Divine Reading
At the conference I attended recently, a meeting of Catholic and Buddhist monks and nuns [1] , held at the Abbey of Gethsemani, I learned about the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, in a presentation given by Sister Anne McCarthy, OSB. First, ‘lectio’ is pronounced lexio. Believe me. I checked. All the Benedictine monks and nuns pronounce it like that, regardless of what you might find in an online dictionary. Lectio divina is translated as divine reading. It reminded me right away of a practice in Buddhism called tö-sam-gom (in Tibetan), or listening-thinking-meditating. It doesn’t line up exactly, but it definitely has some overlap. I see an explanation on Wikipedia that says, “Traditionally, Lectio Divina has four separate steps: read; meditate; pray; contemplate.” Some of the participants listening to a presentation. Sister Anne is in the middle, in the red blazer. After Sr. Anne’s presentation, with input from a couple of other participants, we divided into sma