3. Lectio
Spiritual Reading is a way or method (reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation, journaling, action) of taking the Word of God to heart and allowing it to form us into the image of God.

Wiederkehr, Macrina, OSB. A Tree Full of Angels Chapter 5 “Into the Eye of God” p49-63
1.How do we seek “intimate communion through persistent dwelling with and in the Word of God”?
2.Describe each of the phases of Lectio by using Abbot Marmion’s quote: “Read under the eye of God until your heart is touched then give yourself up to love.”
3.How might you choose to do Lectio?

Wiederkehr, Macrina. The Song of the Seed p3-20
1.Describe how to do each of the six elements of lectio: Quieting the Soul, Reflective Reading, Contemplative Sitting, Meditation, Prayer, and Journaling.
2.Begin a practice of lectio by using selections from The Song of the Seed.

Casey, Michael.. Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina. Ch 1 “The Spirit of Monastic Lectio p. 1-28
1. How do integrity of text, fidelity, assiduity, and reverence help in forming us in the spirit of Monastic Lectio?
Optional
Keating, Thomas. Spiritual Journey Video Tape 1 “Prayer is Relating to God”
1. Keating speaks of our friendship with God as developed through lectio divina. He decribes human relating and relating to God in the following analogies: acquaintanceship is similar to reading the Scripture, friendliness to reflecting on the Scripture, friendship to spontaneous prayer, and union of life to resting in God. Compare each of these ideas.
Aigner, Jill, OSB, Foundations Last Forever: Lectio Divina: a Mode of Spiritual Prayer

4. Holy Reading
The monastic practice of lectio divina, the prayerful reading of Holy Scripture or spiritual writings, involves hearing as well as response. Response to God is the primary emphasis of the monastic practice of lectio divina.

Vest, Norvene. No Moment too Small Chapter 2 “Holy Reading” p59-90
1. How has the monastic practice of lectio developed over the centuries?
2. Describe the Benedictine discipline of lectio rooted in the “allegorical” method of scriptural exegesis using the literal or historical meaning, the allegorical, the tropological and the anagogical.
3. The basis of lectio and the allegorical method is the pattern of listening, response, and transformation. How do lectio and the allegorical approach to Scripture teach us a foundational approach to Scripture and life?
4. Describe how to do a lectio-on-life and how you might use this form of lectio in your own prayer?

5. Mindfulness of God and Discernment
Cassian’s teaching on the goal of the monk is mindfulness which “is acquired through meditation on Scripture, discernment, the works of justice, self-knowledge, and prayer.” (Kristin Wenninghoff, OSB)

Wenninghoff, Kristin, OSB, Spirit and Life Sept/Oct 1989 “Mindfulness of the Last Things” p25-28
Casey, Michael CS 1982:2 “Mindfulness of God in the Monastic Tradition” p111-126
1. Kristin says “Mindfulness of God is acquired through meditation on Scripture, discernment, the works of justice, self- knowledge, and prayer.” Let's talk about examples of each of these. Michael Casey speaks of mindfulness as praxis, as “Meditatio” and as Transformation. Explain each. Joan Chittister says “in Benedictine spirituality, everything is sacred and everything is one.” “To the monastic mind, everything speaks of God.” What are some ways this can happen for a person?
2. How do you understand mindfulness?

Casey, Michael. Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Chapter 3 “Levels of Meaning-Mindfulness” p. 70-76
1. How does mindfulness allow God’s word to flow more freely into my life and what are reasons it does not?

6. Desire for God: Humility
The awakening of love occurs through a growth of desire and a transformation of desire through humility.
“The spiritual journey is a training in consent to God’s presence and to all reality.” (Keating, Invitation to Love)
“The kernel of prayer is desire…” (Casey. Toward God)

Chittister, Joan, OSB. Living the Rule Today p65-78
1.Describe Benedict’s understanding of spiritual development. How is the ladder of humility a way of access to God and how is prayer understood in this spiritual development?
Chittister, Joan, OSB. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily p51-66
1.In Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Joan Chittister says: “If I really believe God is present in my life, here and now, then I have no choice but to deal with that.” p 53 How is humility the reality of God to the full?

7. Continual Prayer
“St. Benedict sees the objective of the monk as the pursuit of God, that uppermost thought forms the basis for his continual prayer.” (Wulstan Mork)

Mork, Wulstan. The Benedictine Way Chapter 2 “Continual Prayer” p. 13-27
1. Describe the Benedictine Prayer Tradition and how it helps the monastic pray always?

Bockmann, Aquinata, OSB, Benedictines Fall/Winter 1988-89 “Benedictine Prayer Tradition and the Jesus Prayer” 18-29
1. How is the Jesus Prayer reflected in the RB?

Cummings, Charles, OCSO, Monastic Practices “Short Prayers” p103-113
1.How did the early monastics discover the practice of repeating short prayers? Of what benefit are short prayers today?

Casey, Michael Toward God Ch 9 “Short Prayers” p90-99
1.How does a short prayer become the foundation for living mindful of the presence of God?

8. Meditation
Casey, Michael Toward God Ch 10 “Creating Space for Meditation” p 102-117
1.What are some aids to Meditation?

Main, John Word into Silence p 1-79
1. How would you meditate if you were following John Main description of meditation?

9. Anthony as a Paradigm (Pattern) of the Spiritual Journey
Anthony’s life is a blueprint ("Letting go of emotional programs to attain purity of heart; Practice of virtue to interiorize the values of the Gospel, Incessant prayer to attain intimacy with God") for the spiritual journey and it can be a blueprint for our own spiritual journey. “Anthony of Egypt discovered and organized the four basic elements of the contemplative lifestyle: solitude, silence, simplicity, and a discipline for prayer and action.” (Keating. Invitation to Love)

Keating, Thomas Invitation to Love Ch 9 “Anthony as a Paradigm of the Spiritual Journey” p. 58-66
1.How is Anthony a good paradigm for for the spiritual journey?
Optional
Keating, Thomas. The Spiritual Journey Video Tape 13 “Anthony as a Paradigm of the Spiritual Journey”
1. The principles of the Spiritual Journey are exemplified in the life of St. Antony of Egypt. What are they?
2. How might Antony's life be a paradigm for our own spiritual journey?

The self is transformed as “Antony moves progressively from one `home’ to another as he progresses in his discipline, his internal perfection of life.”

Sutera, Judith, OSB, CS 27:2 1992 “Place and Stability in the Life of Antony” p101-113 "
1. Judith Sutera says “The monastic life...is a journey into another environment that places the rest of the world in a different perspective.” How does each these places help Antony’s new level in spiritual awareness and his growing relationship to the world around him?

10. Anthony as a Paradigm of the Spiritual Journey Continued
True/False Self
Anthony’s “biography provides a paradigm for dismantling the false self .

Wick, Robert. Touching the Holy Chapter 2 “Lessons from the Desert” p31-57
1. Dismantling the false-self system is a gradual realization of our unconscious value systems
located in the sensation, power and security centers. Threats to discovering our true selves reside in projection, callousness, or deafness to the Word of God and our own duplicity. How might awareness of God’s presence in prayer and in our life dismantle the emotional programs and lead us to an integration of our true self? Optional
Keating, Thomas. The Spiritual Journey Video Tape 14 “Liberation from the False-Self System” and/or
Keating, Thomas. Open Mind, Open Heart Chapter 9 "The Unloading of the Unconscious p93-107

11. Discernment
*Discernment is encountering God through listening to the desires of our heart and being nourished by silence, prayer, liturgy of the Hours and stability in the monastic life. “Communal discernment depends upon, flows from and is the fruit of lives lived out of a discerning stance.” (p. 12 With a Listening Heart. Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses)

Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses Upon this Tradition, V With a Listening Heart
1.How do I and my community live in a discerning manner in the everyday of monastic life?
2.Explain how silence, lectio, liturgy of the hours, stability aid discernment.
3.How is discernment a way of life?
4.How is individual and communal discernment practiced?

12. Dimensions of Contemplative Prayer
Casey, Michael Toward God Ch 14 “Contemplation” p 160-179
1. How is the contemplative act ike stepping out of space and time?
Keating, Thomas. Open Mind, Open Heart p13-18;33-42;109-115
1.What is contemplative prayer and what are its fruits?
2.How do you do centering prayer?
Keating, Thomas Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation Ch 19 “The Essence of Contemplative Prayer” p 113-119
1.What is not contemplative prayer?
Optional
Keating, Thomas. The Spiritual Journey Video Tape 4 “Centering Prayer as Method” and/or
Keating, Thomas. Open Mind, Open Heart Chapter 4 “First Steps in Centering Prayer” p.33-42; 109-115 (optional: read book)
1. How can centering prayer lead to pure prayer?

13. Compunction/Gift of Tears
Compunction and the gift of tears are a preoccupation with God rather than own sinfulness; a sense of overwhelming goodness and love that God is and the movement of the heart/tears which results from this awareness.

Casey, Michael. Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Chapter 1 “The Spirit of Monastic Lectio-Compunction p. 29-32
1.How does lectio provide “a mirror in which may be seen the movements of one’s own soul”, of compunction?

Wenninghoff, Kristin Spirit and Life Nov/Dec 1988 “Compunction of Heart” p. 21-23
Bonar, Clyde Review for Religious May/June 1989 “Scripture Prayer Program” p387-393
Wenninghoff, Kristin Spirit and Life July/Aug 1987 “The Gift of Tears” p6-8
1. How was your understand compunction of heart developed through these articles?
2. What is the gift of tears and how are they related to conversion of heart in prayer?

14. Benedictine Prayer is universal, converting, reflective and communal
Joan Chittister describes Benedictine prayer as "universal, converting, reflective and communal."
Chittister, Joan. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily Chapter 3 “Prayer and Lectio: The Center and Centrifuge of Life”
Chittister, Joan. Living the Rule of Benedict Today Videotape Conference 7 “The Nature of Benedictine Prayer” (optional)
Casey, Michael, CS 15, 1980 “Saint Benedict’s Approach to Prayer” p 327-343
1. Explain how Benedictine Prayer is universal, converting, reflective and communal?
2. In Joan’s videotape she says the function of prayer is to integrate and maintain consciousness and contemplation and to live the evangelical, prophetic dimension of radical Christian life. She also says prayer is the “basis for right relationships, the sustaining force in life, the sign of divine and human communion, and the sign and expression of cenobitic community.” Develop these ideas. (optional)

15. Spirituality in Everyday Life
Wiederkehr, Macrina. A Tree Full of Angels Ch 9 “Feasting at the Table of Daily Life” p 135-155
1. Describe the varying harvests that can come from daily life. How do you find these harvests in your own life?
Keating, Thomas Invitation to Love Ch 22 “Spirituality in Everyday Life” p 130-138
1.What are some ways of working the effects of contemplative prayer into daily life?

Integration Paper: My understanding of the Nature of Benedictine Prayer is…

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