LECTIO DIVINA AS A MOSAIC OF IMPRESSIONS: WHAT TYPE OF CATHOLIC ARE YOU?

I asked the question from the Holy Spirit, “What type of Catholic am I, now that I have a template against which I measure myself?” This is the answer I received. I share it with you with the understanding that it is for me and you may find some of it or none of it helpful.

I offer these ideas that come from my participation in the Lay Cistercian Way and my adaptation of it to my lifetime of choices. Since we approach the Sacred from the totality of our life experiences by trying to answer six questions, here are my six observations about what it means to be Catholic as I look out on reality.

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life within that purpose of life?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• How can I love fiercely?
• I know I am going to die; now what?

I will use a Lectio Divina technique called “Linking” because I do a rapid listing of ideas on the computer that are all linked together. because my one and only Lectio (Scripture) has been Philippians 2:5, since perhaps sometime around 1962. From that Scripture flow these six steps or milestones in my life. Essentially, they are movements of my intelligent progression from birth to death, from life in Baptism courtesy of the Father to a place Christ has gone to prepare for me and those who seek to follow his command to love one another as he has loved us. I seek to grow deeper in the Mystery of Christ, the Principle at my core.

LINKING LECTIO

Here are some steps I take when using the Linking Lectio technique.

1. Lectio: Reflect on my Lectio (Philippians 2:5) for ten minutes without prejudice from other ideas. (Good luck with this one.)
2. Select a theme or one of the six Divine Equation questions above.
3. Meditatio: What is the purpose of life (question one above)? In rapid succession, for sixty seconds, write or type out what comes to your mind when you think about this question. I will give examples below. I link each idea to the one above it to form a mental chain of ideas based on that question or theme. You should now have eight to ten (don’t force it) ideas all linked to that one question. “What is the purpose of life?”
4. Oratio et Contemplatio: Close your eyes, go to that upper room in your heart (Matthew 6:5), lock the door, and sit down on the couch. Wait. No time limit. This is a profound focus on nothing (but being aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit overshadowing you, which is everything). When I first tried this, I kept wanting to say verbal prayers in my mind and had an intense urge to put a time limit to this. Gradually, as this became a habit that I longed to prolong, I realized that Oratio and Contemplatio merged together. My prayer was my waiting. It is the time I took with Christ that moved me deeper into the Mysteries of the Sacred. I was not now just religious, but more and more spiritual. My original question, “What is the purpose of life?” somehow show up, and I was getting answers to my links, ones I never anticipated. Coming from the human condition where I am obliged to have a product to my expenditure of mental energy, I waited for the Holy Spirit to respond to my list of Chain Linking.
5. Meditation means I do a rapid-fire listing of all that comes to my mind. I write it down or type it on the computer. Meditation means I bring God into my set of preconditioned assumptions based on my emotional needs and wants. When I move to contemplation, which I also do so with prayer, it is when Christ brings me into his heart and shares what I am capable of receiving (capacitas dei) without my doing or thinking anything, except longing or waiting for what God tells me. To do this I must place myself purposefully in a place where I can be alone with Christ (Matthew 6:5) and be disciplined enough to realize that Christ is the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. Then I make an act of Faith and say, “I am here, Lord, do unto me according to your Word.” I just wait. For a human, that is a place we do not like to inhabit because we like the power that comes from being busy or entertained each minute of the day. Notice all those people with cell phones up to their ears. They are filling time with whatever. Contemplation means Christ fills up in me that which I lack as a human being conditioned by original sin to seek my own will.

LINKING LECTIO EXAMPLES

I. Linking Lectio: Real Presence

Meditatio:

• Alive
• For me alone
• For others including me
• For completion of the living body of Christ
• Silence
• Waiting for the Real Presence
• Real Presence has always been there waiting for me
• Abandonment of all those things of the world that trap the mind and the heart
• Without a past or a future, just now
• My heart beating
• Listening to the real presence in the silence of my heart
• Faintly, very faintly
• another heart beats next to mine
• Am I hearing things?
• Consistently and methodically
• I strain to hear it
• the hound of heaven
• panting
• the heart of Christ
• waiting for me to become an adopted son (daughter)
• Capacitas dei
• Movement from a citizen of the world to a citizen of heaven (adoption)
• Eucharist is the pledge of real presence until Christ comes again in glory
• Eucharist is the forgiveness of sins and a pledge of Christ’s presence
• The Real Christ lifts me up by the power of the Holy Spirit to that next level of my human evolution
• Waiting is itself my prayer of real presence in the Arc of the Covenant in my Temple of the Holy Spirit

Oratio:

Let it be done to me according to your Word

Contemplatio:

Gratitude

(Fifteen Minutes)

II. Linking Lectio: Jesus, Mary, Joseph

Meditatio:

• Three members of the Holy Family
• Love at the deepest level
• My hope for what is to come
• I long to be one with them
• The product of “Let it be done to me according to your Word,”
• Alive in Heaven
• I can communicate with them through, with, and in Christ
• The type of what it means to be created in the likeness of God
• Jesus is The Christ Principle; Mary is the example of the power of the Holy Spirit to lift up humanity to that next level of its evolution, adoption as son or daughter of the Father; Joseph is the example of humility and obedience to God’s word.
• There is one family; there are three distinct persons.
• All three are alive and real and I communicate to them through Christ to ask all of them to accompany me as we approach the Father in humility and truth, and I seek mercy and express gratitude.
• Speaking the names of Christ, Mary, and Joseph when evil thoughts push their way into my consciousness based on my animal needs
• There is no room for the name of Christ and Satan in the same room.
• As soon as wrongful thoughts come into your heart, dash them against Christ and disclose them to your spiritual father. RB 4:50

Oratio:

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Contemplatio:

Seeking mercy

(Fifteen Minutes)