After a two year hiatus I’m once again offering my online class on classic lectio divina for Advent. Woot!
Advent
Advent is the four week long ramp up to Christmas. The Church, long long ago, had the insight that we shouldn’t just jump into our celebration of the birth of Jesus, God in the Flesh. It’s so monumentally important that we should spend four Sundays and the days in between getting ready.
Spiritual preparation for the presence of Jesus, our savior and lord takes some effort. Isaiah’s image has always come to mind: building a highway through the wilderness, mowing down mountains and filling up valleys. We do some work to make a straight path so Jesus can reach us easily.
It’s actually all the more needed in our modern world. Before Advent even begins some of the radio stations and many of the stores begin a steady stream of Christmas songs. There’s no attention to getting ourselves ready. The world proclaims Christmas is already here–but it isn’t really even about Jesus, is it?
Doing something intentional in Advent to make it a season of spiritual renewal is totally worth doing. Otherwise, you may miss it in all the hurly burly.
Lectio Divina
For going on 2,000 years, Christians have brought themselves before God by prayerfully engaging with the Bible. Since at least the early 500s Christians have called the practice “lectio divina” or “divine reading.” It’s prayer, but in the context of an encounter with Scripture. It starts with Bible study, but it moves much more deeply into a conversation with God.
Classic lectio divina (not to be confused with a number of modern practices that keep the name but do rather different things) has four specific steps. Monks and nuns in the middle ages would spend a couple hours a day at it. In the process, the Bible profoundly shaped their relationships with God and their lives in relation to others.
My class will introduce you to this ancient form of the practice, classic lectio divina, as it was taught by a 12th century monk in a lovely little book called The Ladder of Monks. I’ve written a modern interpretation of that book’s teachings to make it accessible in the 21st century. My book is Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th-Century Monk. We’ll be using it in the class, and you can get it for free by subscribing here on my site.
Luke’s Songs
The process has four steps. Advent has four weeks. My class will invite you to practice classic lectio divina on four powerful biblical texts: the songs sung by the angel Gabriel, Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon in the first part of Luke’s Gospel.
The Class
Each week you’ll have a video talk by me, and a recommended section of my book. You’ll have a schedule and instructions on learning classic lectio divina step by step, verse by verse, through song by song. If you want to join a discussion with others, there’s an optional discussion forum with new questions every week.
And this year, for the first time, if you want to actually meet with me and other participants, I’ll be holding a weekly Zoom session for the class. It’s not required. But I hope it is helpful and fun.
Registration
You can find out all the details through this link, which you can also reach by the top menu here on my site.
I hope you’ll join us. These are amazing texts and lectio divina is a really life-giving practice. Make this Advent the time of renewal you need it to be.
Blessings,
Gary
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