celebration. ⁷ Benedict XVI made the same point more strongly: the privileged place for reading Scripture prayerfully is the liturgy, above all the Eucharist, and personal reading prepares for and deepens what the Church celebrates there. ⁵

Reading Scripture as a way of listening to God is as old as the Church. Benedict XVI points to Origen, the third-century theologian, who in a letter to a certain Gregory urged him to give himself to the "lectio" of the divine Scriptures with perseverance and with prayer. ⁵

The practice took its settled form in the monasteries. The Rule of Saint Benedict, written in the sixth century, divided the monk’s day between work and fixed hours of reading. Chapter 48 opens: "Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brethren should be occupied at certain times in manual labor, and again at fixed hours in sacred reading." ² In Lent each monk received a book from the library to read straight through, and seniors went round to make sure nobody was gossiping instead. ² For Benedict this reading was part of the monk’s prayer, set alongside the psalms of the Office.

The four steps most people learn come from the twelfth century. Guigo II, a Carthusian monk (the order founded by Saint Bruno), wrote a letter on the contemplative life that came to be called the Ladder of Monks, Scala Claustralium. He says the idea came to him while he was doing manual labor: four rungs by which the soul climbs from earth to heaven, namely reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. ³ His summary in Latin is compact enough to memorize: "Lectio inquirit, meditatio invenit, oratio postulat, contemplatio degustat." Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation tastes. ³ He compares it to eating: reading puts food in the mouth, meditation chews it, prayer gets the flavor, and contemplation is the sweetness itself. ³

In 2010 Benedict XVI, gathering the work of the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, set out the steps again in Verbum Domini and added a fifth. Reading asks what the text says in itself; meditation asks what it says to us; prayer asks what we say to the Lord in reply; contemplation receives God’s own way of seeing reality and asks what conversion he wants. Then the process "is not concluded until it arrives at action (actio)," which turns the person outward in charity toward others. ⁵ The same paragraph presents Mary, who kept these things and pondered them in her heart, as the model of the whole movement. ⁵

Not every guide puts the steps in the same order. The bishops of the United States, in a short introduction to lectio divina, place contemplation before prayer. ¹ Guigo and Benedict XVI put prayer before contemplation, which is the order used here. The steps describe movements of prayer that overlap, not a procedure to be followed to the letter.

The Second Vatican Council urged all the faithful, and religious especially, to read Scripture often, and repeated Saint Jerome’s warning: "For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." ⁴ It added that prayer should accompany that reading, so that it becomes a conversation between God and the reader; we speak to him when we pray and hear him when we read. ⁴

Benedict XVI wrote that of all the ways of approaching Scripture discussed at the synod, lectio divina received the greatest attention, because it can open the treasures of God’s word and also bring about an encounter with Christ. ⁵ He noted as well that the Church grants an indulgence, under the usual conditions, for the prayerful reading of Scripture. ⁵ None of this makes lectio divina obligatory. It is a recommended way of doing what the Church asks of every Catholic, which is to know Christ through the Scriptures.

Set aside fifteen to thirty minutes in a quiet place, with a Bible and nothing else. Then follow these steps.

1. Choose a short passage in advance, ten or fifteen verses at most. The Gospel for the coming Sunday is a good default.
2. Settle. Sit still for a minute, become aware that God is present, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear.
3. Read the passage slowly, preferably aloud, and then read it again.
4. Notice a word or phrase that catches your attention, and stay with it rather than pressing on.
5. Reflect on it. Turn it over, repeat it, ask why it stopped you and what it touches in your life now.
6. Respond to God in your own words: thanks, sorrow, a request, a question, a complaint.
7. Rest. Stop talking and simply remain with God for a while, without trying to produce anything.
8. Resolve. Before you get up, choose one small, concrete thing to carry into the day.

The reading step is the one people rush. The point is not to get through the passage but to let it be heard, which is why reading aloud helps. Benedict XVI says this first step asks what the text says in itself, and that without it the passage becomes a pretext for our own ideas. ⁵ So read it as it is: who is speaking, to whom, where, what happens. A note in a study Bible is fine at this stage. A commentary is not; it will turn prayer into study.

Reflection is where Guigo’s image of chewing fits. ³ If the phrase that stopped you is "he went in with them," from the story of the road to Emmaus, you might ask where in your own life you have wanted Christ to stay and been afraid to ask. ⁹ Bring your actual circumstances to the text: your work, your marriage, the decision in front of you, the person you are angry with.

Then speak. Prayer at this stage is not a formula. It is whatever honestly comes out of what you have read, and it can be short. When the words run out, let them run out, and stay. That stillness is the step people most often skip because it feels like doing nothing. It is closer to what Guigo calls tasting. ³

Finally, the resolution. Benedict XVI’s point about action is that the word received in prayer is meant to show up in charity toward others. ⁵ Keep it small and specific: a phone call, an apology, ten minutes given to someone who wants your time.

The simplest choice is the readings of the day or of the coming Sunday, which the bishops of the United States publish each day on their website. ⁸ Praying with the Sunday Gospel during the week ties lectio divina to the Mass, as the Church hopes it will be, and it means that by Sunday the reading at Mass is already familiar. Narratives from the Gospels and the Psalms tend to work better for beginners than the dense arguments of Paul’s letters.

Some passages that suit a first attempt:

• Luke 24:13–35, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
• John 21:1–19, breakfast on the shore and Peter’s threefold answer.
• Psalm 23, the Lord as shepherd, which is also in the prayer library.
• Isaiah 43:1–5, God calling his people by name.
• Mark 10:46–52, blind Bartimaeus at the roadside.
• Luke 1:46–55, Mary’s song, the Magnificat.

The Emmaus story is almost a description of lectio divina itself. After Christ has explained the Scriptures to them and vanished, the disciples say to each other: "Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in this way, and opened to us the scriptures?" ⁹

Lectio divina works well in a parish group, and the U.S. bishops’ introduction describes parishes where people meet weekly to pray with the readings of the following Sunday. ¹ Benedict XVI also warned against treating Scripture individualistically, since the word is given to build up the Church and is best read in communion with it. ⁵

A common pattern runs like this. One person reads the passage aloud and everyone sits in silence for a minute or two. A second person reads it again, and each person who wishes says, without explanation, the word or phrase that struck them. After a third reading, people may say briefly what that word seems to be asking of them. The group closes with shared prayer and a few minutes of silence.

Two rules keep it prayer. Nobody comments on what someone else has said, and nobody debates the text. A group that wants to argue about interpretation is doing Bible study, which is a good thing to do, on another evening.

Distraction is universal. When you notice your mind has gone to the shopping list, come back to the word you were holding, without scolding yourself. Returning a hundred times is not failure; it is the prayer.

Dryness is common too: days or weeks when the passage seems flat and prayer feels like talking to the ceiling. It happens to almost everyone who prays for long, and it does not mean you are doing it wrong. Keep the time anyway, and keep it short if you need to.

"Nothing happened" usually means that nothing dramatic happened. Lectio divina is not meant to generate insights on demand, and most sessions are quiet. What it does over months is wear a few phrases of Scripture into your memory so that they come back when you need them. It is also worth being cautious in the other direction. A strong impression during prayer is not automatically a message from God, especially if it concerns a large decision. The Church has a long tradition of discernment for testing such things, and it is rarely done well alone.

Bible study asks what a text meant, using history, language and the teaching of the Church to understand it correctly. Lectio divina asks what God is saying to you through it now. Both are needed, and they depend on each other. Benedict XVI’s first question, what the text says in itself, is the point where lectio divina borrows from study, so that prayer does not drift into making the passage say whatever we like. ⁵

In practice the difference is in speed and amount. A study session might cover a chapter and three commentaries. A session of lectio divina might spend twenty minutes on one sentence.

Ignatian contemplation, taught by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, is a close relative. Instead of dwelling on a word, you imagine yourself into a Gospel scene. In his contemplation on the Nativity, Ignatius asks the person praying to see the road to Bethlehem in imagination, then to see the persons, listen to what they say, and watch what they do, "as if I found myself present." ¹⁰ Lectio divina leans on the word; Ignatian contemplation leans on the imagination. Both end in conversation with Christ, and many people use one or the other depending on the passage. A Gospel story suits Ignatius’ method; a psalm or a saying of Jesus suits lectio divina.

What happens in lectio divina is often exactly what a spiritual director wants to hear about: the phrase that kept returning all week, the passage that made you angry, the long stretch when nothing seemed to happen, the resolution you keep not keeping. A director is not there to interpret your prayer for you, but to help you notice where God may be at work in it and where your own wishes may be speaking louder. That is especially important when prayer seems to point toward a decision, which is the territory of discernment.

Your parish priest is the first person to ask about finding a director, and many dioceses keep a list. GraceBook also lists Catholic mentors who offer spiritual direction by video; each describes their own background and has signed the Mentor Agreement, which you can read before choosing someone.