<![CDATA[Holy Longing: Lectio divina]]>

<![CDATA[Holy Longing: Lectio divina]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/s/lectio-divinahttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2iGB!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91098285-69c8-4243-84f2-0c141010fbcd_1280x1280.pngHoly Longing: Lectio divinahttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/s/lectio-divinaSubstackWed, 08 Apr 2026 13:26:34 GMT<![CDATA[Advice from Rumi]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/advice-from-rumihttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/advice-from-rumiSat, 14 Mar 2026 12:02:46 GMT

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

]]><![CDATA[Mystical Conversation]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/mystical-conversationhttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/mystical-conversationSat, 14 Feb 2026 13:00:32 GMT

]]><![CDATA[Dark night of the soul]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/dark-night-of-the-soulhttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/dark-night-of-the-soulSat, 10 Jan 2026 13:00:29 GMTNoche oscura del alma

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En una noche oscura,
con ansias en amores inflamada
¡oh dichosa ventura!
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

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One dark night,

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Full of longing and a heart on fire

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—Such good fortune!—

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I left unnoticed

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As the house was quiet.

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A oscuras y segura,
por la secreta escala, disfrazada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!
a oscuras y en celada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

In the safety of the dark,

By a secret, hidden ladder

—Such good fortune!—

In the dark, concealed,

As the house was quiet.

En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me veía,
ni yo miraba cosa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

In the blessed night,

In secret, so none saw me,

Nor did I see anything.

Without any light or guide

But the burning in my heart.

Aquesta me guiaba
más cierto que la luz del mediodía
a donde me esperaba
quien yo bien me sabía,
en parte donde nadie parecía.

Such guided me

More surely than the noonday sun

To where I was awaited

By one I well knew,

There where no one could be seen.

¡Oh noche, que guiaste!
¡Oh noche amable más que la alborada!
¡Oh noche que juntaste
Amado con amada
amada en el Amado transformada!

Oh night, my guide!

Oh night, kinder even than the dawn!

Oh night that melded

Beloved with beloved

Beloved in the Beloved transformed!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

In my blooming breast,

All saved only for the One and only,

All slept,

And I gave all to the Holy

And the cedars gave all their scent to the air.

El aire de la almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

The scent of your brow

When I pushed aside your locks,

With your steady hand

You slashed my neck,

And all my senses dissolved.

Quedé y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo, y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado
entre las azucenas olvidado.

I forgot myself entirely

My face laid on my Love

Everything stopped

Leaving my troubles

Among the forgotten blooms.

Credit: Francisco Antonio Gijón

]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Eight]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-eighthttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-eightSat, 18 Oct 2025 11:43:09 GMTLast post in this series!

Video:

Readings: Rule of Prayer and A Prayer Rule (please note, these articles are from the Eastern Orthodox tradition and will make reference to unfamiliar practices, the point is the concept of the prayer rule, not necessarily to copy their example).

Practices: Continue your practice of silence, try to be as regular as possible, if you’ve fallen try cutting back on your time and start over. Continue with journaling and daily examen as regularly as possible. As mentioned last week try to have an on-going practice of lectio with Scripture.

Assignment: Create your own “rule of prayer.” This will be very short, simple and concrete. Include time, places and practices. Base your rule on what you’ve found helpful and life-giving during these last weeks. Be realistic about what you can commit to. Remember that this rule is adaptable. Share your “rule” along with your other reflections.

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) What was your experience of writing a prayer rule like? Do you think this will be helpful to you?

Tip of the Week: A prayer rule is a commitment. You are telling yourself that this is what you will do. It may also be helpful to share this with a trusted friend or spiritual director to not only create some accountability but also to have support in going forward.

A Prayer Rule

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Rule Of Prayer

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Seven]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-sevenhttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-sevenSat, 20 Sep 2025 15:58:09 GMTVideo:

Readings: Thelma Hall, Too Deep for Words and Luke Dysinger OSB, Accepting the Embrace of God

Practices: Continue your practice of silence, try to be as regular as possible, if you’ve fallen try cutting back on your time and start over. Continue with journaling and daily examen as regularly as possible. Use the steps discussed in the articles and video if they are helpful. (If you feel comfortable with your lectio practice as it is, feel free to ignore the steps!)

Assignment: Commit to a plan for doing lectio every day. Decide how you will choose what to do lectio with e.g. pick a particular book of Scripture you will read every day or choose one (!) passage from the daily lectionary or decide on some other short reading.

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) What has your practice of lectio been like this week?

Tip of the Week: For your lectio pick a single, short passage, something you can really spend time with rather than trying to cram it in. Try doing “lectio continua” by picking a single book of the Bible and reading a few verses every day for lectio.

Hall Ch

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Hall Ch

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Dysinger Lectio Rev

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Six]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-sixhttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-sixSun, 17 Aug 2025 18:35:18 GMT

Video:

Reading: Ferder, ch. 1; optional: Wilkens, How to Read the Bible

Practices: Continue your practice of silence, try to be as regular as possible, if you’ve fallen try cutting back on your time and start over. Continue with journaling and daily examen as regularly as possible. This month pick one or two of the following stories and spend time with it every day: Healing at the pool (John 5:1-18) Storm on the lake (Matt. 14:22-33), Peter’s betrayal (Mark 14: 66-72)

Assignment: Pick one of the stories you spent time with this month and write a midrash. As explained in the video and the attached handout, a midrash is a creative expansion of a story from Scripture. Based on your spending time with the story you will write your own version of what happened.

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this month? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) Share your midrash along with your other reflections. (Give it a try, it doesn’t have to be long. Whatever you do will be good.)

Tip of the week: Your life is composed of many little stories. Reflect on some of the stories of your life and how they’ve played out, what you’ve learned, how God has been present.

Midrash Online Course

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Week 6 Stories

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How To Read The Bible

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Ferder501

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Five]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-fivehttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-fiveSat, 19 Jul 2025 08:43:43 GMTThe Psalms: Working with the range of emotions

Video:

Practices: Continue your practice of silence, try to make sure that you are as regular as possible; continue with journaling and daily examen; spend the week with Psalms 103 and 142. Keep reading them, coming back to them, listening to them.

Reading: Was Jesus in the Psalms?; Growth Through Psalms (note: the author uses the Hebrew version of the Psalms, your English translation won’t look the same.) both articles are attached.

Assignment: Write your own Psalm of lament. There are instructions attached along with some examples. The key is not to worry about doing it “right.” Now that you have spent time immersed in the Psalms just see what happens when you try to write one. Try picking an event or feeling in your life that evokes a lot of emotion. Before you start read a number of Psalms to enter into the language and world of the Psalms. You can do this!

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) Share your Psalm along with your other reflections (There are no bad Psalms!)

Tip of the week: As you spend time with the Psalms look for a phrase that you can use as a mantra to change negative patterns of thinking.

Growth Through Psalms

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Is Jesus In The Psalms

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Psalm 103, 142

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Instructions For Writing Your Own Psalm

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Four]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lectio-divina-part-fourhttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lectio-divina-part-fourSat, 14 Jun 2025 19:19:04 GMT4) Section Four: Types of Reading – Introduction to the Psalms

Video:

Practices: Continue with your practice of silence, try to spend at least 15” a day in silence. Continue with your journaling and spend time doing an examen at the end of the day (based on last sections readings). Spend a week with Psalm 42 as explained in the video. This is intentionally open ended. Just explore how much you can find in one Psalm.

Reading: Coolman article; Psalm chapter from Sacred Rhythms

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) What struck you from spending time with Psalm 42?

Tip of the Week: Try keeping a supply of 3x5 cards handy during your practice. If there is a quote or insight that strikes you try writing it down on the card and carry it with you for the day, coming back to it as a way of getting re-centered.

Psalm 42

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Rhythm Psalms

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21 3 Coolman

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Three]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-threehttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-threeTue, 13 May 2025 16:02:43 GMTPractices: Continue your practice of silence. If you have become fairly consistent with silence try to practice at least 15- 20” a day. If you are having trouble with consistency try for 10” a day.

Video:

Reading: Sacred Rhythms: Lectio; Consciousness Examen; The Student; (A note about the readings: the document “The Student” is a famous story about observation and the scientific method. Obviously we aren’t learning the scientific method but we are learning how to observe a text.)

Reflection Questions: 1) Share: What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice?

Tip of the week: Perhaps you can pick a Scripture text for this week and let it be your “fish”!

Consciousness Examen

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Rhythmlectio

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The Student

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part Two]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-twohttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divina-part-twoTue, 15 Apr 2025 12:41:43 GMTThis video is the second of a course offered several years ago. The Center for Benedictine Life will update it for its current audience, but until then, you can imagine yourself on retreat with Sr. Teresa.

Silence and Listening

Reading: Sacred Rhythms: “Invitation to Prayer”; Jan Marie Richardson, “Silence”, Tim Mooney, “Praying With Art: Visio Divina”

Practices:

-Continue your practice of daily silence. If that practice is going fairly well try to increase your daily time to 15”.

- As part of your assignment this week you will receive five pictures, each based on a passage of Scripture. You can print them out or just look at them on your computer screen. Spend time each day with a different picture. Spend time just gazing at the picture, pondering it, let it speak to you. Go deeper than “I like it or I don’t like it.” Don’t analyze the picture like you are in an art class. You aren’t looking for technique, composition, etc. Just see where the picture takes you. Try to spend 10-15” a day on each picture. (The pictures are: Rembrandt, The Prodigal; Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation; Sigfried Koder, Foot Washing; Windsock (African) Visitation; Coptic icon of the Theophany (Baptism of Jesus). There are five pictures, I suggest spending time with them in the above order and then after you have spent a day with each of them you may want to go back and spend extra time with a favorite.

Reflection Questions: 1) What was your practice like this week? What helped you stay with it? What tripped you up? What are you going to commit to doing to make yourself do it? 2) What insights did you find from your practice? 3) What was it like to spend time with the pictures, what insights can you share?

Tip of the Week: Take one of the pictures that particularly struck you and put it on your desk or another place that you look at regularly. Regularly come back to that picture and let it take you back to your reflections.

Silence

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Praying With Art

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Rhythm002

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]]><![CDATA[Psalm 146]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/psalm-146https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/psalm-146Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:44:51 GMT

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Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,

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whose hope is in the Lord their God,

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who made heaven and earth,

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the sea, and all that is in them;

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who keeps faith forever;

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who executes justice for the oppressed;

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who gives food to the hungry.

Sit with this passage for ten minutes, or more if you like. Take it into your heart, and see what it means for you, at this moment. Leave your thoughts in a comment.

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]]><![CDATA[Commitment vs. Choice OR Don't Wait Until You Want To]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/commitment-vs-choice-or-dont-waithttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/commitment-vs-choice-or-dont-waitTue, 11 Mar 2025 23:32:06 GMTWe make choices every day. We decide what to wear, what to eat for breakfast, what route we’ll take going to work, what activities we’ll plan for the weekend. At the same time there are activities that we don’t choose, we just do them without having to make a choice. Hopefully you don’t have to decide to get up in the morning, to get dressed, to eat a meal, to care for your family. Activities like these we just do. It isn’t a matter of making a choice. You don’t think about it, you do it.

Most of us, if we’re honest, put our spiritual practices in the “choice” category. We will “try” to pray more. We will “decide” to spend more time in silence. We will “attempt” to be better about focusing on our faith life. And, most of us, if we’re honest, find ourselves falling down frequently and failing in our good intentions. We try to get up earlier for prayer time but we’d really rather get a little more sleep and so we decide to try again tomorrow. We would really like to spend some quality time doing lectio in the evenings but we’re tired, we have work to do and so we decide we’ll start over tomorrow.

I suspect that the root of the problem for most of us is that our good intentions all involve the fact that we are making a conscious choice whenever it is time for our practice. We “decide” whether we are going to pray. However, when there is choice there is always wiggle room. There is always a voice inside us that says, “that’s OK, you don’t have to do it today, there’s always tomorrow.” And of course pretty soon our practice is minimal or non-existent.

Linda Lomahaftewa-Parrots’ Prayer Song

Perhaps there is another way to approach the issue of spiritual discipline. If we create a reasonable commitment to our spiritual practices, in other words if we don’t decide that we will be spending two hours a day in prayer when we can’t currently manage ten minutes regularly, then we need to make the commitment that our practice is non-negotiable. It is a very rare set of circumstances when we would not get out of bed or get dressed. In the same way we can simply say that it will be a very rare set of circumstances in which we will not observe our prayer practice.

Common sense is always necessary. There may be times when your prayer practice is simply not possible. But if your attitude is that your prayer practice is what you do, rather than what you try to do, chances are there will be a lot fewer days when you simply don’t do it.

Practice also seems to work better if, even under difficult circumstances, you manage to keep at least some of your commitment. It may be a difficult, crazy time and you cannot spend your usual amount of time in prayer. But chances are you can do a few minutes. It is easier to come back to your normal practice if you haven’t abandoned it completely. Trying to get back into a prayer practice when you’ve let it go completely can be difficult.

In Christianity we emphasize that transformation is about getting past our self-will or ego and being open to the working of God’s grace in our life. When we operate out of “choice” or having to decide each time whether we will pray or engage in some other discipline, we are operating out of our ego and our ego would much rather be comfortable, sleep in, read a fun book, go out to brunch or probably do most anything rather than pray. The trick is to just commit, to not make it a choice. As Nike says “Just Do It.” Good advice for the spiritual life as well as tennis shoes. DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU WANT TO.

Rhythm001

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Laird001

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in Lectio Divina: Part One]]>https://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divinahttps://holylonging.stgertrudes.org/p/lessons-in-lectio-divinaTue, 11 Mar 2025 16:51:48 GMTThis video is the beginning of a course offered several years ago. The Center for Benedictine Life will update it for its current audience, but until then, you can imagine yourself on retreat with Sr. Teresa.

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