Summary
Lectio Divina is a simple but powerful form of praying with Scriptures. Catholic speaker and podcaster Danielle Bean walks you through each step of this form of prayer and how to use it to enhance your spiritual life. Then, Danielle opens up the Word of God to you through a time of guided meditation to help you more clearly hear the voice of Jesus.
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Reflective Study Guide Questions
“We have been given Sacred Scripture so that God and man may talk together, for we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying.”
St. Ambrose
1. What has been your experience praying with Scripture? How often do you really spend time meditating on the Word of God?
2. What word or phrase stood out to you in the passage? Where did you imagine yourself in the scene in relationship with Jesus?
3. What do you think God is trying to say to you through this experience?
4. What did you think about this form of praying with Scripture? What will you take away from this talk into your daily life?
Text: A Guided Meditation: Praying with the Scriptures
Hello friends, I’m Danielle Bean. Thank you for being here In this session where we’re going to do a guided meditation, a little bit of a practice of Lectio Divina, which is really just a fancy way of talking about praying with the scriptures. And there’s sort of a formula that I’m going to walk you through if you’re not very familiar with the process. No worries. This is for beginners and more experienced prayers alike. But before we do that, let’s start with a prayer.
Opening Prayer
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, we give you thanks for this time we have together. I ask you to pour your grace and your love down upon each person. Present here today, each person participating. Open our hearts and our minds to what you want us to hear in your words in scripture. Help us to see the gift that your words are to us and help us to see the ways that you are calling on us to apply those words in our everyday lives. How are you speaking to us uniquely, individually, alive and present in the scriptures right here, right now, today. We thank you for this opportunity, Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen.
A Guided Meditation
Alright, we’re going to get started here talking about praying with God’s word. And a lot of times I hear from people that are not sure how to pray with scripture. You might know that scripture needs to be more a part of your everyday life, but you’re not sure how to do that. Or practically speaking, you might sit down with your Bible and you’re like, I don’t know where to begin. Like, do I just open up on page one, start with Genesis and work my way through? I mean, yes, you can do that, but there are more structured ways that you can just sit even with a very small passage of scripture that can be really meaningful and bring a lot of spiritual fruit in your life.
So we’re going to talk about that here today and we’re going to go through a guided meditation with, uh, chapter five of John, a little section of that that I’m going to be reading and sharing with you here today, walking you through sort of a guided meditation and reflection so we can practice this together and hopefully it will inspire you to begin to use this practice, this Lectio Divina practice in your everyday life, in your daily prayer because it’s a beautiful way to go further with God’s word.
You know, sometimes I’m tempted to think I don’t know what God’s saying to me. I don’t know what His will is. I don’t know what His message is. I don’t hear His words in our life, right? And that’s true. We don’t see, like God doesn’t usually send us a message. He doesn’t usually send us a DM on Instagram or hit us over the head with, you know, a very clear directive of how we’re to live our lives. But He does speak to us those times in life when we’re tempted to think, I don’t hear God’s voice. I don’t know what He’s saying to me. We’re forgetting. We have a whole book called God’s Word and we need to be opening it up because scripture is alive and it’s real and God has a real message that’s unique to you. Have you ever heard a scripture passage read perhaps at mass or somewhere else and you just heard it in a whole new way? Maybe there was one part of the passage that stood out to you or a word that you had never really noticed in that passage before, that has a message for you, something really encouraging.
The Road to Emmaus
You know, this happened to me, a few years ago now when I was going through a difficult time in a relationship with somebody and I was really struggling with this and it was causing me a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress in my life. And during that time, I spent a little time practicing this Lectio Divina and just reading a passage of scripture very slowly and thoughtfully and carefully and listening for what God might be speaking to me in it. And at the time I read the passage of the Road to Emmaus where Jesus is walking with these people who don’t know who He is, right? And their eyes are opened through the breaking of the bread, ultimately when He joins them for a meal, but they’re on the road when He asks them, you know, what’s been going on? What are you, what are you upset about? They say, are you the only one who doesn’t know these things that have passed here these past few days? And this is what really stood out to me when I did my reading. Our Lord says to them, what things?
And you can almost hear the little twinkle in His eye like He knows full well what they’re talking about. They don’t know who He is in that moment. And when I read this, I felt our Lord speaking to me about the situation that I was worried about this relationship that I was having real difficulty with, and that he was looking at me and saying what things like tell me about them, bring it to me. Just felt so peaceful and welcoming that we can bring our burdens to God. What things, that’s one of the beautiful ways that we can pray with scripture is to hear a message from our Lord that’s very unique in particular to our circumstances. Or maybe something that you’re struggling with, something that you want to be healed from right now. Maybe there’s an obstacle towards your healing and God wants to open up your heart and your mind to what that is.
So Lectio Divina is an organized way of going through a scripture passage and just opening yourself up to what God might want to speak to you in it. You’re not always going to come away with some great insight that one particular example was really encouraging to me, but I don’t have that experience every time I pray with scripture. But being open to it is so important and sometimes the little insight doesn’t come until later. You might recognize something that our Lord is speaking to you through scripture later when a particular scripture passage might come to mind or you might bump into it elsewhere.
What is Lectio Divina?
All right, so let’s talk about what is Lectio Divina? What are we talking about here? So there are four parts when you do this and there’s no set time and there’s no wrong way to do it. So relax from the start that you’re not trying to meet some standard, but this is a helpful structure of going through a scripture passage and praying with it. So first of all, there’s the section where you read. So first of all, you want to read the passage of course, right? And don’t pick a million paragraphs. Don’t pick an entire chapter in the gospels. Pick a small section that you can really read and really dive into and just treasure each word, hear each word be open to what each word is going to speak to you. And it’s really as simple as that, it’s reading. When you’re doing this on your own, you can read silently or you might like to read aloud. Sometimes people like to do that, they like to hear it. If you’re doing this in a group setting, you can read it aloud And when we walk through this passage of John chapter five, I’m going to be reading it aloud and allowing you the opportunity to hear it, just reading it slowly, thoughtfully, and carefully. It’s what we’re called to do when we read scripture and reading it more than once. This is really important. You can do it many times, but at least two times going through it at least two times, slowly and thoughtfully listening, really listening to what the passage is going to say to you.
Meditation in Lectio Divina
Alright, this next step in Lectio Divina is meditating. So you might not really know what that means and you might think, you know, meditation is something weird and I don’t know how to do that. But you do know how to do that. It really is just reflecting on what you’ve heard, maybe pulling out a small section of it, maybe like the, those words that stood out to me were our Lord said, what things, something small like that might stand out to you And the meditating part, you would take that and just hold it and maybe repeat it and just open yourself up to what God might be speaking to you through it. You can also meditate in with your imagination. You can imagine yourself in the scene, you can imagine what it looked like, what it smelled like, what Jesus’ voice sounded like, what was happening around, what were the noises that you might hear? Put yourself in scripture. We’re meant to be doing that when we read scripture, placing ourselves really there. Visualize it, use your senses, make it come alive for you. So that’s how we meditate on it.
Responding to God During Lectio Divina
Next we pray. And now you might feel a little bit scared at this point and think, I don’t know what to say, like I don’t have something profound to say to God at this point. But really what we mean by this step is just to respond to it. What is it stirring up in your heart? Do you want to ask our Lord for something? Do you want to give Him thanks for something? Do you want to praise Him for something? Or is something on your heart that you need to ask forgiveness for? Respond to what you’ve heard in the passage? This is where we pray, and it might be done out loud if it’s in a group setting or if you’re just reading through on your own. This is something you can just do quietly and silently on your own just to respond to the passage in some way.
Contemplation in Lectio Divina
And then the final step of Lectio Divina is contemplation. And now contemplative prayer is something that might sound just beyond your reach. Like you think I’m busy, I’m distracted, I can barely, you know, spit out an Our Father, there’s no way I’m going to contemplate. But you need to grow in this because we’re meant to be connecting with our creator in this way. And what it really means is just being in God’s presence, noting His presence, being open to Him, being present to Him. I once heard a beautiful description of adoration. there was a, a holy man who was in at adoration praying before the blessed sacrament for a long time. And when he came out someone asked him, what do you do in there? And he said, I look at Him and He looks at me.
Isn’t that a beautiful description of prayer? Can you imagine yourself doing that? Just being still? Sometimes we get caught up in we, we get in our own way sometimes because we think I’ve got to have the right thing to say, I’ve got to have the right thing to do. Where prayer isn’t about you accomplishing anything, it’s about a, allowing our Lord to accomplish things in you, allowing God to come in and change your heart. And that you find that by being, still being open, being receptive to the way that God wants to work in your heart and in your soul. So that’s the contemplation, just spending time in silence and maybe even making a commitment after that out of your relationship with the Lord for what you’re going to do differently or how you’re going to respond to that in a real way in your everyday life.
So these are the beautiful steps of Lectio Divina and you, once you know them, you don’t need to have the formula written down. And there are all kinds of guided ways you can do this and there are different prayer apps that you might enjoy. If you really want a guide then you know, you might look for a resource like that to get started. But ultimately this is just a practice that you can do just on your own when you’re reading scripture. This is just a beautiful way of not just reading it and thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner while you’re reading the passage or thinking about, you know, you have to pick up the kids later or whatever’s going on with you. It’s a way of reading it in a very deliberate way and being open to what God might want to speak to you through it.
John 5:1-9
Alright, I’m going to lead you through a guided meditation practice here, your own practice of Lectio Divina. If you’ve never done it before, welcome, this is going to be fun. You’re going to learn a new way of connecting with God and a new way of interacting with scripture. But just so you can get a feel for how practically speaking this works, we’re going to go through and we’re going to use a chapter, like I said, from John chapter five, verses one through nine.
And we’re going to just see what God has to speak to us through this passage, especially about our healing today. Alright? So first, make sure you’re comfortable. Make sure there’s nothing noisy or that’s going to pull you away right now. Maybe put your phone away. Oh, and I should say at the start of this, if at any point during this session you want more time in quiet and stillness, just hit that pause button. Take all the time that you want, spend the time with God that you need and open yourself up to hearing what He has to speak to you in that silence. So definitely take advantage of that. Alright, so get comfortable, maybe close your eyes. I’m going to be doing the reading here so you don’t have to worry about that. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
John chapter five, verses one through nine. “After this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there isn’t Jerusalem by the sheep gate, A pool in Hebrew called Bethesda, which has five porticoes in these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been laying there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled. And while I am going, another steps down before me, Jesus said to him, rise, take up your palate and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his palate and walked.”
Let’s spend just a moment listening and reflecting on these words that we’ve heard from scripture and then I’ll read it again. Alright, I’m going to go through and read the passage again, and this time I want to encourage you to listen for a word or a phrase that might stand out to you, something that you want to hold onto from this passage. “After this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Hebrew called Bethesda, which has five porticoes in. And these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been laying there a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled. And while I am going, another steps down before me, Jesus said to him, rise, take up your palate and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his palate and walked.”
What word or phrase stands out to you in that passage? Can you repeat it to yourself? Can you hold that word or phrase? This next step is going to be meditation. So I want to encourage you, if you heard a word or phrase that stood out to you, hold it. Now reflect on it. Open yourself up to what God might be speaking to you in that. Can you picture yourself in this scene there at the pool? What does the man look like? What do you hear? What do you see when Jesus speaks to him? Place yourself there in that scene and hold that word or phrase, opening your heart to what God might be speaking to you.
The next step in Lectio Divina is prayer, responding. How do you want to respond? How do you respond when you hear Jesus say, do you want to be healed? How do you respond when you hear the man say, there is no one here to help me. What stirs in your heart when you hear our Lord speak those words to the man and to you, “Rise, take up your palate and walk.” What do you feel God calling you to? What obstacles come to mind that might stand in the way of your healing, in the way that this man is healed? I’m going to read the passage through one last time before we contemplate. Open your heart to what God wants to speak to you here in these words.
“After this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, a pool in Hebrew called Bethesda, which has five porticoes. And these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been there lying a long time, he said to him, do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled. And while I am going, another steps down before me, Jesus said to him, rise, take up your palate and walk. And at once the man was healed and he took up his palate and he walked.”
Thanksgiving to the Lord
Let’s contemplate now. And that means not doing anything. It means sitting in the presence of God and being open to what he might want. To speak into your heart and to your soul about this passage, about your unique circumstances, about your life, about your problems, your struggles, your worries, and all the ways that you need His mercy, His love, and His healing. Let’s spend a moment now in silence. Lord, we give you thanks for your healing and for your love. We give you thanks for all the ways that you speak to us, through your scripture, through other people in our lives, and through the work that you call us to do. Teach us to see you and hear your voice in all the things we do every day. Open our hearts and our minds to the ways that you speak to us uniquely, individually through the words that we read in scripture. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you so much for being a part of this session. I look forward to connecting with you again next time. Take care and God bless you.
About Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean is creator and host of Girlfriends, an award-winning podcast that supports and encourages Catholic women from all walks of life. She is author of ten books, including You Are Enough, and Giving thanks and Letting Go, and Whisper: Finding God in the Everyday. Danielle has a special heart for families and she encourages others to find humor in daily challenges and the joy God intends for every one of us. It is in her primary vocation to marriage and motherhood that Danielle finds the inspiration for all of her work. Subscribe to her Substack and learn more at DanielleBean.com.