Listening Prayer - Lectio Divina
February 2, 2008
“Speak Lord; your servant is listening” 1 Sam 3:10
God speaks to us in many ways: nature, people, and events…how well do we listen?
In listening to God in prayer, we focus on Scripture as God’s word to us here and now. What the text meant to the original writers/ hearers, to others throughout history, may be helpful—but it can also distract from what God is saying to us now. We are not trying to preach mental sermons to ourselves nor discover insights that will be helpful to others. This is a tool to help us hear the Holy Spirit speak to us personally.
In any relationship, there is a great difference between hearing the words and really listening. So being attentive in this form of prayer is essential. Inner quiet, relaxation, attentiveness, total honesty: “God I feel bored, angry, excited, scared…”
• Use only a small passage of Scripture. Taste God’s goodness. St. Ignatius of Loyola called this form of prayer an “application of the senses.” If you wish, you can use the same passage again and again, simplifying, returning to, and resting at that point where you met God. Where God spoke to you. Savouring one phrase, one word. Resting “like a child quieted at its mother’s breast.” (Ps 131:2)
• Scripture is food. It needs to be taken in, chewed over, tasted, to be nourishing.
• PICK a passage. Can have it ready the night before, go to sleep with it, wake up with it…
• PLACE of solitude, where we can be uninhibited about our response, maybe a “special place,” a “prayer corner”…
• POSTURE: relax, do a relaxation exercise, music, candles…but nothing that would distract.
• Seek and expect the PRESENCE of God. “God you are here, you love me into being, you love breath into me, you wish to speak to me …”
• PRAY: Could begin with the Collect for Purity or a confession from Morning or Evening Prayer and the Collect from Trinity 21; then ask for God’s Spirit, for grace to listen, to hear God’s word to me now…
• Ask the Holy Spirit to use your imagination, PICTURE the scene, become involved, with whom do I identify? “That person is me.” (2 Sam 12:7)
• Read very slowly. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you PONDER. Can read aloud. Repeat. Read, Ruminate (Reflect), Respond (PROMISE), Rest. If a word or phrase touches your heart, savour it, repeat it, rest in it, return to it in a later prayer period, carry it in your heart for the rest of the day—for the rest of your life. Don’t hurry. Don’t try to look for lessons or profound thoughts. Expect His Presence and interaction!
Sample Scriptures:
• God’s covenant with me: Is 54, Is 55; Deut 7:7-11
• God loves me and calls me: Rom 8:28-30
• The choice to respond to God’s love: Deut 30:11-20
• Any favorite passages, one that the Spirit brings to mind, a Gospel passage, a Psalm, a prayer or the lessons from the Prayerbook lectionary
All love in the Beloved,
Chip+
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
—Collect from The Second Sunday in Advent, 1928 Book of Common Prayer
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