Sacred Reading

Lectio divina, Latin for "divine reading", is the ancient Christian practice of slow, prayerful reading of scripture, in which the text is approached not as information to be mastered but as a word through which God addresses the reader. Rooted in the monasticism of the early church and central to Benedictine life, it treats the Bible as a living voice to be listened to, lingered over and responded to, one short passage read repeatedly and pondered until a word or phrase opens into prayer. It is distinguished from study on the one hand and from mere devotional reading on the other by its aim, which is communion rather than knowledge.

The practice was carried through the medieval monasteries as the ordinary way monks engaged the scriptures, and it has been widely recovered in modern Christianity, among Catholics especially since the mid-twentieth century but also across Protestant traditions, as a method of personal prayer accessible to any reader of the Bible.