Many thanks to Phil for the invitation to speak to you; “Contemplative Outreach” is new to me. Abbot Thomas Keating is not new to me. I have “done time” with his book, Open Mind, Open Heart . Moreover, a friend let me know I could meet Fr. Thomas in person, at least by Video, in a presentation available on You-Tube! I have heard and seen him. In a few weeks I’ll be 80 years old; 33 years of pre-Vatican II Catholicism; plus or minus 45 “post-conciliar” years. As to Phil’s request for some personal details, I hope that my pre- and post-conciliar experience may be interesting, possibly helpful.

I was one of six children, growing up on Bradley Lane in Chevy Chase, Maryland. –the eastern, poorer end, near Western Avenue. On that Avenue, near Chevy Chase Circle, was the “Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament,” so named by its founding pastor. It was three quarters of a mile from my home. The qualities of worship I experienced there could be described as “sentimental Irish,” matching my genetic background. Pageantry, such as being part of a May procession had a deep impact. I became an “Altar boy” at that time so called. Every school day began with morning mass. There were many hymns. Many became printed in my memory, for example: “O what could my Jesus do more, or what greater blessings impart. O silence my soul and adore, his goodness still filling my heart. . .” I was no Aloysius Gonzaga, but the hymns shaped my experience if only in a “third person” sort of way. I was also fascinated by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, excellent teachers. Only occasionally I had thoughts of becoming a priest. I liked to make “visits” to the church.

In fall of 1942 I started at St John’s College High School on Vermont Avenue near Thomas Circle. Peg pants and ox-blood shoes were high on my list of priorities. In my senior year I became interested in St. John’s College in Annapolis, and its “Great Books” curriculum. A partial scholarship was available in January, 1946. So I went. That was perhaps not the wisest choice as I was turning 17 at the time. In my second year there I found that my younger brother was learning more Latin at what was then called St. Anselm’s Priory School than I was in college. So being a budding intellectual, I decided I should visit the school and investigate how this could be.

The answer was Fr. Anselm Stritmatter, a monk and profound scholar of Christian liturgy, who was teaching elementary Latin. I stayed for lunch and met some of the other monk teachers. Fr. Stephen Reid asked if I would like to stay for Vespers. “What’s Vespers?” I said. . . . One of the tutors (all teachers there were so called) at St. John’s had been a novice at St. Anselm’s; he invited me to attend Holy Week Services at the then Priory. The liturgy and Gregorian chant rather intrigued me. One thing led to another. In my junior year I read –you guessed it, the Seven Storey Mountain of Thomas Merton. Visits to St. Anselm’s and the reading of the Rule of St. Benedict led to a sense of vocation.

I became a postulant at St. Anselm’s in September 1949, and made my first profession of vows in November 1950. I was required to study scholastic philosophy at nearby Catholic University. In 1953 my younger brother petitioned to become a member of the community. The superior didn’t want me around while he was a novice, so I was shipped off to Rome to study at the international Benedictine seminary of Sant’ Anselmo. From that history let me just emphasize one life-changing event. In my second year there I had learned enough Latin to understand the courses. My most important course was one “De ecclesia,” “On the Church,” taught by Dom Cyprian Vaggagini. The approach was historical, starting with the Old Testament. Nine years later Fr. Cyprian was to become one of the major authors of the great document of the Second Vatican Council, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, The Light of the Nations. When I read it, I said to myself, “I’ve seen this stuff before!” Working for the implementation of Vatican II became a life goal.

Returning to D. C, I had three more years of theology at nearby Catholic University.. Scripture courses were the most impressive. They led to a life-long interest and study of the Scriptures. The Abbey School needed a Latin teacher, so I did that, picking up in the process an MA in classical Greek – also useful for studying Scripture! I was very active in the classics profession for some 15 years. In a way, “Save Latin in the public schools” became my gospel. In the interim came Vatican II. I began to ask, “What gospel am I preaching?”

A series of changes ensued. From 1978 I spent time in northern Virginia, first at the Mount Tabor Community in Vienna. I lucked into teaching RCIA at St. Mark’s parish, Vienna. Later I became chaplain for the Benedictine Sisters in Bristow. Eventually in 1993 Abbot Aidan Shea called me back to residence at St. Anselm’s. Twelve years’ experience working with adults in RCIA ruined me for High School teaching. My interest in Scripture and Liturgy continued to grow. I became an associate editor for publications of The Liturgical Conference: Learn by writing! I continue to study Liturgy. Looking back on those decades I have a sense of backing into the future with eyes fixed firmly on the rear-view mirror!

But enough of all that! We want to consider lectio divina, contemplation. Let me say some things about monastic life as I learned it at St. Anselm’s. Following the Rule of St. Benedict, our prayer life comprises the following: Daily, the “Divine Office” or Liturgy of the Hours. Matins/Lauds, conventual mass; mid-day prayer; Vespers; Compline. In addition, a half- hour of spiritual reading or lectio, and a half hour of meditation/ contemplation.

A development: Our community has had great difficulty getting vocations. . . We had a Holy Hour after Compline on Tuesday evenings, to pray for vocations. We requested help from our Congregation, and got a new superior in August of 2006. One of the first things he did was to institute an additional half-hour of individual prayer in the chapel at 5:30 in the afternoon, just before Vespers at 6:00. It was on a voluntary basis, but the intent was to pray for vocations. Who knows why, but two years later we have four aspirants. Pleasant, talented men.

WE ARE going to talk about lectio divina and contemplation but let me talk briefly about the other elements of monastic observance, the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours as Vatican II renamed it. Briefly.

As to Liturgy of the Hours: There is a long and complex history of the tradition of praying at set times in the day and night. Christians may have inherited from their Hebrew ancestry the customs of praying at 9, noon and 3 in the afternoon. Morning and evening are readily seen in many cultures as appropriate times for prayer. These times of prayer were observed sometime in the home, sometime at church, by clergy and laity.. There is a well-known late 4th Century. instruction to bishops:

When you teach, bishop, command and exhort the people to frequent the church regularly, morning and evening every day, and not to forsake it at all, but to assemble continually and not diminish the Church by absenting themselves and make the Body of Christ lack a member. (Apostolic Constitutions II .49)

We are living in a different time, a social context very different from the 4th century.
But . . . Perhaps some of you say part of the Liturgy of the Hours every day? Like the mass, it’s the prayer of the Christian community, the body of Christ. And is personally strengthening as well.

Genus and species: Can’t we say there is a single genus of Christian prayer, including lectio, contemplation, mass, liturgy of the hours? I have come to believe that the common element in all of them is the paschal mystery, that is, our approaching, our sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit as we move toward the Father. Going deeper is going deeper into that mystery. The question is, how, how, how do we go deeper? It’s much too simple to say, “Try it, you’ll like it!” The challenge for the church today is to find ways to help people to an encounter with the living God. Just raising your voice won’t do it, I tried that! It doesn’t work. Personally, I’m getting inklings of the answer through a deeper study of Scripture AND a deeper study of Liturgy and a deeper study of individual prayer.

Lectio Divina and Contemplation Today
I learn from the internet. that Cardinal Martini of Milan has a monthly session to teach lectio divina to 4000 men in the great Cathedral of Milan. He has instructed 70 priests throughout his diocese to do the same for smaller groups. The recent Synod of Bishops in Rome reaffirmed the conviction: learning and praying the Bible is the door to a more serious integral Christian prayer and Christian living.

Let’s recall the classic “four stages” of lectio:
1. Lectio, “reading.” Becoming very familiar with the text of the passage, as God’s word to me;

2. Meditatio, “reflection,” mulling over, going deeper into this message or teaching; where is God leading me?

3. Oratio, “prayer of the heart.” A response, assisted by the Holy Spirit. A “happening,” a call, a being drawn to God.

4. Contemplatio, “Contemplation,” an experience very difficult to describe.
We can say it’s “union with God.” The preceding steps draw us deeper into the mystery of salvation, the union we already have through Baptism, but now purified from sin.

Just listing the steps can’t tell the whole story, the story of finding “God for us,” working in us as members of the body of Christ. The whole notion of contemplation as a goal has seemed strange to many lay people, even those who have been active in parish life. Time and wisdom are needed to find a unity in all these concerns and activities.

NOW, let us reflect on the relationships between lectio divina and contemplation. To start with the former, as related to the latter, here an outline based on some material from Fr. Luke Dysinger, a monk of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo California. It is based on teachings of masters of prayer, especially in the monastic tradition.1

There are two basic aspects of our conscious life, activity and receptivity. Example: I am sitting at my desk reflecting on today’s Gospel. I become aware that my tall lamp is dim. I have to act, discover that the bulb is not working, and go through the process of replacing it. We can say that we circle from receptivity to activity to receptivity, back-and-forth.

"Activity” and “Contemplation” have special meanings in this scheme. Think of a circle: On the “Active” side is that dimension of lectio divina which has to do with spiritual growth, “asceticism” in the sense of moving from sin and vices to a deeper life; virtues that lead one beyond sinful excess as one responds to God more clearly. The continuing activities of lectio lead to a deeper ‘contemplative’ grasp of our situation before God. There can come an ultimate awareness, contemplation of God beyond word or image.

In his article published on the internet Father Luke Dysinger points to a contrast of the ancient monastic approach to later more linear approaches. He writes:
"HOW DIFFERENT this ancient understanding is from our modern approach! Instead of recognizing that we all gently oscillate back and forth between spiritual activity and receptivity, between practice and contemplation, we trend today to set contemplation before ourselves as a goal – something we imagine we can achieve through some spiritual technique. . . The amount of time we spend on any aspect of lectio divina, whether it be rumination, consecration or contemplation depends on God’s Spirit, not on us. . . . In ancient times this inner spiritual motion was described as a helix – an ascending spiral by means of which we are drawn ever closer to God.”2

Attitudes toward and practice of both liturgical and contemplative piety have varied considerably in the long history of the church. Here is one example, from the history of the English Benedictine Congregation in the 17th Century:
Following the Council of Trent, 1545 to 1563, there developed the “Counter-reformation. ” In England the practice of Catholicism had been proscribed by King Henry VIII. English Benedictines fled to monasteries in France and elsewhere. The congregation was reconstituted 1n 1608. One house of nuns was established at Cambrai. The monk Father Augustine Baker was chaplain there from 1623-32. Baker had become a monk in 1605 and was ordained priest in 1619 at the age of 45. At Cambrai he did much writing especially a book on prayer called “Holy Wisdom,” “Sancta Sophia.” The nuns’ community eventually moved back to England and is known as Stanbrook.

In those days there was a strong emphasis on discursive “mental prayer” long detailed meditations which did not seem to lead anywhere. Baker’s approach was one of steps to contemplation. Luke Dysinger says, ”Baker advocated a more gentle, less structured approach to meditation and prayer than was common among non-monastic spiritual directors.” Laurence Freeman writes, “ To Baker contemplation was the goal of his monastic life but he also saw it as an ideal of Christian life that was equally available in secular life, to the laity . . . He describes how not only monks but also priests and lay people are called to contemplation.”

Eventually all the English Benedictine Houses were allowed back into England. It’s interesting that to this day the nuns’ monasteries are equal members of the English Congregation. Their style is that of enclosed nuns. It is clear though that the tradition of contemplation is a goal for male monks as well. Augustine Baker is honored, but his literary style is not inviting!

" Contemplative Outreach:” To what does it reach out? I think Vatican II has made a tremendous difference for our vision of the contexts of contemplative life. I love both St.. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross AND Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The intellectual and the activist. Both deep contemplatives.
Of the latter it is written,
"Ultimately what she sought to develop in [the Sisters] was “the constant awareness of the Divine presence everywhere and in every one, especially in our own hearts and in the hearts of our Sisters with whom we live, and in the poorest of the poor.” She wanted them to live in union with God and with one another. Silence was at the root of that union, for God was “the friend of silence.” --Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa (New York: Harper Collins, 1997) 74.

Ithink that Vatican II has given a new context for the life of prayer. For example, I recently by chance discovered a little paperback, edited by Basil Pennington, papers from an ecumenical gathering that convened in 1975 to consider the theme of “Prayer and Liberation.” A paper was delivered by Father Jean Leclercq, a leading historian of monastic prayer. Also I notice that Thomas Keating was one of the speakers at the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue meeting at Gethsemani in 1999. Its over-all theme was “Transforming Suffering.”

Let me conclude this part of the talk with an odd experience: In the past week this talk was much on my mind. On Thursday I heard the confession of a priest theologian. He has given me permission to relate his remark that in his time of prayer he was not giving enough attention to the ‘lectio part’ of his prayer life, and his prayer was the poorer for it. I mentioned Fr. Dysinger’s description of the helix of prayer.

New Directions for lectio divina
"Going deeper” is a challenge for all forms of Christian prayer. Participation in the mass for example, has become familiar and expected, but the question remains as to how transforming an experience attending the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist is for the participants. The recent Synod of Bishops on the Bible called for much stronger efforts to help the faithful learn and respond to the Bible with greater faith.

Lectio divina is now being approached in a variety of faith-sharing ways. At St. Anselm’s Abbey our Prior Fr. Simon McGurk has started a “shared lectio” session, on an optional basis, from 5:00 to 6:00 on Friday afternoons. Two approaches have been used. In one, the three scriptures are read one at a time. After each reading all reflect in silence; each is free to express an insight or a prayer. The second is quite similar except that to begin with the Gospel is read and after a few minutes the first reading is read. This invites a comparison of the two related readings, and what insights this may lead to.

There are other forms for large or small groups. I recall holding group lectio exercises for groups on retreat at Bristow in the early ‘90s. Perhaps the most common is that recommended by Norveen Vest, in her book., Gathered in the Word: Praying the Scripture in Small Groups (1997). The key element is the sharing of insights gained from the exercise.

An Exercise in Shared Lectio Divina
Here is an outline of a modified version of Vest’s method of shared lectio.
The group, some 25 people sat quietly in a circle. I read as a mood-setting preparation Psalm 100. (Each had been given a page with the psalm and the text for meditation.)

• After a brief pause I announced that I would read a passage from the Gospel of Luke twice. “Listen for a word, a phrase, some notion that speaks to you in some way. Afterwards you may share the word you heard, but you are not required to do so.
  From St. Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (6:27-36)
  
• After the readings: “We pause for one minute of reflection.”
  
• After the minute: “ Those who wish may announce the word or thought that came to them.”
  
• "Now hear the text again. This time let your insight develop, express itself more fully.”
  
• After two minutes, repeat the invitation to “share responses, what the passage is saying to you.”
  
• A third reading of the text. “Does your insight carry a personal invitation of some kind?”
  
• After five minutes, invite sharing as before.
  T
• he final sharing. The session concluded with a short prayer.
  

Presenter’s reflection: I judge that at least half of the group gave public responses. At the conclusion I felt much enriched by the depth and variety of these remarks. The exercise seemed “good prayer” to me.

………………………………………………

Addendum

Time did not allow a presentation on this book: A Cloister in the World: The Story of the Manquehue Apostolic Movement, a Benedictine Movement of the Laity and its Work in Chile by Patrick Barry OSB (Saint Louis: Outskirts Press, 20050.

In the early 1970’s, in Santiago, Chile, there was a troubled young man named José Manuel Guzman. He met a Benedictine priest, Father Gabriel Guarda of Holy Trinity Monastery in Condes, a suburb of Santiago. They began to meet. Fr. Gabriel responded to José Manuel’s difficulties by an appeal to Scripture. “What mattered was Jose Manuel’s own personal encounter with the word of God. . . . It was his first lesson in lectio divina” (p. 36).

From this first planting of the seed of the Word grew a mighty tree. It led José Emmanuel to a vision and realization of Catholic education in which lectio divina plays a fundamental and vital part. It led to his founding of a residential community of lay Benedictine “Oblates” devoted to living the spirit of the Rule of St. Benedict. They are led by lectio divina in their lives and in their work of teaching. At present they manage and staff three “Colegios,” from first grade through high school.

Skipping over much of the history, we may imagine visiting one of the schools founded by this group. Starting with those in First Grade, each class at the beginning of the day starts with a brief prayer experience of lectio divina. A Scripture text is read; students reflect and volunteer responses, for example “I hear . . .”

This is a brief summary of a very rich presentation of the possibilities of consecration to God through prayer, and the role of lectio divina in this process.

Footnotes
1. Fr. Dysinger’s 8 page article, “Introduction to lectio divina” is found on the internet at www.valyermo.com/ld-art.html A note at the end says, “The author considers this article to be in the Public Domain.” It has been published as a part of the book, An Invitation to Centering Prayer with an Introduction to Lectio Divina, by Basil Pennington and Luke Dysinger, (Ligouri/Triumph, 2001.)

2. In the internet copy of Fr. Dysinger’s article, page 3.

Father Hilary Hayden, OSB, a professed monk and priest of: St. Anselm's Abbey: The Abbey is a member of the English Benedictine Congregation.

He has been in and out of St. Anselm's since September, 1949. After formation he taught Latin and Greek at St. Anselm's Abbey School for some 18 years.

Looking for a more direct response to the call of Vatican II he was allowed to spend some time with the Mount Tabor Community in Vienna Virginia from 1978 to 1983. He served on the staff of St. Mark's parish in Vienna as director of its RCIA program, for some ten years.

After serving for five years as chaplain to Benedictine Sisters in Bristow, Virginia , He returned to St. Anselm's in 1993. From the summer of 1994 to Jejune 2004 he was an associate editor of publications of The Liturgical Conference. At the Abbey He served as Procurator and Guestmaster until his retirement in August, 2006.

Currently he keeps busy teaching Liturgy to our three postulants and contributing to the Abbey website.