Lectio Divina and Making Room

Action and Reflection
Reading, meditating, praying and contemplating are the four steps of the Lectio Divina. By inviting the community to take part in this process, my goal was to increase the presence of the Holy Spirit in the community and in the hearts and minds of the people in my community. By directly engaging with this community through prayer walks in the neighborhood and prayer readings followed by an observation of silence, I was able to engage with the members of the community and get to know them, share experiences with them, and discuss these experiences in a focus group like setting. These actions all together served to provide me with much reflection as I felt the more we all directly engaged with the God, the more the Spirit was felt among us in a very positive way.
The prayer-walks through the neighborhood were particularly meaningful as the community is a good one for walking in and many neighbors are about when the weather is nice outside. Everyone is friendly and always saying hello. Even though we are praying during our prayer walk, it feels right to stop from time to time to talk to some of the neighbors and show that we are part of the community. We tell them what we are doing and we invite them to join us or to give us any intention that they might like us to remember during our prayers. People are particularly touched by the idea that you are willing to pray for them. This is something that Green has noticed among nurses working with patients, who request prayer for themselves. And it is something Dever has noted is important to consider when engaging in prayer: we are not just praying for ourselves but for the intentions of others as well, that God might work through them and enter into their lives and minds and hearts as well. When people see that you are willing to take on their concerns and issues they really begin to understand what you are about, that you live for union with God. They are quite often touched by this and moved to want to be part of that union with you.
During our prayer walks, therefore, I am always interested in talking to neighbors when I see them even if it is only briefly and even if it is only to see how they are and if there is anything they need. Nothing brings one into sympathy with your aim like solicitation, and my aim was to bring them into sympathy with God and into union with the Spirit. By sharing my care and concern for them, just as Christ commanded his disciples to do—going two by two ahead of Him, healing the sick, and showing God’s concern for them—the Spirit was moving me to show God’s concern for His people in the community.
Those who wanted to join were inviting for prayer readings followed by silence and contemplation. This was an activity that very many enjoyed because it gave them an opportunity in the busy lives to spend some time just with the Word of God, with their own thoughts, and with God speaking to Him and listening back in silence. At the focus group meeting, we shared these experiences and everyone was quite happy and pleased with the outcomes and effects that they were seeing in their own lives. They talked about feeling stronger, more at peace than they had before. No matter what it was, what issue, what concern they were particularly praying for, they knew that God was there with them, never going to leave their side. It was a great joy for me personally to hear this, as it confirmed for me that the Spirit was indeed with us.
Theological Rationale
The theological rationale for speaking to members of the community and to neighbors during the prayer-walks, for asking them if there was anything that they would like me to pray for in particular to help them in their lives, and for inviting them to prayer readings and contemplations is based in the readings of Luke 10:1-12—particularly in these verses: “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.” What we see here is Our Lord commanding us to be about His business, preparing the way for Him, just as John the Baptist did when He was coming to forgive the sins of the world. John the Baptist prepared the way by preaching repentance and teaching the people: he fasted, and did penance as an example of what one needed to do to amend his life. Then when God appeared in their midst, they understood—and were ready to hear His words more clearly. His way had been prepared.
This is what Christ was getting at when he asked His disciples to go two by two before Him to prepare His way. They were not to replace Christ but were rather going to be the new John the Baptists—preparing the way so that the hearts and minds of the people could be opened to God. By showing the charity of God, healing the sick, and bringing peace to men of good will, the early Christians were able to work with the Spirit and spread the love of God that God wanted spread around. It takes effort and perseverance and not everyone is going to respond in the same manner. But that is all part of the plan and even God writes straight with crooked arrows (Sheen).
The theological rationale for this practice is also located in the fact that God has specifically requested it of us: As the Georgia Baptist Mission Board has stated, “intercession is hard work. It means becoming involved in another’s life because intercessory prayer does not stop with prayed words. Our intercession prepares the way for personal ministry to them. The greatest reason of all to pray for others is because God told us to do. He honors our obedience and it makes a difference in their lives and ultimately in ours Matthew 7:7-11.” What can be seen in these verses is the justification and rationale for interceding for others and showing others that you want to intercede on their behalf. As Matthew writes: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). Many people do not even realize they can go to God for their troubles. They do not realize that God is waiting and listening. They have forgotten that God exists or that there is One above them Who will hear them if they just think to speak out, reach out, and ask in prayer and petition. That is why it is so important to remind them. God will not turn anyone away who comes in supplication. That is not His way. If one asks in truth, one shall receive what God has to give. This is what God wants all of us to learn and to realize and to practice in our own lives. We are all meant to imitate God—to be with Him, to be of Him, to reflect His ways and His intentions. Matthew 7:9-11 reflects the justness of this practice by writing: “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” By keeping this in mind, the rationale for stopping and getting to know one’s neighbors during a prayer walk makes perfect sense: it is a perfect opportunity to practice intercessory prayer and to learn about the needs of others, stopping at one house where there is a welcoming and not drifting from house to house looking for handouts for oneself. This practice is all about showing the others in the community that we are here for them, to pray on behalf of them—to remind them that God wants us to take our troubles to Him first so that He can solve them. By asking my neighbors if there is anything I can pray for to help them in their lives, I give them the example they might not have ever had—which is that God is present and God is waiting to hear from them, from all of us.
How it Relates to Hospitality
This practice is related to hospitality in a very real way. When one invites one to be nearer to God, he is inviting one to invite God into his heart and mind. It is the ultimate act of hospitality to do the inviting on the behalf of another or even to invite one into one’s own house so that the acquaintance may be made in the first place. This is what God commands the disciples to do when He tells them to go two by two to the houses, to knock on the doors, to eat what is placed before them, and to give peace to those who will have peace. He is telling them what it means to be hospitable—for they are the ones who are preparing a place for Him in the hearts and minds of those they visit. They are making the way—sweeping the floors and clearing out the cobwebs: through their preaching and healing and praying and presence, they are making the place ready for the Lord.
Hospitality that is shown to others in charity is hospitality that is shown to God. God gave two commands—1) love God, and 2) love one’s neighbor. To love one’s neighbor for God’s sake is to be hospitable in holiness. To pray for others and to invite them to read and pray silently is to be hospitable in holiness. To be neighborly and welcoming and inviting and solicitous in charity is to be hospitable in holiness. This is the way that Christ has asked His followers to be.
How It Relates to the Life of God
God Himself spoke of doing His Father’s will—not His own. In other words, He too was preparing the hearts and minds of His disciples so that they might be made ready to receive the Spirit and to hear and act upon the will of the Father in their own lives. Indeed, Christ’s mission on earth was full of this type of preparation (Sheen). From the time spent in the desert, praying and fasting to the time spent teaching to the time spent in His passion—it was all about preparing the hearts and minds of His followers. Even after His death on the Cross, His disciples were still not ready: they lacked faith; they did not understand. It was not until the Resurrection that they truly began to see and to understand what it was Christ had meant all along. It was only then that the way was fully prepared for them. They finally realized that Christ had conquered death and that there truly was nothing to fear. Thus, Christ prepared the way for the Spirit to come to them—and when He departed and ascended in to Heaven, the Spirit came and filled the disciples so that they could receive the will of the Father and go and do as God wanted them to do.
Christ thus shows in his own life that our hospitality towards others must be rooted in the idea of being there to serve them in service of the Lord. As Dulles points out, Christ brought faith and reason together in His own person: He gave people a reason to believe and He urged them to make an act of faith to show that they believed. The entire life of God was dedicated to giving people reasons to believe in Him: healing them, raising them from the dead, performing miracles, preaching—all of it was done so that they might believe in Him. He asked only for their faith, their willingness to have Him in their hearts and minds. And that is what it means to be hospitable towards others—to show them that we are willing to do for them what God has done for all of us here in our own lives.
How It Relates to the Discernment of the Spirit
The discernment of the Spirit is crucial of course to all practices undertaken for the purpose of being united to God. The Spirit is what moves us, communicates to us, shows us where to go, what to do, how to think and speak and behave. To understand, however, one must have discernment—for just as the Holy Spirit is there to help us, there are other less helpful spirits who seek to distract us and turn us from God. They may be tempting—just like Satan tempted Our Lord. They may come in all shapes and sizes. We may be tempted by the promise of celebrity status if we just compromise on one principle; or we may be tempted with power if we just agree to worship a false god; or we may be tempted with riches, if we just agree to stop our work for the Lord. One has to discern these spirits so that one can see what is really happening in one’s heart and mind. God wants to live there, but the devil also has a desire to corrupt these places and turn them from God.
Practicing hospitality allows one to see what God wants us to see. We put ourselves in a humble position by serving others. Just as the good Samaritan served the wounded Jew when others would not, our job is to serve our neighbors who may have been forgotten. We are to serve them by showing them the need to engage in the Lectio Divina—to read, to pray, to meditate and to contemplate. Through these four steps we can discern the Spirit among the various other spirits that may draw us away from God—and by being hospitable towards others we can invite them to learn to discern the Spirit as well.
What Happened
What happened with the practice was that several neighbors related their stories to me and we got know members of the community just from doing our prayer walks. We were surprised actually, or at least I was, by the number of good people who were genuinely touched by the fact that I told them I pray for them and remember their intentions in my prayers. On multiple walks we would see one another again and our talks would pick up right from where they left off. After talking, we would move on with the prayer walk, interrupting it only when there was another neighbor to greet. We covered a great deal of the community in this manner and came to make many new friends.
Of the new people we met, three of them came to our prayer readings. Though we met and talked with several more, I was not discouraged that only three came to the prayer readings to engage more directly with the Spirit. I found that this was positive affirmation of our practice and that the many others we spoke with would take time. With God, there is no rush as all things work in his time—not ours (Aquinas). We continued to see our neighbors on our prayer walks and we received updates on the stories and troubles they had shared with us. Some had improved and some had worsened. I promised to continue to pray for them and with some I even asked them to pray for me. I asked this of those who really seemed to take heart from my gesture of good will.
I felt intimately connected to the community this way and I began to sense that I was giving to the people of the neighborhood exactly the type of hospitality that God wanted me to give. Though few took me up on my invitation to come to our prayer readings, the few who came were received with warmth and affection. Our prayer readings were very simple: they began with a reading, continued with meditation, followed with prayer and ended with silence during which contemplation was recommended. This was all but it had an immense effect on everyone and by the end of the evening we were all practically glowing.
Finally, the focus group took place and we actually had a few more members of the community attend this, I think because there was less timidity about being confronted with the practice of prayer. No matter where you go you find that people still do not know what to make of prayer. They feel in some way that it is a type of superstition that they do not understood, so it makes them uneasy. That was one thing we actually learned from the focus group. Another was that those who did engage in prayer did feel that the Spirit was with them and the testified that they were able to discern God’s will for them over the course of time.
What the Spirit is Calling Me to Do
This practice had a significant effect on me as well, for I began to see how the Spirit was leading me and what it was calling me to do. Engaging with the community in this manner had never been something that I had thought to do, but upon doing it I felt that this was simply a fantastic opportunity to engage in the kind of missionary work that Our Lord wants us to do to prepare His way to enter into the hearts and minds of His children, who may be waiting for His visit and not even knowing it.
I was sincerely touched by the good will of the members of the community and their good will gestures back to me—their friendliness and their positive reception of me showed that the Spirit was leading me in a good direction. As Smith points out, Christianity in general so positively affects the mood and the mind when received by people of peace and good will that it really should be the recommended medicine of our times.
Yet for some reason people are afraid of bringing up Christ and Christianity as though it has become a taboo topic in our modern world. The fact that I brought it up so freely, without pushing anyone to convert but rather asking if there was anything I could do for them by praying for an intention, this was actually a big relief for them. They were so grateful to have someone remind them of Christ, to speak openly of God—not in a way that was pushy but rather in a way that was genuinely helpful and charitable. They were impressed by this and I could tell it lifted them in their spirits.
Thus, I think the Spirit is definitely calling me in this direction and inviting me to continue with this practice. My goal is to get to know the community and the community to know me so that we can all begin to share in one another’s lives and have a meaningful impact on one another’s spiritual lives. My next steps, therefore, are to make my prayer walks a regular part of my life and to increase my efforts to cover even more ground in my community. If this takes more time in my day, I am okay doing that because I feel it is well worth the effort. Christ gave three years of His life to His missionary work before making the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. If I can come even close to following in His footsteps I will feel blessed beyond words.

Works Cited
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/
Dever, Mark. Discipling: How to help others follow Jesus. Crossway, 2016.
Dulles, Avery. The Assurance of Things Hoped For. New York: Oxford, 1994.
Georgia Baptist Mission Board. A Brief Theology of Intercessory Prayer.
https://gabcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/A-Theology-of-Intercessory-Prayer.pdf
Green, Cheryl Ann. "Complimentary Care: When Our Patients Request to Pray." Journal
of religion and health 57.3 (2018): 1179-1182.
Sheen, Fulton. Life of Christ. NY: Image Books, 2008.
Smith, Christian. "Why Christianity works: An emotions-focused phenomenological
account." Sociology of Religion 68, no. 2 (2007): 165-178.