Posted on May 14th, 2012 by Marta Goodwin
Q: Dear Dan, is your book available to buy now? If not, when are you aiming to release it?
A: Because so many have asked about the availability of Navigating the Interior Life, we have created the web site www.NavigatingTheInteriorLife.com to provide more information and to give you the opportunity to receive a free advance, signed copy simply by making a donation to Catholic Spiritual Direction. Dan has decided to take this approach in order to thank you for the commitment you make to Catholic Spiritual Direction and to help spread the word about the publication of this book (which is very much needed in the Church today). So, if you would like to help this apostolate as well as get an advance, signed copy when the book becomes available in late fall (God willing), go to www.NavigatingTheInteriorLife.com and click on the purchase tab to make a donation. Once the book arrives from the printer, Dan will begin frantically signing them and we will send them out to you!
Please let others know of this opportunity through email, facebook and twitter. As well, and thank you in advance for your support of the work of Catholic Spiritual Direction!
Yours in Christ – Marta
Posted on April 21st, 2012 by Dan Burke
Q: Dear Dan, can you help me understand Lectio Divina and whether or not I should use it to help me improve my prayer life? I am struggling right now and feel like I need a change but I don’t know what will help.
A: Any Christian seeking to deepen their relationship with Christ will no doubt be blessed through this time tested monastic prayer method. Many of you who use The Better Part to pray will discover one of the roots of the approach to prayer that Fr. John recommends. Here’s a brief history and guide for you to explore this simple method:
Lectio Divina – A Brief History
Lectio Divina means “Divine Reading” and refers specifically to an approach to prayer and scripture reading practiced by monastics since the early Church.
The idea of praying with sacred scripture comes to the Church through ancient Jewish tradition. Christians in the early Church continued this tradition and further developed the practice of prayer and meditation using mostly the psalms as a rich source of heartfelt engagement with God. This development is evident in early Church History in the 48th chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict (A.D. 480-453).
In the 11th century, a Carthusian prior named Guigo formalized Lectio Divina, describing the practice in a letter written to a fellow religious. This letter has become known as The Ladder of Monks and describes a four-runged ladder to Heaven, each rung being one of the four steps in his method of prayerful scripture reading. These steps are provided below along with a short definition of each and brief quotes from Guigo’s letter:
Lectio (reading): An attentive, slow, repetitious recitation of a short passage of scripture.
“looking on Holy Scripture with all one’s will and wit”
Meditatio (meditation): An effort to understand the passage and apply it to my own life.
“a studious searching with the mind to know what was before concealed”
Oratio (prayer): Engaging or talking with God about the passage.
“a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil”
Contemplatio (contemplation): Allowing oneself to be absorbed in the words of God as the Holy Spirit draws us into His presence through scripture.
“the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness”
Lectio Divina Step by Step
As with any serious attempt to progress in the spiritual life, the practice of Lectio Divina will require deliberate patience. To be deliberate we will need to set aside at least ten minutes every day. The best way to do this is to schedule our prayer times at the beginning of each week before we schedule anything else. Trying to squeeze prayer into our schedules after they are already set almost always results in our busy-ness squeezing prayer out of our schedules.
With respect to the process of Lectio Divina, it may feel mechanical until we find a natural rhythm. This is where patience comes in. It’s important to keep things as simple as is possible. There will be no Lectio Divina police looking over our shoulders to be sure that we exercise perfection in our practice. No need to worry about the details. Simply seek the Lord in the scriptures. He is waiting for you there and will be delighted to lead you into a more profound relationship with Him. With that in mind, lets talk about how to prepare for our time with Him.
Preparation
First, we arrange a place to pray that is restful and devoid of any distractions or things that might distract us (i.e. computers, TV, etc.). This may involve lighting candles, burning incense or creating whatever atmosphere fosters calm and peace. The presence of icons and other visual aids to meditation can be of great benefit here as well. It is best if the place chosen for Lectio Divina (or any kind of prayer) is a comfortable area set aside just for this activity.
Once our environment is properly prepared, then we assume a bodily posture that is conducive to prayer and reading. As we consider our posture, we should do so with the recognition that we are entering into the presence of God. Our posture should reflect one that would be the same as if we were with Christ in the flesh or before him in Eucharistic adoration.
We then turn our hearts to God, begin to breathe slowly and deeply, focusing on the Holy Name of Jesus until we are relaxed and able to focus our attention on scripture. If our minds wander, we should avoid any frustration or self-condemnation and gently bring our attention back to our Lord and the text, breathing in and out in a purposeful and relaxed manner. It is important to note that unlike in non-Christian forms of Eastern prayer which seek to empty the mind, Christian prayer seeks to fill our minds with an attentiveness to God. This gentle but purposeful effort will yield a constant aiming and re-aiming of our hearts and minds toward Him and His Word.
Once we are as calm and peaceful as is possible, we simply acknowledge that Christ is with us and we pray in this or some similar way:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I know you are with me. Thank you for allowing me to recognize your presence. Thank you for being here with me now.
Then, we might offer a prayer to the Holy Spirit like the following:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.
O God, by the light of the Holy Spirit you have taught the hearts of your faithful. In the same Spirit, help us to know what is it truly right and always to rejoice in your consolation. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lectio – An attentive slow repetitious recitation of a short passage of scripture
It is always advisable to meditate on the scripture from the mass of the day, particularly the Gospel passage. However, any text of scripture will do. The key is not to rush. The goal is not to finish any particular portion of scripture but to purposefully delve into the depths of any passage that will lift our hearts to God. Just before we begin reading, we trace the sign of the cross on the scriptures, kiss the cross we traced, and then begin to read slowly, vocally, and gently, coming to an understanding of the words themselves along with the related ideas and images that surface. When a particular passage or word strikes us we pause to consider it more fully. At the first pause, we will then naturally move into meditatio. If you don’t seem to progress in this way, simply stay at each phase until you do. Don’t worry if you don’t progress. The goal is not to fulfill the method, but to honor and seek God.
Meditatio – An effort to understand the passage and apply it to my own life
Now we meditate on what we have read, visualizing it and listening for His prompting or His guiding. We seek the deeper spiritual meanings of the words as we place ourselves in a gospel scene as one of the participants or simply hear God speaking directly to us as we read the words. We don’t strain or exert extreme effort here, we simply allow the words to penetrate our hearts and minds and follow where God leads us through the text. Sometimes it is helpful to slowly repeat the passage or word over and over again until the captivation and conversation with God on the passage subsides. It can also be helpful to read each word and to briefly pause before we read the next. As we do this, we allow for silence and careful listening. We break the normal frantic pace and cycle of life to be attentive to the Beloved. As we begin to respond or converse with God about our encounter with Him, we then move into oratio.
Oratio – Engaging or talking with God about the passage
As we are drawn into the passage we begin to converse with God about what we are reading. Oratio is simply the response of the heart to God. It is important here to remember that God has revealed Himself as a person. When we talk with Him, it is sometimes helpful call this to mind. Our conversation should be as natural as with someone whom we deeply love and desire to know. In whatever manner we are led, we ask for forgiveness, we thank Him, we praise Him, we ask Him to for the grace to be changed by what we have read. We ask Him to help us more fully realize what He wants us to be and to help us apply His moral, spiritual, or practical guidance to our lives. As we engage with Him, He may choose to call us deeper, to become lost in this heavenly dialogue with Him. For those who tend to be very talkative in life and prayer, it might be important here to slow down our own words and to be attentive to Him rather than to what we desire to say. We will eventually find ourselves moving into contemplatio.
Contemplatio – Allowing oneself to become absorbed in the words of God and the presence of God as he calls us into deeper prayer
Here God satisfies our ultimate thirst and needs as the Holy Spirit prays with us, in us, and through us. Sometimes we recognize this work in our hearts; sometimes it is merely a matter of faith that He is with us and imparting His life-changing grace to us. Always we can know that He is changing us because he has promised that the “word of God never returns void” and that as St. Paul says, “faith comes from hearing the word of God.” It is important here to note that this phase of prayer is not always sensual. In fact, for those who are more advanced in the interior life, it may be a time of dryness and a dark silence. Regardless, we know by faith that he is true to His word. If we seek Him, we will find Him, even if He is found in ways that are difficult, or very different than we had anticipated.
To sum up Guigo’s thoughts on the four elements; reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, and contemplation tastes.
PS: A short but more in-depth read on Lectio Divina as it relates to the prayer of Teresa of Avila is entitled Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer.
PSS: If you are worried about properly understanding the scriptures, the best Catholic Study Bible available is the new Ignatius Catholic Study Bible.
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Posted on March 30th, 2012 by Dan Burke
Here’s a great post from Jennifer Fulwiler over at NCRegister.com. I second her recommendation of Dr. Vost’s book Memorize the Faith! (and Most Anything Else): Using the Methods of the Great Catholic Medieval Memory Masters. We also had Jennifer on a recent segment of Register Radio where we covered this book and a few others that are well worth reading. You can catch that podcast here.
How I memorized my favorite prayer in sixty seconds
by Jennifer Fulwiler
I recently made a commitment to say the Morning Offering every day. I’d been having trouble making time for longer prayer sessions, so I figured that the least I could do would be to start each morning with that short prayer, which says simply:
O Jesus,
through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day,
for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart,
in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world,
in reparation for my sins,
for the intentions of all my relatives and friends,
and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father.
It seemed like an easy enough resolution. What’s so hard about saying a few lines of prayer? Yet I found that I often wasn’t doing it, the main problem being that I kept losing my sheet of paper that had the Morning Offering printed on it. Of course I wasn’t bound by those particular words, and would just speak to God from my heart (as I always did in prayer anyway) on the days that I couldn’t find it. But it was frustrating because the particular words of that prayer helped me articulate concepts I had trouble expressing on my own, especially before my morning cup of coffee. Also, it was always inspiring to know that, by saying the Morning Offering, I was joining thousands of people across the world who were speaking those exact same words to God that day.
I’d been trying to memorize the prayer for a few days, but I wasn’t having much luck. Then I remembered Dr. Kevin Vost’s book Memorize the Faith! (and Most Anything Else). I’ve mentioned before how much I love this book. Using the simple exercises Dr. Vost lays out in the chapters, I had memorized the Stations of the Cross and all the Mysteries of the Rosary in a matter of hours; yet I’d never tried to apply the techniques outside of the examples in the book. I decided to give it a shot with the Morning Offering.
The memorization method that Dr. Vost uses was originally perfected by St. Thomas Aquinas, and involves creating detailed visuals anchored to a specific place. So, for example, if you need to remember to get eggs, jelly and orange juice at the store, you wouldn’t just visualize those three things in isolation; rather, you would picture them in different places in a specific room. You might imagine that you walk into a sparse room with white walls. When you first walk in, you look down to see that there’s a broken egg on the floor; to the left there is a window, and you see that someone has smeared jelly all across it; straight ahead, there is a coffee table with a glass of orange juice on it. (The visuals are supposed to be somewhat outlandish to make them easier to remember…although what I just described is a perfectly plausible scene at my house.)
Anyway, here’s the visual I created to get the Morning Offering in my brain:
O Jesus…
I walk up to a plain suburban house. Jesus is standing on the front porch, opening the door for me.
Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary…
Standing just inside the doorway is the Blessed Mother, who has her hands over her heart.
I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day…
Behind the Blessed Mother are four people. From left to right: A nun looking heavenward, her hands clasped in prayer (“prayers”); a man wearing a hardhat, hammering something into the floor (“works”); someone jumping up and down in glee, throwing confetti into the air (“joys”); St. John of the Cross, appearing weak and in pain (“sufferings”).
For all the intentions of your Sacred Heart…
I walk past the group of people to see a closed door. On the door there is a large painting of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
In union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world…
I open the door. To my surprise, it leads to a large auditorium, and there is a Mass going on in here, with people from all over the world in attendance.
In reparation for my sins…
I happen to have walked in during the Penitential Act of the Mass, and strike my chest three times as I think about my sins.
For the intentions of all my relatives and friends…
I look up to the front of the room, and recognize a bunch of friends and family member sitting in the front pew.
And in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father.
Over to the left there is a balcony that looks down onto the auditorium. I look over and see Pope Benedict sitting up there, smiling and watching the Mass.
That’s it! I went over these visuals about three times, and in less than a minute I had the prayer memorized. Granted, some of the pictures are a little silly, but that makes them easier to remember.
When I first started saying the prayer using this memorization technique, the visuals were slightly distracting; I was spending almost as much mental energy remembering the cues as I was putting my heart into the prayer. But as the days went on I found that the visuals faded into the background, and the words rolled off my lips more and more easily.
I wasn’t asked to promote Dr. Vost’s book; I’m recommending that everyone read it only because it’s been so helpful to me. I’ve gone on to use this memorization method for everything from store lists to to-do lists to facts and figures, but my favorite use is still for committing prayers and Bible verses to memory. It’s been nothing short of life-changing to have a way to quickly and easily commit to words of the Church to memory, so that they’re on the tip of my tongue whenever I need them.
Posted on February 12th, 2012 by Dan Burke
Prayer can be a great consolation to us. It is often the means of God’s grace to strengthen, encourage, and guide us. It is also hard work and requires a strong commitment to persevere. This doesn’t mean that it should be a straining exercise. Still, when we choose to pray we are thereby rejecting other things that might be pleasurable to us. For instance, I know one very busy business man who, though he is a “night person” by disposition, gets up at 3:30 AM every morning to pray. He is driven by a deep passion to know and live his life for Christ. Still, he doesn’t enjoy the challenges related to getting up this early.
St. John of the cross is often criticized for his negative emphasis on denying self. However, this is a matter of perspective. The man I am speaking of does deny his own desire to sleep more, to sometimes have more energy and acuity during the day. But, as he denies himself he is also choosing something very good. Because of the graces God has provided in response, he experiences a great deal of joy and peace in the midst of challenging physical and work related circumstances. His wife would also give testimony to the significant changes that have come in his life because of his commitment to Christ and Christ’s generous response.
What I am getting at here is to propose an initiation or a deepening of your daily prayer life for lent (and beyond). This will involve sacrifice, but it will also bring great graces. If you are up for the challenge our readers have already weighed in on the best resources for this in their responses to our post Tattered Titles. I would like to highlight two of those resources:
The first is Fr. John Bartunek’s The Better Part – A Christ Centered Resource for Personal Prayer. This really is an exceptional work. If you have 
yet to develop a substantive prayer life, this is the place to start. If you are stuck, his insights and daily meditations will help you past these challenges. This particular approach to prayer will deepen your love for and relationship with Christ and help you to make significant strides in your spiritual life. For a sample of the daily units check out the Wednesday posts on this site.
The second is, Divine Intimacy – Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. 
This work provides profound insights into the life of God that can greatly deepen our understanding of our Lord and the life we live under His wings. While Fr. John’s book focuses on an encounter with Christ in the Gospels, Fr. Gabriel provides regular insights into the spiritual life based on the insights of great spiritual masters of the Carmelite tradition.
If you wanted to double up in your efforts to dig deeper in lent, use The Better Part to deepen your morning prayer, and Divine Intimacy to fulfill a new or existing commitment of daily spiritual reading and reflection. Both of these books are a bit on the costly side. However, you can also see this as a sacrifice (Fr. John’s book would cost you about the same as 10 visits to Starbucks, and Fr. Gabriel’s about 15).
Both of these works provide for daily insights, perspective, and conversation with Christ – which is the goal of all authentic meditation and spiritual reading. Christ has great treasures waiting for you this Lenten season. Why not give up some time and treasure, and give more to God? It will and should be a challenge but you won’t regret the decision.
PS: For those of you who are fans of these works, it would be great to hear from you about how they have helped you in your spiritual growth. Oh, one more thing – please share this post on Facebook and Twitter so you can bless your friends with this idea – particularly those of you who already know the great treasures that lie in store for those who take up the challenge!
Posted on February 7th, 2012 by Dan Burke
Dear Friends,
You wouldn’t know it by the content of this site, but I love the liturgy of the Church. I have prayed the Liturgy of the Hours since becoming Catholic. I am often mesmerized by every movement at Mass. I love the rhythm of the Church – the music – 
the seasons – the feasts – the solemnities. I am moved by the thought that as I engage in the liturgy I am engaging with billions of people both inside and outside of time who are joining together in worship that is not bound by time and space. I am awestruck by the idea that we meet Christ Himself every time we receive Him in the Eucharist. Still, I avoid the topic as a normal course on this blog.
Why? Because like me, the topic gets under your skin. And when it gets under the skin of a writer, and under the skin of the readers, and under the skin of responders, fights break out in the comboxes and divisions emerge; ugly and shameful divisions. The good news is that very little of that has happened here – my goal is to keep it that way.
Liturgy is just hard and challenging to deal with. So, instead of covering it on this site in a less-than-helpful way (at least not as a primary focus) I want to point you to a rock solid and trustworthy source on the subject, the Adoremus Bulletin.
For those of you confused, saddened or just positively curious about what you have experienced, Hellen Hull Hitchcock and the team at Adoremus will provide a light of clarity and precision. For those of you who love what is good, true, and beautiful, you will be deeply encouraged and reinforced in your love for Christ in the liturgy of the Church. For those of you who energetically agree with me about liturgical matters, but who will be far more effective when you clearly understand the mind of the Church on these matters, you will be blessed and armed for the necessarily gentle but persistent battle to restore a proper sense of reverence and awe in our worship of the God of the Universe. If you love the liturgy, please visit Adoremus… subscribe, learn, support. You won’t be sorry.
