Monastic Practrice of Lectio While Walking?

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TimothyH

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Not sure if this is scripture, spirituality or tradition…

Does anyone know anything about the monastic practice of reading the Bible and practicing lectio divina as one walks?

Obviously not recommended for a busy urban environment but I am wondering if anyone has heard of such a practice.

-Tim-
 
I have read comments about this both from Fr. Menninger and Keating. They both say it’s possible, but very difficult. They recommend a quiet,comfortable chair.
 
I’ve never heard of it. I’ve heard of praying while walking, i.e. “solvitur ambulando” but never in connection with scripture.

This is just speculation on my part, but it’s hard to imagine such a practice being very old, given that until the printing press (ca. 1500) Bibles were hand copied, of parchment/leather construction, with big pages for artwork and such, so they were huge, heavy, expensive and rare. That’s why they were sometimes chained to desks to prevent theivery.

But if you want to try it, why not? I’d pick a smooth, lighted area well away from traffick and not frequented by cyclists.
 
The practice is documented as being widely used among medeival monastics. Monks had Bibles. Monks were the ones who did the hand copying.
The primary teaching method was the lectio divina, a reading that was audible and often conducted while walking. This vocalized reading produced meditation in which the text was recited over and over and thus committed not only to memory but also to action.
Read more…***

This is a review of the book titled The Love of Learning and the Desire for God by Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. It is the only reference I can find to the practice. I’ve read Sacred Reading by Michael Casey and don’t recall it being mentioned.

I’d like to learn more about the practice.

-Tim-
 
This practice is still done in some convents also. The one I was a Novice in did so. We also used the time of walking for the Rosary. Our walking was done in a garden courtyard behind the convent walls, so was safe enough. Commonly, we walked in small groups of 3 or 4 and recited our Office, the Rosary, or the Scriptures for the day and prayed. It is an old practice in cloisters and monasteries of monks.
 
TimothyH said:
T I’ve read Sacred Reading by Michael Casey and don’t recall it being mentioned.
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Not to derail the thread but Michael Casey is terrific. He was a speaker at the 2013 Oblate’s World Congress in Rome, which I attended (and helped plan).

You can read his paper here:

benedictine-oblates.org/2013/txt/txt-03-en.pdf

I read it in some depth as I did the French translation of it that’s on the French part of the Congress website. It’s the best presentation I’ve ever heard on lectio divina. Translating it was sheer joy as I had to really understand the text in depth, and I therefore did it paragraph by paragraph. It took me about 3 weeks to complete the work.
 
OraLabora said:
Not to derail the thread but Michael Casey is terrific. He was a speaker at the 2013 Oblate’s World Congress in Rome, which I attended (and helped plan).

You can read his paper here:

benedictine-oblates.org/2013/txt/txt-03-en.pdf

I read it in some depth as I did the French translation of it that’s on the French part of the Congress website. It’s the best presentation I’ve ever heard on lectio divina. Translating it was sheer joy as I had to really understand the text in depth, and I therefore did it paragraph by paragraph. It took me about 3 weeks to complete the work.
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That’s wonderful - almost as if you were doing lectio on Michael Casey’s paper! 😉

One of the Lay Associates for the Cistercian monastery here in Atlanta recommended his book to me.

The word became text… 😃

The paper is downloaded to my desktop. I didn’t know he was Cistercian. Thanks!

-Tim-
 
I love it.

There is, however, a quasi-sacramental aspect to lectio divina that goes beyond what we invest in it in terms of effort, ingenuity or industry. It is a salvific encounter with the Word, in which God is the principal agent. In a certain sense, when we enter into the sacred space of lectio divina, the Word becomes flesh again, our Emmanuel, dwelling with us in space and time, in our space and time, speaking to us, energising us.

Thank you so much.

-Tim-
 
I think it ties right in with what you were saying on another thread, that monastic life is experiential, rather than doctrinal. It’s a deep, sentient experience of God.

I’ve got to admit I’ve always struggled with lectio. Too much white noise in the mind. Your comment about doing lectio on his paper has given me an idea: read my Bible passage in English and then translate it into French 😛

It might just work, it takes a fair bit of concentration and understanding of the text to do so.

Then I could compare my result to one of the French Bible translations I have 😃

Fr. Casey has an interesting way of speaking. It’s very deadpan, as if he’s trying to avoid putting a personal coloration on the text, as if he’s only an instrument of delivery. I’ve seen the same phenomenon in our abbot, who is a prize-winning organist. When he plays the organ, he effaces himself into the instrument. It’s almost as if he’s not there, he’s just part of the mechanism that allows one to hear Bach alive again.

Must be a monastic thing… actually I’m pretty sure it comes from the 12 degrees of humility.
 
TimothyH said:
Not sure if this is scripture, spirituality or tradition…

Does anyone know anything about the monastic practice of reading the Bible and practicing lectio divina as one walks?

Obviously not recommended for a busy urban environment but I am wondering if anyone has heard of such a practice.

-Tim-
Click to expand...
if you are reading and meditating on scripture but walking that is fine.

What some monks actually do is that they memorize what they were praying with that day and while they were working in the field they would be reciting that passage to themselves so that they would be connected to the scriptures all day.
 
OraLabora said:
I think it ties right in with what you were saying on another thread, that monastic life is experiential, rather than doctrinal. It’s a deep, sentient experience of God.

I’ve got to admit I’ve always struggled with lectio. Too much white noise in the mind. Your comment about doing lectio on his paper has given me an idea:** read my Bible passage in English and then translate it into French :p**

It might just work, it takes a fair bit of concentration and understanding of the text to do so.

Then I could compare my result to one of the French Bible translations I have 😃

Fr. Casey has an interesting way of speaking. It’s very deadpan, as if he’s trying to avoid putting a personal coloration on the text, as if he’s only an instrument of delivery. I’ve seen the same phenomenon in our abbot, who is a prize-winning organist. When he plays the organ, he effaces himself into the instrument. It’s almost as if he’s not there, he’s just part of the mechanism that allows one to hear Bach alive again.

Must be a monastic thing… actually I’m pretty sure it comes from the 12 degrees of humility.
Click to expand...
I thought I was the only one who had to use translation to focus on scriptures. I read it in latin, try to translate it. Then go to the English to compare and correct. I find going over the passage many times, has helped me catch nuances I’ve missed for years. Have spent the last two months on st Matthew and am on ch 18.:o
 
I’ll tell this brief story about my conversion through lectio back when I didn’t even know what it was and why Michael Casey is exactly correct about God entering space and time, becoming present (quasi-sacramental) through his written word…

There was a short time in my life when my heart was on fire for Jesus and I actually tried very hard to be a Bible-thumping Evangelical. I went looking for Jesus in every Church I could find and in every book I could read.

One night I was reading John 6, trying to find loopholes in Catholic doctrine. I read the Bread of Life discourse slowly and deliberately, looking for errors in Catholic doctrine and couldn’t find any. I read it a second time, very slowly, saying each word out loud. I still couldn’t find errors in Catholic teaching about the Eucharist. Then I read it a third time, extremely slowly, reflecting on each word, parsing the meaning of each word, and began praying about each word, saying each word to God and asking God to give me understanding. I only got as far as verse 55, still parsing each word, praying each word to God…

*My… Jesus’, his own, it belongs to him, ownership, it is his…

**flesh… **muscles, tendons, skin, blood, internal organs, living, breathing, alive…

is…. the opposite of “is not”, exists, the singular form of “be”…

true… not false, real, actual, verifiable, correct, authentic…

food…*

That was the only time I had ever fallen out of a chair. I was lying on my kitchen floor sobbing.

I got up, splashed some water on my face and regained my composure. I remember thinking to myself how much I loved God and it was at that moment that I realized that the Catholic Church is everything she had ever claimed to be. I remember thinking how my love for the Church and my love for God were one, and that if I ever stop loving the Church, I would stop loving God as well. Then I had the third most horrific thought of my life - if the Church is everything she claims to be then I have to go to confession!!! The next day, at 44 years of age, I made a 37 year confession.

Without even knowing it, I had stumbled upon the ancient practice of lectio. It was God speaking to me in a powerful way through Scripture, calling me to him, to his Church and to his sacraments through his Word written on the page. And the Word became text is exactly true. Michael Casey is 100% correct. God entered time and space, became present in his written word, came to meet me through that living, breathing, powerful text. My Bible is my most prized possession.

So, I don’t know why I wrote this, and even why it is in the traditional forum, but there it is for what it is worth, my conversion to Catholicism through lectio.

-Tim-
 
Lovely story Tim.

I reverted at age 39 after being away for 22 years. At the time some evangelical Protestants were trying to convert me from atheism. One of them was an ex-Catholic. One of them was my wife.

At a very low moment in my life, I picked up the Bible in the night table of a hotel when I was on a business trip, at a very low moment in my life. It was, I think, late spring. I started with Matthew and read 13 chapters before falling asleep. I read the entire New Testament over the summer.

After reading it, what the Evangelicals were telling me made no sense. But the Truth of the Church did.

I’d have to say though that my true conversion had its first spark at the monastery I’m now an oblate of. And it wasn’t until I was 52 years old, and had been an oblate for 7 years, that I realized what true “transformation” meant. I consider that the start of my real conversion, when I dropped trying to hide behind doctrine and my false self and started to really work in earnest on my own inner conversion.

That moment started when sitting in an ancient 11th century chapel on the grounds of a monastery in France (St. Wandrille, the founding abbey of our abbey). It was in October 2010, and it was rainy and drizzly. The chapel was cold, damp and unheated. Yet for almost every moment I had during the day between attending Offices and Mass and meals, I raced up there and spent hours sitting in the damp and cold, telling God “here I am, as I am, warts and all” (and trust me there are many warts). It’s the first time I truly understood what it felt like to be loved unconditionally. I did that for the entire three days I was at the abbey.

The monastic path to conversion truly is experiential. Some of the experiences simply cannot be explained or rationalized, even with Scripture, much less with doctrine. It’s an intimate connection that is borderline-if I may be permitted to say so- erotic in the sense that your whole being, body and soul, feels joy, and as if a great weight has been lifted from one’s shoulders.

That’s also when I understood Conversatio Morum to be a true transformation of the heart.
 
To OraLabora and TimothyH, thank you for sharing your stories of conversion.
 
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