February 15 – Going Through the Motions

Today we recall that the idea of sacramental reading is an ancient one. Let’s look at the four tenents of Lectio Divina, the “Divine Reading” of every contemplative monastery, beginning with “Lectio,” reading.

This would seem self-explanatory, but it is just as easily acknowledged that all of us use different reading patterns at times. We might become immersed in the story, as if we were alive in it. At other times, we must force ourselves to remember bold face words and to summarize paragraphs, to learn as we read, and we all know that there are times when we might read many pages before we realize we have neither enjoyed nor retained anything we have read.

So, for all of us in Cor Unum Abbey, we make our reading “relational.” We pick up our Bibles as if we were picking up our cell phones! An Android™ to heaven, if you will, with this difference: though we are accepted in the Beloved, we are numbered among those who see Him as the King and Majesty that He is! Accepted and welcomed is not synonymous with Glorious and Awesome in Power!

Perhaps we will bow before the Lord by whose inspiration every word was penned (2 Timothy 3:16,) or we might kneel before the Him as we read. We pray before we begin and give honor to the Author of our salvation, and ask if we may read together, He and we, in living mentorship.

What? You say, “No we don’t! We grab our Bibles, read a quick chapter, rejoice to see something that means something to us, and we’re done for the day.” Yes, but for this one thing; we are the monastics of Cor Unum Abbey. The Mistress (or Master) of Postulants stops us in the corridors of our hearts and reminds us that we are here of our own volition, and that we can do better, and in Cor Unum we do! We return to our cell, we go through the motions, for we know in our monastic souls that the hurried, not-too-sacramental things we did BEFORE were “the motions,” and what we do now is real on earth and in heaven. He is God, after all, and His Son, the Word, sits at His right hand.


Candlemas Day
Marianne Stokes,
public domain, USA