Praying with Scripture: a beginner’s guide to lectio divina

Most Bible reading tries to cover ground: a chapter a day, the whole Bible in a year. Lectio divina (Latin for “divine reading” or “sacred reading”) goes the other way. It takes a few verses and stays with them until reading turns into prayer. It needs no training and no special equipment, only a short passage, some quiet and a willingness to go slowly.

Where it comes from

Praying over Scripture is older than the name. Psalm 1 describes the person whose “delight is in the LORD’s law” and who meditates on it “day and night” (Psalm 1:2). Luke says that Mary “kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Early monastic communities made this kind of reading a daily discipline. The Rule of St Benedict, written in the sixth century, sets aside fixed hours each day for lectio divina alongside work and the prayer of the psalms. In the twelfth century a Carthusian monk, Guigo II, described the practice as a ladder with four rungs: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. That four-part pattern is what most people mean by lectio divina today.

For centuries it was mainly the practice of monks and nuns. Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has encouraged all the faithful to pray with Scripture in this way, and Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 exhortation on the word of God, Verbum Domini, describes it at length, adding a final step: action, carrying what has been received into daily life.

The four movements

1. Reading (lectio). Read the passage slowly, ideally aloud, and then read it again. Notice a word or phrase that catches your attention. You are not studying the passage yet, only listening to it.
2. Meditation (meditatio). Stay with that word or phrase. Repeat it quietly. The Hebrew verb for “meditates” in Psalm 1:2 can also mean to murmur, as someone does when turning words over under their breath. Ask what the words are saying, and why they caught you today.
3. Prayer (oratio). Answer God in your own words. This may be thanks, confession, a request or a complaint. Whatever the reading stirred up becomes the material of the prayer.
4. Contemplation (contemplatio). Stop speaking and rest in God’s presence for a few minutes. Nothing has to happen. If your mind wanders, return gently to the word you chose.

These are movements rather than steps in a technique. They overlap, and on some days one of them will take up most of the time.

A worked example: Psalm 46:10

Psalm 46 is a song of trust in a time of upheaval: mountains shake, waters roar, “the nations raged” (Psalm 46:1–6). Verse 10 is God speaking. The Hebrew verb behind “be still” can mean to let go or to stop, and in the psalm it may be addressed as much to warring nations as to an anxious believer. The Latin of the Vulgate (Psalm 45:11 in its numbering) begins Vacate: make room, be free.

Read. Read the verse aloud twice. Perhaps the phrase that stops you is “Be still,” or “know,” or “I am God.”

Meditate. Suppose it is “Be still.” Repeat it slowly. Notice what in you is not still: a worry, a plan, a conversation you keep replaying. Notice too that the stillness the verse asks for rests on who God is (“know that I am God”), not on feeling calm first.

Pray. Tell God plainly what you noticed. Something like: Lord, I keep trying to hold everything together. Help me to put down what I cannot carry, and to know that You are God.

Contemplate. Sit in silence for three or four minutes. When distractions come, as they will, come back to the two words.

Act (optional). Choose one small thing for the day: a pause before a difficult conversation, a moment of quiet at lunch.

For a second passage, try the story of Martha and Mary, where Mary “sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word” (Luke 10:38–42). Many people have read it as a picture of contemplative listening. It is not a rejection of hospitality or work; Jesus’ gentle words to Martha are about anxiety and distraction:

How Protestants pray with Scripture

Lectio divina grew up in Catholic monasteries, but slow, prayerful reading of the Bible belongs to many traditions.

• Martin Luther, in a short letter written in 1535 for his barber, explained how he prayed with a commandment or a line of Scripture: he turned it into instruction, thanksgiving, confession and prayer.
• Puritan writers in England and New England wrote extensively on meditating on Scripture as a daily habit.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked the seminarians in his community to spend time each day meditating on a short passage, without trying to study it.
• Many evangelical Christians keep a daily “quiet time” of Bible reading and prayer, and in recent decades many Protestants have adopted lectio divina itself, often in small groups.

Some Protestants are cautious about the word contemplation if it suggests emptying the mind. In the Christian tradition the silence comes after listening to Scripture and rests on it; it is not a technique for leaving words behind. Christians of every tradition also agree that prayerful reading complements study rather than replacing it. Reading a passage in its context, and with the Church’s wider teaching, keeps a personal reading from drifting far from what the text says.

Getting started

• Choose short passages. A verse or two from a psalm, a scene from the Gospels, a parable. The Sunday readings are a good source.
• Keep it brief and regular. Ten to twenty minutes at the same time each day is enough.
• Write it down. A notebook with the date, the passage and the word that stood out builds a record over time.
• Try it with others. In a group, one person reads the passage aloud two or three times, with silence in between, and each person simply shares the word that struck them, without discussion or debate.
• Do not measure it. Some days the reading will feel dry. That is part of the practice, not a sign of failure.

The prayer reflection worksheet offers a printable format for praying slowly through a passage, and the explanation of Psalm 46:1 gives more background on the psalm used above. For more passages on prayer, see Prayer & worship.