Lectio Divina and marital spirituality

Spiritual Life, Winter 1999 by McDonald, Patrick J, McDonald, Claudette M

IMAGINE A ROOM FILLED WITH twenty couples, each of them married somewhere between five and forty years. The atmosphere is alive through several hours of storytelling about growing intimacy, rearing children, future dreams, job stress, geographical change, and even surprises about what retirement holds.

Although amazingly diverse in their respective needs, lifestyles, and views about the good and the bad of marriage, the couples share a common bond: a sincere desire to deepen their marriage. Even though they all use the term marital spirituality, the phrase carries a different meaning for each of them.

They express feelings of relief as they hear us legitimize a variety of marital spiritualities-that God speaks to each of them with a specific language about their value as persons and their mission as couples. This makes God more real for them.

We invite them to quiet down in order to listen to a reading from the Gospel of Luke. The couples intuitively know that a life-altering lesson is about to unfold, so collective restlessness gives way to gentle expectancy as they grow silent before the Scriptures.

We describe this transition to a softness of the heart as the beginning of a Lectio Divina (the art of sacred reading). It is an ancient and venerable monastic practice, given practical form through centuries of use, but with a little imagination it can be translated to the marriage context.

In this article, we want to describe a simple exercise of Lectio Divina, apply it to the lives of couples, and show how it gives form and definition to a developing marital spirituality.

The closest we can come to a lived experience is to invite our readers to listen in to marital process (directed dialogue at every level: cognitive, emotional, spiritual-all aimed at a deeper vision of marriage).

As our illustration shows, Lectio Divina can touch couples deeply--even at a gender level-thereby opening up to them a richer ground of love. We hope this article will add to the current discussion about the resurgence and relevance of Lectio Divina as a spiritual discipline.

Lectio Divina

Although we cannot recount a full description of all that Lectio Divina is, nor offer an elaborate history of its development in a brief article, it is essentially a Divine lesson. The Scriptures hold out to us a treasury of wisdom and practicality, inviting us to live a life of love and service.

By listening to a specific text with attention and openness, we are changed. This Spirit-guided action of listening breaks the hearer out of the constraints caused by limited images of God, clouded visions of God's place in life, or the fears associated with genuine development.

Hearing the Scriptures a little differently (through a fresh translation and a slow reflective reading style) not only facilitates this kind of breakout, it invites us to look at our lives as mystery. Ultimately, Lectio Divina is a lesson from God who informs, shapes, molds and nurtures our deeper spirit.

The listening is usually followed by quiet, allowing the hearers of the Divine lesson to savor the meaning of the text, apply its lesson to their lives in a personal way, or simply rest in the presence of God. These experiences are part of the legacy of Lectio Divina within any context.

Marriage offers a unique dimension to this practice, however, because the lessons of the Scriptures must be applied to a couple's awareness of what their marriage is, in what ways it is unfolding, or what might be their vision for the future. As a couple listens, then dialogues about the implications of the lesson for their future, they reforge a bond around a sacred reality. In uncountable ways, the sacred lesson concretizes itself in their interaction.

We often assert to couples that the deepest bond possible in a marriage is that which flows from Lectio Divina. On an interpersonal level, they rework nagging differences because they find fresh energy for relating. On an existential level, it is God who reconstructs the bond. Allow us to offer an example.

A Divine Lesson

Our two readers now stand before the group. They are a husband and wife of thirty years, each composed in their visible differentness. A strong male voice begins:

Jesus then told them this story: The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself. "What should I do? My barn isn't big enough for this harvest." Then he said, "Here's what I'll do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I'll gather in all my grains and goods, and I'll say to myself, Self, you've done well! You've got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!" Just then God showed up and said, "Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods-who gets it?" That is what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God. (Lk 12)

The bridge between the two sections of the Gospel is silence. The Divine lesson begins to penetrate the minds of those who are jolted a bit by the freshness of language and unexpected images emerging from an old story.