Lectio Divina: How to Pray Scripture in Four Steps

Lectio divina (Latin for “divine reading”) is a way of praying with scripture: you read a short passage slowly, more than once, notice a word or phrase that holds you, turn it over, answer God in prayer and then rest quietly in his presence. Its four classic steps are lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer) and contemplatio (contemplation).

It is less a method for studying the Bible than a way of letting the Bible read you. Study asks what a passage meant and how it fits together. Lectio asks a simpler question: what is God saying to me, here, today, through these words?

Where lectio divina comes from

Christians have always prayed with scripture. The psalmist delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it “day and night” (Psalm 1:2), and finds God’s words “sweeter than honey” (Psalm 119:103). In the third century Origen urged readers to approach scripture with attention and prayer, and early monks memorised the psalms so they could murmur them through the working day.

In the sixth century the Rule of Saint Benedict set aside hours each day for lectio divina (chapter 48), alongside manual work and the common prayer of the Daily Office. For Benedict’s monks, reading was slow, often aloud, and meant to be taken to heart.

Guigo II and the ladder of monks

The four steps most people learn today come from Guigo II, a Carthusian monk and prior of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps, who died around 1188. In a short letter known as The Ladder of Monks (Scala Claustralium) he described four rungs by which a reader climbs from earth toward heaven: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation.

He gave a homely picture to go with it:

Reading, as it were, puts food whole into the mouth, meditation chews it and breaks it up, prayer extracts its flavour, contemplation is the sweetness itself which gladdens and refreshes.

The steps are not a rigid sequence. Guigo saw them as linked, each leading to the next, and in practice people move back and forth between them.

Beyond the monastery

Lectio divina is often thought of as Catholic, and it has been warmly commended in recent Catholic teaching, but it belongs to the whole church. Martin Luther, writing to his barber Peter in 1535 (A Simple Way to Pray), suggested taking a passage and turning it four ways: as instruction, as thanksgiving, as confession and as prayer. Anglican, Reformed, Methodist and evangelical Christians practise lectio today, often in small groups, and the Orthodox tradition has its own long practice of prayerful, attentive reading of scripture and the Fathers.

How to do lectio divina: the four steps

Choose a short passage before you begin. Good ones to start with are Psalm 23, Isaiah 55:1-3, Mark 10:46-52 (blind Bartimaeus), Luke 10:38-42 (Martha and Mary) and John 15:1-11 (the vine and the branches). Sit somewhere quiet, take a few slow breaths, and ask God to speak.

1. Lectio: read

Read the passage slowly, aloud if you can. Read it again. Listen for a word or phrase that catches you: one that comforts, unsettles or simply stays. You do not need to know why. Stop there and hold it.

2. Meditatio: meditate

Repeat the word or phrase quietly to yourself. Turn it over, the way you might chew something slowly. Notice what it touches in your life: a memory, a worry, a person, a decision you are carrying. Meditation here is not emptying the mind; it is filling it with one piece of scripture and letting it speak.

3. Oratio: pray

Answer God. Say honestly what the word has stirred: thanks, confession, a question, a request for someone. Keep it simple and in your own words. This is a conversation, and the passage has given you something to say.

4. Contemplatio: rest

Stop speaking and rest in God’s presence for a few minutes. There is nothing to achieve. If thoughts come, let them pass and return to the word you were given. Guigo called this the sweetness itself: not a technique, but a gift.

Some teachers add a fifth step, actio (action): carrying one small, concrete response into the day. It is a later addition, not part of Guigo’s ladder, but many people find it a helpful close.

Practical help for beginners

• Keep the passage short. Four to twelve verses is plenty. Lectio is about depth, not coverage.
• Do not hurry to a lesson. If nothing seems to happen, that is fine. Faithful reading is never wasted.
• Write a line afterwards. A single sentence about the word you were given helps you remember it and notice patterns over weeks.
• Stay with one book for a while. Reading through a Gospel a few verses at a time gives lectio a steady thread.
• Expect distraction. When your mind wanders, return to the word. The returning is part of the prayer, as it is in breath prayer.

Lectio does not replace careful study. It sits well beside it: study keeps our reading honest, and lectio keeps it prayerful.

Group lectio divina

Lectio divina works beautifully with a few people, and it has a way of making small groups more honest. A common pattern takes thirty to forty minutes:

1. Settle. A minute of silence, and a short prayer asking God to speak.
2. First reading. One person reads the passage aloud slowly. After a short silence, each person says only the word or phrase that caught them, with no comment.
3. Second reading. A different voice reads. After silence, each person says briefly why that word touched them, or what it touched in their life.
4. Third reading. Another voice. After silence, each person says what they sense God inviting them to do or be this week.
5. Pray for one another. Each person prays for the person on their right, by name, in light of what they shared.

Two ground rules make it work. First, no one discusses, corrects or adds to what another person shares; you simply receive it. Second, anyone may pass. Those rules protect the kind of honesty that a good accountability group depends on, and they keep the time from turning into a Bible study debate.

Groups that meet less often can keep lectio through the week: each person reads the same passage on their own, writes a few lines, and the group shares what they wrote when they next meet.

Lectio divina and a rule of life

Lectio is easy to love and easy to drop. Many Christians keep it by writing it into their rule of life: a short passage most mornings, perhaps the Gospel reading of the day or a psalm from the Daily Office, with a fuller group lectio once a week. Following the church year gives the readings a shape, so that Advent passages wait, Lenten ones search, and Easter ones rejoice.

How Ordo helps

Ordo is an iPhone app for keeping a rule of life with a few people. Each day asks three small things: a written reflection, a response to the day’s scripture and a short check-in, about ten minutes in all. The scripture response suits a short lectio well: read slowly, notice the word that holds you, and write a line or two in answer.

No one in the group sees anyone else’s words until everyone has written. Then the reflections are released together in what Ordo calls the reveal, so you hear what the same passage stirred in each person, much as you would in group lectio. There are no streaks or badges. Ordo is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist to read scripture this way with a few others.