“Look to him, and be radiant; so
your faces shall never be ashamed.” (Psalm 34:5 RSV)
Lectio Divina is Latin
for Divine Reading. Lectio Divina enters us into dialogue with
the Author of the Word. The four steps of Lectio Divina; Read, Reflect, Respond and Rest, bring
us into the Presence of the God who loves us.
Read
the text over meditatively several times.
Reflect on the meaning of the text. Respond in prayer on the basis
of the text. Rest in the Presence of God.
One of the fruits
of Lectio Divina is deification. To Western ears that sounds misleading. In the
Western Church we would use the word sanctification.
St. Peter says, “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and
very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption
that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4 NRS].
Paul speaks of the same thing when he says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of
glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV).
The words “are being
transformed” translate the Greek word for metamorphosis. The transformation is in process now as we
behold the glory of the Lord in Lectio Divina.
As we gaze upon the Lord in his self-revelation in Holy Scripture we
receive into ourselves His likeness.
Like Moses on Mount
Sinai we look to Him and become radiant (Exodus 34:29-35).
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the
testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know
that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face
shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to
them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and
Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came
near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount
Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a
veil over his face. Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to
speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came
out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the
people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was
shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to
speak with him.
St. Gregory
Palamas would remind us that in beholding, not the essence of God, but the
radiance of God, we ourselves enter into deification and take on that same
radiance.
It is the radiance
of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.
“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his
brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was
transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes
became white as light” (Matthew 17:1, 2).
In Lectio we kneel at the feet of the radiant Christ whom we adore.
St. Gregory of Nyssa says,
“We receive into ourselves the likeness of whatever we look upon.” This is true both of evil and good. In the present context, as we gaze in Lectio
at the radiance of Christ, we receive that radiance into ourselves and are
transformed. “Look to him and be
radiant. So your faces shall never be
ashamed.”
In all of this one thing
must be carefully identified. Do not
seek the radiance for the sake of being radiant. Seek rather that radiance in order to be like
Him who loves us; He who is the express image, the outraying, the effulgence of
the Father’s glory. He alone is to be
worshipped and adored, for own His sake, and for no other reason. “For from him and through him and to
him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36 ESV).
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