Lectio Divina

Chew on this.
Lectio Divina is Latin for “Divine Reading”. It is the spiritual exercise of praying or singing the Scriptures slowly and contemplatively.

Ruminate: ru•mi•nate
1. To chew the cud, as a ruminant.
2. To chew again or over and over.
3. To meditate on; ponder or muse.

While the word ruminate may not be familiar, the activity of ruminating is. It is what we do when we worry or fret over something. We re-play arguments or hurts in our mind, over and over; we imagine what we would say to the person who has wronged us; we mutter and mumble to ourselves saying, “I can’t believe she had the nerve to say that to me!” We imagine all kinds of terrible scenarios. This is ruminating in a negative way.

Instead of running this type of internal dialogue, we should recall the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the Philippians:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

It Makes Me Wonder…
You may have thought that the band Led Zeppelin came up with the phrase, “Stairway to Heaven”. Actually, it was a 12th century European monk named Guigo de Castro who described Lectio Divina by this term. In his work, Guigo outlined a form of meditative pray that was analogous to the rungs of a ladder.

Rung 1: READ (Lectio)
Rung 2: MEDITATE (Meditatio)
Rung 3: PRAY (Oratio) & CONTEMPLATE (Contemplatio)
Rung 4: DISCUSS (Collatio)
Rung 5: WITNESS IN THE WORLD (Operatio)