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A Program of Spiritual Formation for Candidates to the Priesthood

The Lay Monastic Community of Caryana


 
 
 

 

 


THOUGHTS ON PRAYER




LECTIO DIVINA

 

St. Benedict, in his holy rule, promulgated that certain fixed times of the day must be devoted to Lectio Divina. Haphazard reading done at different times on different topics that one chances on does not edify but makes the mind unstable. The same is what happens to those who listen to lectures on topics unrelated to each other. 

 

Some part of your daily reading should be committed to memory every day, taken as it were into the stomach, to be more carefully digested and brought up again for rumination. . .something to keep your mind busy and free from shallow distraction.

 

This Lectio Divina should stir your affection and give rise to prayer, which should interrupt your reading. . .an interruption which should not so much impede the reading as to restore to it a mind ever more undistracted for understanding.

 

Reading serves the purpose for which it is done. If one reads to find God, everything he reads tends to make him reach that end, bringing all that one reads and understands into the service of Christ. But if one reads simply for vain curiosity, then it will end like all vain things. . .into nothing, if not great harm to the soul. 

 

William of St. Thierry

 

 

 

(09-07-02) 

 

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                                                                                        - Teresa of Avila

 


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