Lectio Divina and the Prayer Journal - Secular Carmelites of the ...

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Lectio Divina and the Prayer Journal / 5117Godseekers. Thomas Merton had three with him on his trip to the East. s° Inour time, these journals tend to be either notes gleaned from reading to beused in homilies, conferences, and published writings, or a spiritual diaryrecording one’s daily journey with the Lord.Such notebooks and journals, excellent as they are, are not exactlyequivalent to the traditional monastic journal witnessed to in our sources. Themonastic journal is neither better nor worse than the others (it can be used incombination with them) but it presents another option. It is presented here asanother journal possibility within the spiritual heritage of the Church thatmay bear spiritual riches for modern monks and others.A facile way to distinguish the spiritual diary from the monastic lectiojournal is to describe the former as basically introspective or subjective andthe latter as basically objective. This definition is an oversimplification;nonetheless it is helpful in clarifying the difference. The spiritual diary islargely a record of my own experiences, conversations, and dreams, and myreactions to them through prayer and spiritual direction, and my reflectionson the whole process. It is a continuing record of my personal development insearching for God.The lectio divina journal is more a collection of the words that God speaksto me (primarily, but not only, in a time of prayerful reading): quotationsfrom Scripture, the Fathers, other spiritual writings, and ultimately any kindof human word (novels, poems, banners, letters) that carries the transformingwordof God into my life. These are collected as privileged words of Godbecause directed personally to my heart, with the hope that what once was avehicle for God’s sanctifying and healing touch will remain important in mylife and be a source of power again later on.This journal becomes a deposit of personal words from God, a collectionof jewels to be taken out over and over again, turned this way and that to beadmired and enjoyed. Divine words to not, however, stay at arm’s length likea casket of diamonds; they speak to the heart, challenge, go to work on theone who treasures them. The spiritual journal in this sense is rather a record ofGod’s word to me than a record of my reflection on the word and its effect inmy life. Rochais recreates the lectio atmosphere in which the medievalflorilegia were composed:Reading Scripture and the fathers, the pious writer seeks food for his soul and light forhis life; and perhaps a word, a verse, a thought stops his spirit, calls for his reflection,rouses in his heart a sudden fervor, clears up a point of doctrine, exacts a sacrifice,reveals a possibility of advancing, in order to preserve, not the passing impulse of themoment which brought him close to his Lord, animating his faith or arousing hisgenerosity, but at least a souvenir of these privileged moments, our reader notes the textswhich have been their cause. And even if he had had in view the profit of others, will he~o Naomi Buron, Patrick Hart, and James Laughlin, eds. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton(New York: New Directions, 1973), pp. xiv. - vx.
Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/4not somehow be seized again himself by the texts he had assembled for the spiritualnourishment of others? Theflorilegia are therefore witnesses to the spiritual life of theirauthors. -~,This kind of journal can be used in combination with the more reflectivewriting of the spiritual diary, but its own thrust is toward "collection,""gathering." The word legere at the root of lectio, according to Forcellini’sLexicon Totius Latinitatis, contains three generic ideas: to collect, to selectwhat one desires or needs from a plurality, to collect with the eyes: run over atext and extract what is needed. 3’Collecting the WordA looseleaf notebook is more suitable for this lectio journal than one withfixed pages, because as the collection grows the gathered words need to besifted, sorted, connected. First the words are recorded as they fall on theheart, then they may be arranged by source, by theme, by topic. Bede surelycopied out many more verses of the psalms than appear in his Libellus Precum("Little Book of Prayers"); he selected and organized them. Psalm verses stilllend themselves well to themati 9 groupings: love of God, covenant, peace,trust, praise. A lectio journal will eventually have several sections dependingon the needs of the compiler; again, the divisions may be by source (prophets,Gospels, desert Fathers, liturgy, homilies) or topic. One may collect¯ doxologies from St. Paul, the names and titles of Jesus, the sayings of saints,maxims of modern spiritual writers.The scholars involved in the renewal of the Liturgy of the Hours reachedback t.o an ancient lectio practice in deciding to provide each of the Old Testamentpsalms and canticles with a verse from the New Testament or a quotefrom the Christian Fathers as a heading or thematic connector. Psalm 42("Like the deer that yearns") is headed by a verse from Revelation: "Let allwho thirst come; let all who desire it drink from the life-giving water" (22:17).Psalm 24, announcing the Lord’s entry into the temple, is introduced by a sayingof St. Irenaeus: "Christ opened heaven for us in the manhood heassumed." The canticle of Tobit (13:1-8) praising God for deliverance is connectedwith 1 Peter 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord JesusChrist, who in his great love for us has brought us to a new birth." Medievalmonks searched for this kind of connection between promise and fulfillmentduring their hours of lectio, seeking not only headings for whole psalms, butChristian echoes for the individual verses. This "holy doodling" strengthenedtheir grip on the unity of revelation and expanded their perception of bothtexts. It also enriched their liturgical prayer by providing a sounding board forthe biblical images that washed over them day after day, season after season," Dictionnaire de SpiritualitY, Vol. 5, c01. 459¯~ Wathen, art. cir., p. 209.
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