For eighteen centuries, the Church has done the same thing before Holy Scripture: she has read it on her knees. Not as one reads a file or a newspaper, quickly and to gather information, but slowly, in prayer, believing that through these ancient lines it is God Himself who speaks today. This way of reading the Bible bears a name inherited from the Fathers: lectio divina, the "divine reading". And on it, as on mental prayer, the saints speak with a single voice. Whether you question a master of 3rd-century Alexandria, a monk of the desert, a medieval abbot, a Spanish Carmelite, or Pope Benedict XVI: all say that Scripture is living, that it must be read in prayer, and that it is truly understood only by loving it.
This article is an anthology — in the literal sense, a "gathering of flowers": here are brought together the strongest words of the great masters of prayerful reading, restoring them to their faces. For a saying on lectio divina does not carry the same weight when it comes from a manual as when it comes from the lips of a Saint Jerome who spent thirty years bent over the Hebrew text, a Saint Benedict who made it a law for his monks, or a Thérèse of Lisieux who fed on nothing but the Gospel. Thus, we have preferred to enter through the saints themselves: a brief portrait, their place in the history of prayerful reading, then their words — so that the reader does not merely read a doctrine, but hears witnesses.
It does not replace the neighboring articles; it sheds a different light on them. For how to practice and grow in lectio divina — its detailed history, the four degrees as a school, the concrete means and the pitfalls — see How to Grow in Lectio Divina. For the senses of Scripture which this reading puts to work, the dossier The Spiritual Sense of Scripture. For the companion anthology on interior prayer, What Do the Saints Say About Mental Prayer. Here, we follow the single thread of the choir of saints.
Why Listen to the Saints on Lectio Divina?
A Practice Born with the Church
Lectio divina is not a recent invention or a spiritual fad: it is the oldest Christian way of reading the Bible. Before it was theorized, it was lived — by the martyrs who meditated on the psalms in prison, by the Fathers who expounded Scripture from their pulpits, by the monks who made it the fabric of their days. When we question the saints on this subject, then, we do not gather the opinions of outside specialists: we gather the testimony of those who have lived on Scripture to the point of making it their breath.
Their authority, as with mental prayer, is first of all experiential. Saint Jerome does not speak of the Bible as a cold scholar: he speaks of it as a man who gave up everything for it. Saint Augustine does not theorize conversion through Scripture: he lived it, a book of Paul's epistles in his hands. This is what gives their word on lectio divina its particular weight — that of a testimony, not a theory.
"Lectio Divina": An Expression Bequeathed by the Fathers
The expression itself goes back to Origen (c. 185–253), the great master of Alexandria and then of Caesarea. He is the first to use the Greek term theia anagnôsis — the "divine reading" — which the Latin tradition would render as lectio divina. The word already says everything: the reading of the Scriptures is not a reading like any other; it is "divine" because its object is the Word of God and its fruit is the encounter with God.
This anthology therefore follows two movements. First, it lets the great voices be heard one by one — each Father, each saint with his or her face, history, and unique accent. Then, it gathers what all hold in common, to show that the doctrine of prayerful reading is not a matter of school, but the common good of the entire Catholic tradition.
The Great Definitions: What Is Lectio Divina?
Before the portraits, we must listen to the definitions — those compact formulas in which centuries of experience are held in a few words. They do not contradict each other: they illuminate the same reality from different angles.
Origen: "Devote Yourself to the Reading of the Divine Scriptures"
It is in a famous letter to his disciple Gregory the Wonderworker (c. 238), the future bishop of Caesarea, that Origen gives the first great directive of lectio divina. In it he unites two things inseparably: applied reading and prayer, for Scripture yields its meaning only to the one who prays.
"You, my lord and son, devote yourself chiefly to the reading of the divine Scriptures; yes, devote yourself. […] And, devoting yourself thus to the divine reading, seek with uprightness and with unshakable confidence in God the meaning of the divine Scriptures, which is hidden there in abundance." — Origen, Letter to Gregory the Wonderworker[2]
And he drew from it the decisive condition, which makes lectio divina a prayer as much as a reading: "Do not be content with knocking and seeking: to understand the things of God, prayer is absolutely necessary to you."[3] Reading knocks at the door; it is prayer that obtains its opening.
Guigo II the Carthusian: The Ladder with Four Rungs
The most structured definition comes from a 12th-century Carthusian, Guigo II, ninth prior of the Grande Chartreuse (d. c. 1188). In a short letter that became a classic, The Ladder of Monks (Scala claustralium), he describes lectio divina as a ladder with four rungs joining earth to heaven — an image borrowed from Jacob's ladder.
"Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation tastes. […] Seek by reading, and you will find by meditating; knock by praying, and it will be opened to you in contemplation." — Guigo II the Carthusian, The Ladder of Monks[4]
These four degrees — lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio — have become the classic grammar of lectio divina. For their development as a method, see How to Grow in Lectio Divina; here, we retain above all the voice of Guigo: reading is never an end in itself; it is the first rung of an ascent toward God.
Benedict XVI: Lectio, Meditatio, Oratio, Contemplatio, Actio
The most recent Magisterium has taken up this structure and crowned it with a fifth movement. In his exhortation Verbum Domini (2010), Pope Benedict XVI defines lectio divina by a series of questions which the soul puts to itself before the sacred text:
"It begins with the reading (lectio) of the text, which raises the question of authentic knowledge of its content: what does the biblical text say in itself? […] This is followed by meditation (meditatio): what does the biblical text say to us? […] We then arrive at prayer (oratio) […]: what do we say to the Lord in response to his word? Finally the lectio divina concludes with contemplation (contemplatio) […]." — Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, § 87[5]
And Benedict XVI adds a final degree, so that reading does not remain in one's room: actio, action. "The process of lectio divina comes to an end only when it leads to action (actio), moving the believer to make his life a gift for others in charity."[6] Lectio divina begins with a book and ends with a changed life.
The Fathers: Reading Scripture Means Listening to God Himself
Before the monks and the moderns, the Fathers of the Church laid the foundation of all lectio divina: in Scripture, it is not only an inspired man of long ago who speaks; it is God addressing us now. From this comes the absolute seriousness with which they read it.
Saint Ambrose: "We Listen to Him When We Read"
The bishop of Milan, Ambrose (c. 340–397), the master of Saint Augustine, gave the formula that sums up all of lectio divina — to the point that the Second Vatican Council quoted it as the charter of prayerful reading. For him, prayer and reading form a single dialogue: in prayer, it is we who speak to God; in the reading of Scripture, it is God who answers us.
"When we pray, we speak with him; and when we read the divine oracles, we listen to him." — Saint Ambrose of Milan, On the Duties of Ministers, I, 20, quoted at the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum § 25)[7]
Everything is said: the reading of Scripture is a listening. To read the Bible is not to gather information about God; it is to "listen to him" — to fall silent so that he may speak.
Saint Jerome: "Ignorance of the Scriptures Is Ignorance of Christ"
No Father loved Scripture as Jerome (c. 347–420) did. Withdrawn to Bethlehem, he devoted thirty years to translating the Bible into Latin — the Vulgate — and commenting on it. His whole life is a plea for lectio divina: he urged the women and monks around him to read Scripture every day, to learn passages by heart, to "ruminate" on it ceaselessly. His most famous sentence, which likewise became a cornerstone of Dei Verbum, states what is vitally at stake in this reading:
"Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." — Saint Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, prologue, quoted at the Second Vatican Council (Dei Verbum § 25)[8]
For Jerome, Christ is entirely present in Scripture: to read it is to meet him; to neglect it is to deprive oneself of knowing him. To a mother who asked him how to raise her daughter, he answered with a program of lectio divina from childhood: "Let her recite something of the Scriptures to you every day. […] Let work follow reading, and reading follow work."[9]
Saint Augustine: "Take and Read"
The conversion of Saint Augustine (354–430), recounted in Book VIII of the Confessions, is the most famous scene of lectio divina in all Christian history. Torn apart, in tears in a garden in Milan, he hears a child's voice repeating a refrain: "Tolle, lege" — "Take and read." He opens at random the book of Saint Paul's epistles, falls upon a verse of the Epistle to the Romans, and his life is overturned.
"I seized it, I opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell. […] Immediately, at the end of this sentence, as though a light of assurance had poured into my heart, all the darkness of my doubts was dispelled." — Saint Augustine, The Confessions, VIII, 12[10]
The episode has become the icon of what a single line of Scripture, read with a disposed heart, can do: not to inform, but to convert. Augustine's whole doctrine of prayerful reading is contained in this "Tolle, lege": Scripture only waits to be taken seriously to transform a life.
Saint Gregory the Great: "Scripture Grows with the One Who Reads It"
Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), a monk become pope, is one of the greatest masters of spiritual reading. He formulated the secret law of lectio divina: Scripture is not a dead text exhausted in a single reading; it is a living Word which unfolds as we go deeper into it. The more we grow, the more it grows with us.
"The divine words grow together with the one who reads them." — Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel, I, 7[11]
This is the experience of every faithful reader of the Bible: a verse read a hundred times suddenly yields, one day of trial, an unsuspected meaning. Gregory gave the reason: Scripture is like "a river in which the lamb walks and the elephant swims"[12] — simple enough for the humblest, deep enough never to be exhausted. And he summed up all of lectio divina in a luminous formula: "Learn to know the heart of God in the words of God."[13]
The Monks: Reading That Becomes Prayer
If the Fathers founded lectio divina, it is the monks who organized it, making prayerful reading the very backbone of their days. It is in the cloisters that it received its classic form.
Saint Benedict: Lectio Divina in the Rule
Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–547), patriarch of Western monks, inscribed lectio divina in his Rule as one of the three pillars of monastic life, alongside prayer and work. In chapter 48, he sets aside long hours each day for holy reading, making it a true duty of state:
"Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labour, and at other fixed times in sacred reading (lectio divina)." — Saint Benedict, Rule, ch. 48[14]
This decision shaped Europe: for centuries, thousands of monks read, copied, meditated on, and handed down Scripture, making the monasteries the hearths where lectio divina was never extinguished. Benedict wanted his sons not to be content with quick reading: reading had to pass into memory, into prayer, into life. This is the meaning of monastic meditatio — not an intellectual exercise, but a rumination of the text.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: "Ruminating" the Word
The great Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Doctor of the Church, carried this image of rumination to its furthest point. For him, to meditate on Scripture is to do as the clean animal of the Law does, chewing the cud: to take up the Word slowly, to "chew" it again and again to draw out all its hidden savor.
"Let the Word of God be food to you: eat this book. […] It is not enough to receive it in the mouth; it must be brought down into the heart." — Doctrine of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on the ruminatio of Scripture[15]
This savor — sapientia, "knowledge that has taste" — is the goal of lectio divina according to the monks: not to accumulate knowledge about the Bible, but to taste God in it. "Today we read in the book of experience," said Bernard in commenting on the Song of Songs[16]: Scripture read in prayer becomes the very history of the soul with God.
The Imitation of Christ: Seeking Truth, Not Eloquence
The most widely read spiritual book after the Bible, the Imitation of Christ (15th century, attributed to Thomas à Kempis), devotes a whole chapter to the reading of the Scriptures. In it, it recalls the right disposition: one does not read the Bible for its style or to shine, but to find Christ speaking there.
"Seek in Holy Scripture the truth, and not eloquence. All Holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in which it was written." — Imitation of Christ, Book I, ch. 5[17]
And the author draws from it the great law of humble lectio divina: "Let not the authority of the writer hold you back […] but read for love of pure truth. Do not ask: who said this? but attend to what is said."[18] To read Scripture is to forget oneself in order to listen to God alone.
The Modern Saints: The Gospel, Book of Prayer
In modern times, lectio divina left the cloisters to become the bread of all who pray. Two Carmelites are its finest witnesses.
Saint Teresa of Avila: A Good Book to Enter into Prayer
Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), Doctor of the Church and mistress of mental prayer, confesses in her autobiography that for a long time she could only pray with a book in her hand: holy reading was the door through which she entered into prayer, the staff that steadied her recollection against distractions.
"I did not dare to begin prayer without a book. […] With this help, which was to me like a companion and a shield to receive the blows of the many thoughts, I went on consoled." — Saint Teresa of Avila, Book of Her Life, ch. 4[19]
She recommended good books and the Gospel above all, and dreaded the day when souls would be deprived of them. Lectio divina, for her, is not reserved for scholars: it is the humble support of all prayer that begins.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: "Above All, the Gospel"
Three centuries later, Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), Doctor of the Church, brought lectio divina to its point of extreme simplicity. This Norman Carmelite, dead at twenty-four, could no longer pray except with the Gospel, which she carried on her heart day and night.
"Above all, it is the Gospel that sustains me during my prayers; in it I find all that my poor little soul needs. I am always discovering new lights in it, hidden and mysterious meanings." — Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Autobiographical Manuscripts, Ms A[20]
"Hidden and mysterious meanings": without having read Origen or Gregory, little Thérèse rediscovers through her own experience what the whole tradition teaches — Scripture grows with the one who reads it. She is living proof that the highest lectio divina needs neither learning nor complicated method, but a child's heart that listens.
Vatican II and Benedict XVI: Lectio Divina for All the People of God
The Second Vatican Council made lectio divina, long reserved for monks, the possession of all the faithful. The constitution Dei Verbum (1965) urges everyone to frequent Scripture through prayerful reading, taking up again the formulas of Ambrose and Jerome already quoted:
"Let prayer accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that it becomes a dialogue between God and man; for 'we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.'" — Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum § 25[21]
Benedict XVI made the revival of lectio divina one of the great themes of his pontificate. At the Synod on the Word of God (2008), he declared forcefully: "I would like in particular to recall and recommend the ancient tradition of lectio divina: the diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer brings about that intimate dialogue in which, through reading, we hear God speaking, and, through prayer, we respond to him. […] If it is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the Church — I am convinced — a new spiritual springtime."[22]
What All the Saints Agree On
When all these voices are reread together — from Origen to Benedict XVI — four convictions recur in all of them, across centuries and schools. This is the core of the Catholic doctrine of prayerful reading.
1. Scripture Is the Living Word, in Which God Speaks Today
No saint treats the Bible as a book of the past. For Ambrose, in it we "listen" to God; for Gregory, it "grows" with its reader; for Thérèse of Lisieux, it ever yields "new lights". The shared conviction is that Scripture is present: what God said in it once, he keeps saying to every believing reader. "The word of God is living and active," writes the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 4:12) — and this is the verse which all the masters of lectio divina take at its word.
2. Reading Must Become Prayer
This is the most unanimous point: lectio divina is not a study; it is a prayer. Origen binds it inseparably to supplication; Guigo makes oratio the third rung of the ladder; Dei Verbum wills that "prayer accompany reading". To read without praying would be to dissect a love letter instead of hearing it. All repeat it: we have not truly read Scripture until it has made us speak to God.
| Master | Century | Distinctive Contribution | Signature Quotation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origen | 3rd | The word and the founding directive | "Devote yourself to the reading of the divine Scriptures" |
| Ambrose | 4th | To read is to listen to God | "We listen to him when we read" |
| Jerome | 4th–5th | Scripture gives Christ | "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" |
| Augustine | 4th–5th | The reading that converts | "Tolle, lege" |
| Gregory the Great | 6th | The living, inexhaustible Scripture | "It grows with the one who reads it" |
| Benedict | 6th | Lectio as a rule of life | "To be occupied in sacred reading" |
| Bernard | 12th | To ruminate and taste the Word | "Eat this book" |
| Guigo II | 12th | The four degrees | "Seek by reading, you will find by meditating" |
| Thérèse of Lisieux | 19th | The Gospel, bread of prayer | "Above all, the Gospel" |
| Benedict XVI | 21st | Lectio for all the people of God | "A new spiritual springtime" |
3. We Read to Love and Be Converted, Not to Know
All judge lectio divina not by what we learn in it, but by what it produces. The Imitation warns against learned reading that seeks eloquence; Benedict XVI crowns reading with actio; Augustine is converted by a single verse. The sign of a true lectio divina is not biblical erudition, but a changed life — humbler, more loving, more conformed to Christ. "What does it profit you to dispute profoundly about the Trinity, if you lack humility?" asks the Imitation[23]. Knowledge of Scripture that does not beget love misses its mark.
4. Mary, Model of Lectio Divina
Lastly, all recognize in Mary the perfect model of prayerful reading — even before it had a name. The Gospel shows her in the exact attitude of lectio divina: receiving the Word, keeping it, pondering it in the silence of her heart.
"But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart." — Gospel according to Saint Luke, 2:19[24]
To keep the Word and "ponder it in her heart": this is the very definition of meditatio. Benedict XVI stressed it, making Mary the "image" of all lectio divina: "In Mary we are offered a radiant and luminous icon of love for the Word of God."[25] The choir of saints is, at bottom, but a long echo of that prayerful silence of the Virgin, who first knew how to listen to God in his words.
Lectio Divina in the Divine Will
At the end of this choir, one final step — proper to the spirituality of the Divine Will — extends the teaching of the saints without contradicting it. According to the writings of Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947), God endowed the human soul, in his likeness, with three powers called to recover their full capacity in him: "In creating man, I endowed him with three powers: his intellect, his memory and his will […]. In the Fiat of Creation, the intellect of man was as though ravished: how much he understood of Me and of My love for him, I who am hidden in all created things to make Myself known."[26] To live "in" the Divine Will, according to this doctrine, is to see intellect, memory and will recover their original capacity to know and love God. Applied to lectio divina, this final degree contradicts none of the masters quoted above: it radicalizes their shared intuition — that Scripture is truly read only by an intellect united to God — down to its deepest foundation, an intellect restored to its first capacity to understand the Word as God wills it to be understood. Here we rejoin the spirit of the companion anthology on mental prayer: the highest lectio divina would be the one in which we no longer read by our own strength alone, but in which the intellect itself, restored to its full measure, thinks with God the Word he gives.
To Go Further
- How to Grow in Lectio Divina — the practical angle: what this prayerful reading is, its history from the Fathers to Guigo II, the four degrees as a school of growth, the concrete means to make it grow, and the pitfalls to avoid.
- The Spiritual Sense of Scripture — the hermeneutics which lectio divina puts to work: literal sense and spiritual sense, the four senses of Scripture, reading the Old Testament in the light of Christ.
- What Do the Saints Say About Mental Prayer — the companion anthology: the voice of the great masters of interior prayer, of which lectio divina is the nourishment.
- Frequent Errors Concerning Lectio Divina — the misunderstandings that halt growth: confusing learned reading with prayerful reading, chasing feelings, skipping prayer.
- What Do the Saints Say About Interior Silence — the silence of the heart, condition for hearing the Word.
Notes and References
Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum on divine revelation (18 November 1965), § 25: "Let prayer accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that it becomes a dialogue between God and man; for 'we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.'" Text verified on the official Vatican website (Vatican.va, English version).
1 21Origen (c. 185–253), Letter to Gregory the Wonderworker, § 3–4. Reference edition: Sources Chrétiennes no. 148 (Cerf, Paris, 1969), pp. 187–195. It is in this letter that the Greek expression theia anagnôsis ("divine reading") appears for the first time, rendered in Latin as lectio divina. Verified English translation (cf. Fathers of the Church translations).
2Origen, Letter to Gregory the Wonderworker, § 4: exhortation to join prayer to reading in order to understand the meaning of the Scriptures ("knocking" and "seeking" in the sense of Mt 7:7). Same SC no. 148 edition.
3Guigo II the Carthusian (Guigo II, c. 1114 – c. 1188), Scala claustralium (The Ladder of Monks), ch. 2 ("Description of the offices of the four degrees"): formula of the four degrees of lectio divina — "Lectio quaerit […] meditatio invenit […] oratio postulat […] contemplatio sentit" ("reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation tastes"). Reference edition: The Ladder of Monks. A Letter on the Contemplative Life and Twelve Meditations, critical text established by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and James Walsh, S.J., trans. by a Carthusian, Cistercian Studies vol. 67 (Cistercian Publications).
4Benedict XVI, post-synodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini (30 September 2010), § 87: description of the degrees of lectio divina through the questions they raise — lectio ("what does the biblical text say in itself?"), meditatio ("what does the text say to us?"), oratio ("what do we say to the Lord in response?"), contemplatio, and finally actio ("the process comes to an end only when it leads to action"). Text verified on Vatican.va (English version).
5 6Saint Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), De officiis ministrorum (On the Duties of Ministers), I, 20, 88 (PL 16, 50): "When we pray, we speak with him; and when we read the divine oracles, we listen to him." Quoted by the Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum § 25, notes 39–40. Reference verified on the official text of Dei Verbum (Vatican.va).
7Saint Jerome (c. 347–420), Commentary on Isaiah (Commentarii in Isaiam), prologue (PL 24, 17): "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (ignoratio Scripturarum ignoratio Christi est). Quoted by the Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum § 25, note 39. Reference verified on the official text of Dei Verbum (Vatican.va).
8Saint Jerome, Letter 107 to Laeta (on the Christian education of her daughter): program of daily reading of Scripture from childhood — "Let work follow reading, and reading follow work." Reference edition: Letters, text established and translated by J. Labourt, Les Belles Lettres.
9Saint Augustine (354–430), The Confessions, Book VIII, ch. 12, 29: account of the conversion in the garden of Milan — the child's voice ("Tolle, lege"), the opening of the book of Saint Paul's epistles (Rom 13:13–14), and the sudden dispersal of the darkness of doubt. Reference edition: The Confessions, standard translation (cf. Chadwick / Boulding).
10Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), Homilies on Ezekiel (Homiliae in Hiezechielem), I, 7, 8 (PL 76, 843 D): "Divina eloquia cum legente crescunt" — "The divine words grow together with the one who reads them." The idea is also found in the Moralia in Iob (XX, 1). Founding maxim of the spiritual reading of Scripture.
11Saint Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, dedicatory epistle to Leander, § 4: Scripture compared to "a broad and deep river, in which the lamb walks and the elephant swims" — the classic image of the Bible accessible to the humble and inexhaustible to the learned.
12Saint Gregory the Great, Register of Letters (Registrum epistularum), letter to Theodore the physician (Reg. Ep. IV, 31; ed. Norberg, V, 46): "Learn to know the heart of God in the words of God" (disce cor Dei in verbis Dei). Often quoted as the motto of lectio divina.
13Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–547), Rule of the Monks, ch. 48 ("Of the Daily Manual Labour"): "Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brothers should be occupied at certain times in manual labour, and at other fixed times in sacred reading (lectio divina)." The chapter sets aside long daily periods for lectio. Reference edition: The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Liturgical Press.
14Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), doctrine of the ruminatio of Scripture, expounded notably in his Sermons on the Song of Songs: to meditate on the Word is to "ruminate" it after the manner of the clean animal (cf. Lv 11), bringing its savor down from the mouth into the heart. Reference edition: Sermons on the Song of Songs, Cistercian Fathers vols. 4, 7, 31, 40 (Cistercian Publications). Synthetic formulation of his doctrine.
15Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 3, 1: "Today we read in the book of experience" (hodie legimus in libro experientiae). Lectio divina is presented there as the reading of Scripture in the light of the lived experience of God.
16Imitation of Christ (anonymous, 15th century, traditionally attributed to Thomas à Kempis), Book I, ch. 5 ("Of the Reading of Holy Scriptures"): "Seek in Holy Scripture the truth, and not eloquence. All Holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in which it was written." Standard translation: cf. Sherley-Price (Penguin) or Crean (Ignatius Press).
17Imitation of Christ, Book I, ch. 5: "Let not the authority of the writer hold you back, whether he be of little or great learning; but let the love of pure truth draw you to read. Do not ask: who said this? but attend to what is said."
18Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), Book of Her Life (autobiography), ch. 4: confession of her dependence on a book to enter into prayer — "I did not dare to begin prayer without a book […] with this help, which was to me like a companion and a shield to receive the blows of the many thoughts, I went on consoled." Reference edition: Collected Works, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, ICS Publications.
19Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873–1897), Autobiographical Manuscripts, Manuscript A, folio 83 v: "Above all, it is the Gospel that sustains me during my prayers; in it I find all that my poor little soul needs. I am always discovering new lights in it, hidden and mysterious meanings." Reference edition: Story of a Soul, trans. John Clarke, ICS Publications.
20Benedict XVI, address for the 40th anniversary of Dei Verbum (16 September 2005) and exhortation Verbum Domini § 86–87: pressing recommendation of lectio divina — "the diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer […] will bring to the Church […] a new spiritual springtime." Echo of the words of John Paul II (Novo Millennio Ineunte, § 39). Text verified on Vatican.va.
22Imitation of Christ, Book I, ch. 1: "What does it profit you to dispute profoundly about the Trinity, if you lack humility […]?" — warning against religious learning without charity, applied by the whole tradition to the reading of Scripture.
23Gospel according to Saint Luke, 2:19 (cf. Lk 2:51): "But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Greek symballousa en tê kardia autês). Verse traditionally read as the scriptural icon of meditatio and lectio divina.
24Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, § 27 ("Mary, 'Mother of the Word of God' and 'Mother of Faith'"): "In Mary we are offered a radiant and luminous icon of love for the Word of God." The Virgin is presented there as the model of the prayerful reception of Scripture. Text verified on Vatican.va.
25Fr. Joseph L. Iannuzzi, The Gift of Living in the Divine Will in the Writings of Luisa Piccarreta, doctoral thesis, Pontifical Gregorian University, 2012, p. 126: quotation of Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta on the three powers of the soul — intellect, memory, will — which the three Fiats (creation, redemption, sanctification) restore to their full capacity to know and love God.
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