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This home page represents approximately twenty-five years of reflections upon Scripture and the Church Fathers with periodic references to St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, two Christian authors of special personal interest.  Also included are quotations from various books and articles which have caught my attention during this period of time, and which I had deemed relevant to sustaining my ongoing practice of lectio divina.  This Latin phrase, difficult to translate into English, literally means `divine or sacred reading.`

 

Lectio divina is ordinarily confined to the slow perusal of sacred Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments; it is undertaken not with the intention of gaining information but of using the texts as an aide to contact the living God.  Basic to this practice is the union with God in faith which, in turn, finds continued nourishment and development in further reading.  There is no special program or technique to this procedure, nor is the amount of material to be covered crucial for its success.  A person can linger over even a single word or phrase for an indefinite period of time after which one moves on to further slow and careful reflection.  Thus one of the attractive features to lectio divina is that it is open-ended and subject to continued growth.

         

The following pages represent a product or sampling of this ancient exercise practiced not just in monastic communities but by a growing number of laypersons of all Christian denominations.  In fact, lectio divina is common to all by reason of our baptism.  In many instances people became interested in lectio after having been initiated into one form or another of traditional contemplative prayer which is now enjoying a certain popularity.  They discovered that such prayer requires a verification, as it were, of their practice, and the best locus for those raised in the Judeo-Christian heritage is in both the Old and New Testaments.  Prayer enables one to penetrate beyond the letter of text and to see how the Holy Spirit is speaking to us through these inspired words here and now.

 

The character of reflections in this Home Page are unique in that they rely heavily upon the biblical texts composed in the original Hebrew and Greek languages.  Also the reader will find references to Latin and Syriac texts, the latter representative of a spirituality not directly associated with the Greco-Roman world and therefore the West.  Despite frequent references to these original texts, I wish to avoid a purely etymological or scholarly approach.  That is to say, I do not wish to present them as bits of information but as the fruit of Christian contemplative prayer which must remain primary to any subsequent reflections.  While some readers may find the transliterations wearisome and somewhat dense, my constant appeal to the original texts forms an integral part of most reflections within this Home Page.  Ideally, these notes should be read with that same slow, thoughtful attitude essential to lectio divina.  I have tried to make these notes more palatable by a simple yet thorough explanation of the transliterated terms.

         

To the best of my knowledge, examples of lectio divina per se are quite limited; that is to say, I have rarely encountered them except through writings or diaries kept by monks or nuns, few of which have been made available to the general public let alone are circulated within their respective communities or religious Orders.  On the other hand, there are numerous articles and books on the subject.  Such material assumes either a how to` approach or presents historical, theological or philosophical background material, all valuable in their own respect but not representative of lectio`s practice in and by itself.

         

A leading authority on the subject of lectio divina, Jean Leclerq, osb, has noted that this slow, ruminative reading developed its own stamp, the florilegium.  Such florilegia `grew out of spiritual reading.  The monk would copy out texts he had enjoyed so as to savor them at leisure and use them anew as subjects for private meditation.  The monastic florilegium not only originated in the monk`s spiritual reading but always remained closely associated with it.`  The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York, 1988 reprint), p.182. Leclerq`s emphasis upon savoring the Word of God is integral to the Cistercian tradition which is why I make frequent reference within this Home Page to Psalm 34.8, `Taste and see that the Lord is good!`  Much of the exegesis here centers around this them of tasting Scripture which, of course, suggests ingestion and therefore assimilation.

         

I wish to stress that these reflections are personal by nature, yet they based on objective, scholarly material; while not strictly following this latter path, I have taken liberty to make associations between words and concepts which can only achieve greater meaning within the context of Christian contemplative prayer.  More likely than not, someone schooled in the literal or historical sense of Scripture may disagree with the nature of these reflections.  I freely offer them to the reader with this important caveat in mind.

 

In my opinion, the best demonstration of lectio divina is to present a personal sampling just as it is.  I ask forbearance because there is no strict logical order to these excerpts; they were assembled over twenty years mostly as reflections centered around the liturgical cycle of the Church which lays out a yearly plan of celebrating the mysteries of the Christian faith.  Since the liturgical cycle is essential for the Church`s identity, I ask the reader to keep in mind this general framework.  One may find a given theme represented in several parts of this Home Page, but they do differ significantly.  Again, these reflections derived from lectio divina are personal, originally composed with no intention to make them public, and I apologize in advance for lack of organization in the traditional sense.  This lack of schematization which one may expect in such a document is not due to laziness; scrutiny of medieval monastic documents, for example, reveal that monks jotted down their thoughts is a more or less unsystematic fashion.

         

It is not my intent to discourse upon the nature of lectio divina per se; many excellent books exist for this purpose as well as references on the Internet which may be consulted.  For the time being, I submit these texts just as they are much like a series of snap-shots with the intention of adding or altering them as occasion sees fit.  It is possible at a later time to group the notes under more specific categories.  Such is the advantage of the electronic medium!  Any comments or questions may be addressed to me either through my e-mail address, fax or in writing.  If someone makes suggestions with regard to their presentation or content, I would be most happy to seriously consider them for future incorporation into the Home Page.

         

On a personal note, I have been engaged in the practice of lectio divina for some thirty years, having been introduced to it by a Cistercian monk.  Around that time I was fortunate to have met the noted scholar, Jean Leclerq, osb, and submitted a sampling of notes when I first became in involved with lectio.  I include his letter at the end of this Home Page which presents some brief remarks with regard to the style I have adopted.

         

It may be of general interest that I have created a Home Page on the Internet devoted to the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa (fourth century) who is an important figure in the development of both Christian theology as well as mysticism.  This Home Page also contains an extensive list of scriptural references in the Song Commentaries by three noted Fathers of the Church, Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  Perhaps the reader may find this particular document useful to see how these represented had composed their respective commentaries in the spirit of lectio divina.  One may recreate, as it were, the Commentaries by focusing upon the scriptural references alone.

 

In more recent years my interest expanded to the Dialogues of Plato and how we as Christians are indebted to their composition.  This is fleshed out by several articles and studies of the Dialogues mostly through the original Greek text.

 

Richard McCambly