Couples “lost in translation” between “Personal Lectio Divina” and “Common Lectio Divina” 1
Common
Lectio
Divina
In
a community or in a group a question might be asked: “Is it
possible to do a “lectio divina” all together (or to share on the
Gospel)?”, because we know of Lectio divina (as a personal
exercise).
Before
answering this question I would like to categorise the two exercises
by calling them “Personal Lectio Divna” and “Common Lectio
Divina”. “Personal Lectio divina” is when we do it personally,
without necessarily sharing what we received with others. On the
other hand, the “Common Lectio Divina” is based on doing it
together, and necessarily sharing what we receive.
To
answer the question about the differences between these two
exercises, let us understand their exact dynamics. Let us first
remember the essence of lectio
divina (the
Personal one). Its goal is to listen to Jesus (who is our Master, Our
Guide, Our Doctor) who is giving us a Word that is Spirit and Divine
Life, directly, adapted to what He sees to be our personal need today
and put it into practice. By receiving and putting today's word, we
are healed in an area of our being (will and mind).
On
the other hand, in order to know what is “Common lectio
divina“
we need to know what is/are its goal/s. Various answers might be
given:
1-
to seek together the will of God for the community or the group
2-
to encourage each other, in our journey
3-
sharing our “listening to Jesus” helps each other, illuminates
each other, strengthens the faith of each other
4-
we can “push” each other in order to grow in our journey
5-
allows us to put our relationships under the light of God
Other
goals could be found, that will motivate us to do a “common lectio
divina”. None of the above goals could be underestimated or
dismissed by any christian.
In
accordance to that, we can easily understand that “personal lectio
divina”
is not exactly the same thing as “common lectio
divina”.
When God makes us grow, interiorly, personally it is never at the expense of others, but allowing others to be born in our heart, learning, exercising Divine Hospitality, where the Outpoured Love of God is enlarging our heart in order to receive everybody in it, without excluding anybody and any act made from anybody.
Relationship
between the Person and the Community
The
community (or group) is composed of persons, and only inside of the
heart of each person can
the community
start. A person who lives a community life, but who, in his/her
heart, doesn't receive, accept, love, and pray for his/her community,
remains an isolated person.
The
group is not an entity! When one dies, he cannot say to God: “my
friends did this, and did that”. God will say: “and you, what did
you do?” Therefore we cannot escape from the personal
responsibility, and from the “corner stone” of each community:
the single Person. It is true as well, on the other hand, that we
help each other and that we are as well accountable for it. But
without the “corner stone” of carrying our own responsibility for
the personal growth there is no group.
Having
sad all that, doing a “Common lectio
divina”
has its own importance and its own dynamics. “Personal lectio
divina”,
while being fundamental, doesn't necessarily replace the “Common
lectio divina”.
God taught us to seek together His will, and promised that when two
or three are gathered in His Name, searching His will, He is present
amongst them and therefore is acting in a more powerful way. God is
communion,
the Trinity is a communion
between the Three Persons, and seeking, as a community,
the word of God, creates something even more powerful. “They
will know you from the love you have for each other”
(John) and since love
is constantly working on the truth (seeking
the truth, trying to make the truth be the its reference),
the truth not only in us, but the truth that inhabits our
relationships, it is of absolute importance to allow the Light and
Love of God to dwell amongst the members of the community, all of
them, in order to grow in Holiness.
It
is then by seeking together the truth in our relationships that we
can as well grow. The personal act of seeking
Truth for ourselves,
directly, from God doesn't exempt us from seeking the Truth together.
Person
and Community are not exclusive of each other, they don't oppose each
other, on the contrary, they do complement each other, but they do so
bearing in mind that the Person is the Corner Stone of the Community
and that the Community does not give accounts to God, but the persons
that compose it.
When God makes us grow, interiorly, personally it is never at the expense of others, but allowing others to be born in our heart, learning, exercising Divine Hospitality, where the Outpoured Love of God is enlarging our heart in order to receive everybody in it, without excluding anybody and any act made from anybody.
This
is why opening ourselves to the others, generates always a new growth
in us. “the
one who loves me, puts into practice my commandments
(my words) and
(then, and
because of it)
the Father will
(be moved “anew” to)
love him and we will come and dwell in him”
(John 15:23). This is why, as saint John of the Cross points out in
his Spiritual
Canticle,
we can “provoke”, “generate” a greater love from God to us by
putting in practice the heroic love saint Paul depicts us.
“God
does not establish His grace and love in the soul but in
proportion
to the good will of that soul’s love. He, therefore, that truly
loves God must strive that his love fail not; for so, if we may thus
speak, will
he move God
to show him greater
love,
and to take greater delight in his soul. In order to attain to such a
degree of love, he must practice those things of which the Apostle
speaks, saying: “Charity
is patient, is benign: charity envies not, deals not perversely; is
not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not her own, is not provoked
to anger, thinks not evil, rejoices not upon iniquity, but rejoices
with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.””
(1 Co
13:4-7)”
(Saint
John of the Cross, Spiritual
Canticle A,
stanza 12, paragraph 11 or CS
B, 13,12)
(to be continued)
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