What's up? I'm Father Josh Johnson, and this is Ascension Presents.
So... I always talk about the Bible. I love the Bible,
the Bible is God's letter to us and
oftentimes I preach about this, and, and
recently one of my parishioners came up to me
and said, "Father, it's really cool that you keep telling us that we need to pray with the Scriptures but... how?"
I thought about it. I said, "That's so true, I never, I never even try to teach you how to pray with the Scriptures."
I remember my first time opening up the Bible. One of my friends was going through something and
I didn't really know God at this time of my life, and so I ran to my mom's room,
picked up the Bible, and opened up to the index. I read Genesis. Exodus.. Numbers.
and said, "This doesn't make any sense!"
*laughs* Because I didn't know what to do with it.
So sometimes, it's the same way for most of us.
We get the Bible and we're like, "OK where do I even open up to?"
So I'm going to teach you a form of prayer. It is a really old-school form of prayer that is pretty epic
and it's called lectio divina.
That means "divine reading."
And there's four parts to the lectio... and there's five parts... depending on who you're talking to.
I'm gonna give you five.
So the first part is reading. You pick something from, from the Scriptures.
I typically say start with the Gospels, so you pick something from the Gospels and you read.
What does it say in and of itself? What does the Scripture say?
And then after you read it, you find something that sticks out to you and you begin to meditate on it,
which basically means 'What is this Scripture saying to me right now?' 'What is it speaking to my heart?'
And after you meditate the next step is pray.
St. Teresa of Avila says prayer is simply a conversation with God, so we speak to God
about what we read and what we meditated on.
We intercede, we ask God for grace to begin to live out maybe what it is.
We say we're sorry to God for, for maybe messing up in some way, shape, or form.
And then after that, the next step is contemplation.
This step is a pure gift from God to us. It's called grace, we can't make it happen.
We simply spend time looking at him and letting him look at us
and if during that time of gazing at the Lord and him gazing at us,
if he desires to give us the gift of contemplation, where he takes us to like a whole another level of prayer,
He will. If not, let's just chill with him. *sings* Juuust chill.
Just chill with the Lord, and then after that, after we chill with the Lord, spend time with him,
we end it off by an action.
What kind of concrete action can I do based on my time of reading, meditating, praying, and perhaps contemplating with the Lord?
So if we want to do a real quick run-through, we'll do it right now so we can see how it's done.
Gospel of Luke, chapter 10, verses 38 through 42.
It tells the story of Mary and Martha, right?
Jesus Christ comes to visit Mary and Martha.
Martha says to Jesus, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me!"
The Lord said, "Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things. One thing is needful.
Mary has chosen the better portion which shall not be taken away from her."
So what does it say?
It says that Jesus told Martha like, "Yo calm down, just chill, Mary has the better part,"
and, and then Martha's like, "OK"
Alright, so that's what it says. We read it.
When I meditate on it, I'm like "Alright, I'm praying and I'm meditating now, what is it saying to me?"
It's saying to me that Mary chose the better part because she went to Jesus first
and because she went to him first, she knew that he wanted her to rest during that season of her life,
whereas Martha never went to him first. She started serving first without going to God,
so that's, that's saying to me that I'm not supposed to do things without first praying,
without first sitting at the feet of the Lord and him telling me what he wants me to do.
And then after I meditate on that, I pray and I say,
"God, thank you for the times in which I was able to come to you first,
but I'm sorry, I apologize for the times that I didn't.
So please give me the grace to be more faithful to run to you first, before I make actions."
After this, I sit with the Lord.
I let him look at me, I look at him. If contemplation happens, it happens.
If it doesn't, it's cool.
And I finally ended with an action based off my prayer experience with the Lord today in the Scriptures.
What action am I going to make? Well, tomorrow before I do anything, I'm going to drop to my knees
and I'm going to pray and spend time with God and ask him to guide me and direct me in my day,
that I may do his will and not my own.
And that is lectio divina made simple by your man, Father Josh.
I hope it helps you in your relationship with the Lord and in your walk towards eternity.
*music out*