Lectio and Prayer
St Benedict sees monastic life as being lived out in the presence of God.
Bible reading
We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that in every place the eyes of the Lord are watching the good and the wicked. (RB 19:1)
In living the monastic way of life, Benedict wishes his monks to deepen their awareness of God’s loving presence. By so doing they will become prayerful people and all of their lives will be prayer filled.
One of the key practices which St Benedict prescribes to achieve this goal is lectio divina or sacred/holy reading. Benedict encourages us to spend several hours a day reading Scripture in a prayerful way so that we can hear God speaking a personal word to us and enter into a deeper relationship with him.
Through the practice of lectio the Word of God can slowly penetrate our inmost being so that we can gradually become more Christ-like in our thinking, speaking and doing. This process is called by St Paul ‘putting on the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2:16) and involves above all the conversion of our thinking patterns so that we can begin to see the world through the eyes of Christ.
A wonderful definition of this process of assimilating God’s Word was given by the German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life in opposition to Hitler:
We ponder the chosen text on the strength of the promise that it has something utterly personal to say to us for this day … Here we are not expounding [the text] or preparing a sermon or conducting Bible study of any kind; we are rather waiting for God’s Word to us … Often we are so burdened and overwhelmed with other thoughts, images and concerns that it may take a long time before God’s Word has swept all else aside and come through. But it will surely come … — Life Together, SCM Press, 1954, p.62.
Prayer
Alongside the communal prayer of the Office, the English Benedictine tradition also stresses the importance of personal prayer.
The whole organisation of the monastic schedule is to create the time, space and silence that is vital to grow in the life of prayer. Pope St John Paul II writes:
the call to holiness can be cultivated only in the silence of adoration before the infinite transcendence of God. We all have the need of this silence, filled with the presence of him who is adored. All need to learn a silence that allows the Other to speak when and how He wishes. Orientale Lumen 16
Spirituality
A careful reading of the Rule makes it clear that Benedict wished his monastic followers to make the entire day a time of more or less intense awareness of God’s presence. (Cherish Christ Above All, p. 136)
Through the daily round of singing the psalms, lectio and work, monastic life seeks to develop this intense awareness of, and relationship with, God as an ever-present reality, an eternal backdrop to the everyday. This awareness is spoken of in Scripture as ‘fear of the Lord’ and is the foundation on which humility, Benedict’s key monastic virtue, is built.
The second striking feature of Benedictine spirituality is the centrality of Christ. The monks must “prefer nothing whatever to Christ” (RB 72:11). When we serve others, we meet Christ in them and serve him in them.
