Many Catholics who first attempt lectio divina find, perhaps to their surprise, that it can be something of a struggle. We hear it extolled to the heights, only to discover that it takes hard work, at least in the initial phase of growing into a new habit. It is one thing to read Scripture at a comfortable trot, following the story line and feeling moved by the events, much as one might feel reading a short story or a poem; it is quite another thing to walk slowly through half a chapter or to linger over a few verses, asking, seeking, knocking on just a few words. We start to feel impatient; we want to “get on with it”; we think we know what the text is saying already, because we’re heard it (or something like it) countless times at Mass; and worst of all, our mind begins to wander.
For those who know, in faith, that Scripture is God’s very own Word spoken to our hearts—why, otherwise, would we desire to draw so near to this burning bush?—it can be something of an agony to find that we are neither quickly ignited nor easily kept ablaze. And yet, we know that we must keep our place near the Word; we stay at our post, and we ask, we seek, we knock, trusting that the Divine Master will speak to us when we are ready to hear—indeed, that His Word, of which our mind is a far-distant echo, has the power to make us ready to hear what He will say.
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