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Praying in the Secret Chamber: Contemplative Silence with John Cassian (Lectio Divina)
We close the door and sit down to pray, and the room fills up anyway: the unfinished work, the worries, the long list of everything we want to ask. John Cassian speaks of a chamber no door can build, and of a God who searches hearts rather than words. This reflection sits with the…
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Room to Receive More: Thomas Aquinas and the Charity That Has No Limit (Lectio Divina)
We keep waiting for our circumstances to change before we allow ourselves to rest, and the waiting quietly turns into clinging. Thomas Aquinas says charity has no limit to its increase, and this reflection sits with that strange claim, and with what we are holding so tightly that we cannot receive more.
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Unskilled Words, Open Hands: Teresa of Ávila on Humble Prayer (Lectio Divina)
We labor over our words before God: the right vocabulary, the careful phrasing, the prayer that sounds as it should. Teresa of Ávila describes a King who prefers something far plainer, and that preference quietly overturns what we think prayer is for. What might He be waiting to receive from us instead?
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More Than Many Sparrows: Ambrose of Milan and the God Who Knows Every Heart (Lectio Divina)
Nothing is hidden from God, and for many of us that is the most unsettling thing we could be told. Ambrose of Milan reasons from a single sparrow and the numbered hairs of our heads to the human heart, and the question that follows is hard to set down: what does God do with…
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Every Breath a Prayer: Gregory of Nazianzus and the Practice of Praying Without Ceasing (Lectio Divina)
St. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, and Gregory of Nazianzus presses further: we ought to think of God more often than we draw our breath. For many of us that call lands either as a weight we cannot lift or as a standard we quietly assume we have already met. This reflection…
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I Do Not Endeavor: Anselm of Canterbury and the Impenetrable Sublimity of God (Lectio Divina)
Some of us pray harder when God feels far away, as though enough effort might finally bring Him near. Anselm of Canterbury stands before the height of God and refuses to climb it, yet he never stops longing. This reflection sits with the ache of reaching for a mystery that cannot be reached, and…
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How Much More: St. Jerome and the Lord Who is Always Calling (Lectio Divina)
What if the restless pull you feel toward God is not your own doing? Jerome answers the charge that Matthew left his tax booth too hastily with the image of a loadstone, and this reflection sits with that pull, and with the unsettling words “whom He will.”
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The One Day of Eternal Life: Karl Rahner and the Sabbath Within Every Day (Lectio Divina)
If God has already given Himself without reservation, what is left to ask for? Karl Rahner prays for love anyway, and for every one of his days to find its way into a single day, and this reflection sits with the strange gift of asking for what is already given, and with the question…
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The Fire That Prepares Us: John of the Cross and the Dark Night of Divine Love (Lectio Divina)
What if the Love we keep putting off is already at work in us, long before we say yes? John of the Cross says the fire that transforms is the same fire that first prepares, and this reflection sits with a knock we cannot hear for the noise, and with how long mercy is…
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Listening to God: James Finley and the First Rung of Prayer (Lectio Divina)
We come to prayer with so much to say: our needs, our hopes, our hurts, our long lists. Without quite meaning to, we start talking before we have listened, and somewhere along the way we fall. James Finley names this quiet mistake as a missed rung on a ladder, the very first one. If…