Chapter 2 | Lectio Divina for All God’s People
go beyond our current level of comfort and security: What attitudes or habits must I change in order to truly live these inspired words? Why am I so resistant to reflecting on this text more carefully? After reading a passage of the Bible, we shouldn’t be surprised if it begins to read us. The more we meditate on God’s word, the more it seeps into our lives and saturates our thoughts and feelings. St. Ambrose, a fourth-century bishop and doctor of the church, described this assimilation: “When we drink from sacred Scripture, the life-sap of the eternal Word penetrates the veins of our soul and our inner faculties.”2 This is the purpose of meditatio. It allows the dynamic word of God to so penetrate our lives that it truly infuses our minds and hearts, and we begin to embody its truth and its love.
Oratio: Praying in Response to God’s Word Lectio divina is essentially a dialogue with God, a gentle oscillation between listening to God and responding to him in prayer. As we listen in a way that becomes increasingly more personal, as lectio moves into meditatio, we recognize that God is speaking to us and offering us a message that is unique to our own lives. Once we realize God’s call to us, his personal challenge, or the insight he is trying to give us, we must answer in some way. This is the moment for prayer. Our response to God in oratio is not just any form of prayer. In the context of lectio divina, oratio is rooted directly in prayerful reading and meditation on the scriptural text. In oratio the 2 Ambrose, Commentaries on the Psalms I, 33: Patrologia Latina 14, 984. 29