Lectio Divina Group

 

This evening some friends are coming round to my flat for our weekly group Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is different from a Bible study. It involves a lot of silence and it's about 'sinking into' a short Bible passage, letting the Holy Spirit work as we 'sit' with the passage or with a word or phrase in the passage that stood out to us. It's about engaging with the Bible at a much deeper level than our heads. We're not trying to understand the Bible passage with our intellect. We're trying to let it enter into us deeply and change us. I'll do a post on individual Lectio Divina some other time but here's how we do it as a group:

 

We choose a short passage, usually the day's Gospel passage (see post entitled 'The Day's Gospel Reading' if you're not sure what this is). 

 

We begin by praying that we will encounter the living Christ through what we read, and that the Holy Spirit will be at work in us as we sit in silence with the passage.

 

The Bible passage is read out loud, slowly, twice.  We then go round in a circle, each saying which word or phrase stood out most for us. We don't explain why it stood out for us and we don't enter into any discussion. We're here to listen to the Holy Spirit rather than each other's comments or opinions.

 

The Bible passage is read out loud again and then we sit in silence for some time - around 10mins. During the silence we pay attention to the part of the passage that stood out to us. We pay attention to our emotions, and we pay attention to any questions or thoughts or pictures that arise. Sometimes we use our imaginations to put ourselves in the story as if we were really there... At the end of the silence, we take it in turns (if we want to) to share our experiences of what happened when we sat prayerfully with the passage. We don't discuss each other's experiences and there is no 'right or wrong' experience. We try to keep talking to a minimum.

 

The Bible passage is read out loud again. We have a short time of silence to respond to God individually in whatever ways we feel led to.  Then those who want to, pray out loud. Our prayers are in response to the passage we've been sitting with.

 

The steps up until now are more the 'Lectio Divina' part of what we do, but we combine this with something a bit more similar to a evangelical cell group. We therefore add two more 'steps'. We read the Bible passage out loud one final time then sit in silence asking God how He wants us to respond to the passage and how it relates to how we should see and treat others. We then share anything we want to share on that subject and perhaps have a very brief discussion about 'living out' the passage.

 

Finally, we ask each other what we would like prayer for and we pray for each other, whether out loud or in our hearts.

 

With four people taking part most weeks, the whole pattern takes around one hour, with the majority of that hour being prayer rather than discussion.

The Day's Gospel Reading

If you've read my introductory post on the lectionary, you'll know there are Bible passages set for Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and the Eucharist for every day of the week. The readings for the Eucharist are a bit shorter than the Morning and Evening Prayer readings, and they always contain a short reading from one of the four Gospels. When people talk about "the day's Gospel reading" it's this that they're talking about.

Some people like to reflect every day on a short passage from one of the Gospels. And some people like to do Lectio Divina with the day's Gospel passage.

Here are three websites that help us reflect on the day's Gospel reading:

This one, called "Pray as You Go" is a podcast you can download. It gives you a 15min reflection on one of the readings set for the Eucharist that day - 95% of the time it's the Gospel passage. They read the passage out twice and give you a few questions about the passage to contemplate. It's a bit like a form of Lectio Divina that you can engage with while you're driving or eating lunch or whatever you're doing: http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/home/

This website is ideal for people on a break at work and sat at a computer. It leads you through a mini Examen and short reflection on the day's Gospel reading. Rather than being a podcast, it's a kind of prayer slideshow that you go through at your own pace: http://www.sacredspace.ie/daily-prayer

This third website is great if you want to do Lectio Divina with the day's Gospel passage. It gives you some background context or commentary on the passage, and once you've read the Gospel passage it gives you some questions to help you reflect on it:  http://ocarm.org/en/lectio-divina

Morning Prayer (Part Two)

Morning Prayer takes about 20-30mins. It follows a set pattern of an introduction prayer, one or more of the Psalms, an Old Testament reading and New Testament reading, a couple of songs from the Bible (canticles), and then intercessions - for the world, the Church, our communities and the day ahead. In some churches they might add a song. If I'm praying Morning Prayer at home I sometimes add a modern Christian song that I listen to off Youtube. Some of the words of Morning Prayer change depending on what day of the week it is, or what season of the year it is (Advent, Lent, Easter etc.). That helps us even more to meditate on different themes over the course of the year.

My personal feeling is that because there's a kind of formality about Morning Prayer (although there's nothing wrong with you praying it on your sofa in your slippers with a cup of coffee), we also need a time each day when we praise God in our own words and talk intimately and informally with God about our own spiritual life and what's on our hearts. Personally I feel the best pattern is to combine Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer with a more informal time of prayer each day that focuses more on our own personal walk with God. I like the Daily Examen that I mention in another post...

You can buy a book called Common Worship Daily Prayer that has Morning and Evening Prayer written out in it. If you use that book (see the photo above) you also need a lectionary and a Bible with you so you can look up the passages for that day, then read them.

Alternatively (and much more easily) you can just go to this website which inserts the right Bible readings for you and makes sure you're reading the prayers for the correct day of the week or season: http://daily.commonworship.com/daily.cgi? or you can download the app here: https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/join-us-in-daily-prayer.aspx

A guided reflection on your day (Youtube video)

 

 

 

This might make more sense if you've already read my first post on the Daily Examen. This video guides you through a short prayerful reflection on your day.

The Eucharist (an overview)

Here's a little collage I made of the general pattern of the Eucharist.

1. Confession for not being as loving as we ought to have been. Thanking God for His assurance of forgiveness and receiving that forgiveness.

2. Praising God for who He is and for what He has done (and is still doing) in the world.

3. Reflecting on Bible passages and through them, encountering the Living Word (Jesus) himself.

4. Praying for others - for the Church, for the world, for what's been in the news, for our local communities, for anyone who is suffering or unwell, for those who are dying or grieving, and for the souls of those who have died.

5. Remembering Jesus' words and actions the night before he died. Remembering the crucifixion and it's meaning for the world. Then receiving Jesus in the Holy Communion and renewing/deepening our intimacy with him.

6. Being sent out into the world to love and serve God and others.

Differences between catholic and evangelical

When I was at uni, I was more evangelical because that was the tradition most people my age belonged to. While I was there I had a Roman Catholic boyfriend and I got talking a lot with an Anglo-Catholic chaplain. They helped me begin to see the different emphases between more 'evangelical' and more 'catholic' theology and spiritually.

I found a book about Anglicanism at one point that set out in two columns the main differences in spirituality between the evangelical and catholic wings of the Anglican church. Without wanting to go into too much in-depth theology, here are the main differences in spirituality I've read about and observed myself:

As a generalisation, evangelicals focus more on 'I' and catholics focus more on 'we'.

A lot of songs in evangelical churches use 'I' and 'me' in them to help people appreciate the personal forgiveness and intimate relationship Jesus offers us. While evangelicals pray in groups a lot, the daily prayer life of individual evangelicals tends to focus on a daily "quiet time" that focuses on that individual's personal walk with God and response to God. Catholic prayers and songs tend to use 'we' and 'us' more, and almost every gathering or service makes sure to have an element of praying for the wider community and Church and world.  Even when more catholic Christians pray on their own at home, there is still a sense of 'connection with the wider Church' about it. They intentionally use the same prayers and same Bible readings as other Christians on any given day. For catholics, to be a Christian isn't just to be someone who has responded to Jesus for themselves, it's very much to be a member of the worldwide Church.

Evangelicals focus on the fact that Jesus died for you personally (not that catholics would disagree with that). The more catholic focus regarding Jesus' death seems to be on how Jesus died to reconcile the whole world, and not just all people but all creation to himself.

When evangelicals talk about "the Word of God", they mean the Bible. When catholics talk about "the Word of God", they mean Jesus himself. The Bible is extremely important in catholic thought because it points to and helps us get to know the Living Word of God Himself.

Evangelical spirituality places a lot of emphasis on the Bible, and on Bible study, good preaching, teaching, courses to help people understand their faith. The talk (sermon) is the highlight of the service, and when an evangelical is looking for a church to join, good preaching is likely to be one of their big concerns. Catholic spirituality, on the other hand, places a lot of emphasis on the Eucharist. 'More catholic' churches celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday as their main service, and while the Eucharist contains Bible study in the readings and sermon, the receiving of Holy Communion (the receiving of "the living Word of God" directly into our bodies) is the highlight of the service. The intimacy of our relationship with Jesus is particularly reinforced in Holy Communion in more catholic thought.

As an overgeneralization, evangelical spirituality tends to be a bit more words based and intellect based - although charismatic spirituality emphasises experience and personal encounter with God. Catholic spirituality wants to use as many of the five sense as possible in worship, hence the incense and bells and use of the body (kneeling and making the sign of the cross for example).

That's just a few of the main differences I'm aware of so far as prayer and worship are concerned.

Morning Prayer (Part One)

You're probably already aware that the Jewish way of praying is to stop and pray seven times a day. (Muslims similarly stop and pray at certain times in the day). For centuries, Christians have also stopped to pray seven times a day, and in convents and monasteries they still do that. Obviously that's not possible for those of us who are studying or job-seeking or working! For people who aren't monks and nuns, the pattern has become a much more simplified Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer with perhaps Night Prayer (or Compline) at the end of the day.

Just like the worship in the Jerusalem Temple went on continually at these set points of the day, in the Anglican church our public and communal worship of God goes on continually with most Cathedrals keeping Morning and Evening Prayer going every day of the week. Some parish churches also maintain Morning Prayer and most priests in the Church of England commit to praying at least one, if not both, of Morning or Evening prayer every day.

Morning Prayer is quite different from the more evangelical "quiet time with God". Rather than it being a time to focus on my personal worship of God and my personal spiritual life, it's more of a communal 'priesthood of all believers' activity. The focus is on us praising God together, meditating on His love and His saving work throughout history, and praying for the world and our communities.

Morning and Evening Prayer are referred to as the Daily Office or Divine Office (meaning 'duty), because it's our duty to continually praise God and pray for the world. My understanding is that this sense of duty stems from our role as priests (in an Old Testament kind of sense). We pray Morning Prayer faithfully even when we don't feel like it. The Daily Office is for God and for the world rather than for our own spiritual benefit - although it does have the consequence of helping us get to know God (and the Bible) better and making us more outward looking...



Getting some silence in

I once heard about the Bishop of Reading standing on a train station platform and giving out egg timers to commuters, encouraging them to sit quietly and do nothing for three minutes a day. He was stressing the importance of stillness in our day, even if it's only for three minutes.

We've all got timers on our mobiles. I'm sure we could all benefit from getting into a daily habit of setting them for 3mins or 5mins or 10mins as a way of reconnecting with God and becoming more aware of His presence and the bigger picture of our lives.

Very occasionally I join others at my Cathedral for Morning Prayer, rather than praying it on my own at home. Every day at the Cathedral, they have a three minute silence as part of Morning Prayer and they introduce it by saying, "Let us encounter God in the stillness and creativity of silence..."

The Benefits of the Lectionary



 

 

A lectionary is pretty much a Bible reading plan that's followed by thousands of Christians (even from other denominations). It means we can all read the same Bible passages on the same days even though we can't all physically meet together.

 

There's a lectionary used by lots of denominations and across the whole world for the Bible passages that we'll all read 'together' on Sunday in church. It's called 'The Revised Common Lectionary'. (See my post on 'The Sunday Lectionary'.)

 

In the Church of England there's also the Common Worship 'daily prayer' lectionary. That one's for every day of the year - for Morning and Evening Prayer and midweek Eucharists.

 

I guess all reading the same Bible passages on the same days emphasises that we're one big Christian family and we're on a spiritual journey together. (NB what I said in a previous post about catholic spirituality being more 'we' than 'I'?) The lectionary helps us read through the whole Bible over a period of time and it also helps us focus on certain themes at certain times of the year. For example every day during Lent we read passages that focus on injustice and repentance and forgiveness. You can buy the 'daily prayer' lectionary as a little booklet from a Christian bookshop. There are also lectionary apps and websites.

 

 

 

 

I've found that one of the great things about following a lectionary in your personal prayer life is that you're not stuck deciding what Bible passage to read that day. Another great thing is it encourages you to read bits of the Bible you might not normally read, keeps your reading balanced by giving you an Old Testament reading, Psalm and New Testament reading each time, and keeps you from falling into the trap of just choosing the bits you know or like or that challenge you less! I like the fact that on any given day I can text a friend and say, "What did you make of this morning's Old Testament reading?!", or on Sundays I know that my friends in different churches around my city, in different towns across my country, and even my friends across the world in California are all reading and praying about the same Bible passages. It's quite common among my friends to have discussions on Facebook about 'this Sunday's Gospel reading'.

 

The Daily Examen

The Daily Examen (of Conscience/Consciousness) comes from Ignatian spirituality.  I've heard some people suggest it's one of the most important parts of our day if we want to grow in spiritual maturity. The idea is that you look back over your day with God and talk about what you see, thanking Him for various things that happened that day, confessing your slip-ups and asking for God's help to be more loving and faithful tomorrow. It's also about asking the Holy Spirit to help you notice things - how God used you that day, how God spoke to you through others, how you walked past that person without stopping to help them, why that situation or conversation upset you so much... Sometimes people explore the best and worst parts of their day, asking God and what He wants to say about / through those situations.

People do this daily review with God in different ways. The most common is to do one each day towards bedtime. I expect some have a more formal approach to it and others a more informal approach. Some might write in a journal as part of their examen. In general I've heard that 10-15 mins is the right kind of length of time to set aside for it.

Personally I do mine in quite an informal way in the early evening once I've had dinner and finished washing up. I sit on my sofa with a cup of tea and talk with God about my day as if I was talking to a best friend or husband or parent. It really is a powerful and Spirit filled form of prayer. I suppose it's a kind of 'listening prayer' at a deep level - noticing how God is intimately involved in the events, conversations and emotions of your day...

Here's a link to a Youtube clip on the Examen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHQOcRqc758

Simple silent presence

I was chatting with a friend today and he mentioned that he had been taught how Christians tend to go through stages of evangelism as they mature spiritually. First the emphasis is on words and wanting to tell people about Jesus. Then they find they realise evangelism is more than words and trying to convert people so they also focus on helping people in practical ways. Eventually they realise the profound impact of even just being a silent presence with someone in a need, or a visible presence in a community.

These stages echo a similar pattern I see that we go through in prayer:

First we see prayer as mainly about words and talking. We then also realise the importance of listening and giving God a chance to speak to us! Intercession at first takes the form of listing specific requests to God.

Our prayer lives then urge us to leave our rooms or church buildings to put our prayer into action. We realise we can't pray and not do something about our faith and our prayers and our love for God. Even the way we view intercession changes and we see the connection between praying for people and situations, and offering ourselves to God to be part of the answer to those prayers.

Then later on there comes a depth of stillness and simple presence about our prayer lives. We feel led into ways of sitting with God that don't involve any words or thoughts or even trying to hear what God is saying. It's more like two people in love simply enjoying each other's company. And even our intercession becomes simplified somehow. We realise that intercession doesn't necessarily need great detail, that we can just hold someone in prayer at a place deeper than words, or bring them to God in prayer like the four friends brought the paralyzed man to Jesus and simply laid him at his feet in expectant faith.

The difference between Catholic and catholic



I didn't realise until somebody once explained to me that there is 'capital c' Catholic and 'small c' catholic!

'Capital c' Catholic means Roman Catholic.

'Small c' catholic means 'universal'. As part of the creed, Christians say that they believe in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church".

Sometimes people use the words 'catholic' and 'evangelical' to describe two fairly different spiritual and theological traditions within Christianity. These two different 'traditions' have quite different ways of talking about God and the Church, different ways of praying, and slightly different emphases. I've written a post on this entitled 'Differences between catholic and evangelical'.