The reading devotion
“If the reading devotion is something that needs be done as one more item in our tight daily calendar, we lost the meaning of the devotion that in the group to the meditation”
One of the great concerns that involves the spiritual experience today is the biblical illiteracy more and more growing in the new generations of Christians. The indifference for the Bible is alarming. Today that that prophet Jeremias prophesied saying lived: “Because two evils committed my people: to me they left me, the spring of alive waters, and they dug cisterns, cisterns broken, that you/they don’t keep the waters” (Jr. 2:13). the modern spirituality is nurtured by sources whose waters are not perennial. Then the inquietude, the frenzy, the crazy and insane search for experiences that never satisfy the soul. We needed to return to the perennial spring of waters that you/they satisfy the headquarters of the heart, a source that gushes forever and it frees us of the cisterns broken that dry and they don’t satisfy. He/she would like to propose an old road for the reading biblical call “divine lectio”, or reading devocional.
Reading devocional is a form devotion diciplinada and no one more method of biblical study. I don’t refer here to the inductive reading that we do when we tried to investigate the biblical text, or to that in the which we looked for more immediate answers for daily conflicts, not even the reading from where leave the sermons and biblical studies. On the contrary, the reading devocional should never be used for some other purpose utilitarian or pragmatic. It is done pure and simply to know God, to put before His/her Word and to hear him/it. This silence attitude, reverence, meditation and contemplation defines the posture of who wants to approximate of the Word of God. The biblical example of this posture found in Maria, sister of Marta, that “quedava-if seated to the feet of the Mister to hear him/her the teachings” (Lucas 10:39), “while his/her sister was anxious to and fro, busy in many services” (Lucas 10:40). there is many other devotion examples that we found in the Bible, of people that simply if they put before the Mister, without sketching a single word, without presenting a single request, just hearing, meditating and meditating.
Priest Eugene Peterson clamored this reading of “thoughtful exegesis”. Para he, is treated of a biblical reading used by the church in his/her history. The thoughtful exegesis doesn’t reduce the place of the technical and theological exegesis, however no technique produces food or it cures, as well as no information produces knowledge. According to him, something exists alive in a book, something more than ordered words, a soul exists. The discovery of the thoughtful exegesis begins with the perception that the whole word is basically and originally a resonant phenomenon and no printed. Words are spoken before being written, they are heard before being read. Jesus’ words that were and that you/they are necessary for our salvation, they are those that they were heard, savored, undergone digestion, repeated and preached, in a dynamic process, involving the believers’ community. “Divine Lectio” it is a reading for transformation.
They are four the apprenticeships for the which we passed to the we dedicate ourselves to the reading devocional: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. Each one drives us unavoidably to the other. The reading, when done repeatedly and with reverence, it leads to the reflection that a lot of times come accompanied of a visualization of the biblical scene. For instance, we can take the acquaintance Psalm 23 and to leave that for some our moment mind creates an image of the pasture verdejante and calm where the shepherd takes their sheep. That attitude of allowing the text to drive us imaginativamente is that the old ones called meditation. If we were tense, hurried, looking for some urgent answer; if the reading devocional is something that needs be done as one more item in our tight daily calendar, we lost the meaning of the devotion that in the group to the meditation.
When Maria, mother of Jesus, heard the words of the shepherds on what saw and they heard concerning the Messiah, she says the text that her “she kept all these words, meditating them in the heart” (Lucas 2:19). Leaning that Maria was there, quiet, in silence, trying to discern and to imagine his/her son’s roads and the depth of the divine mysteries.
The meditation in the Psalm 23 (or any other text) it will produce a desire to speak with the Shepherd, of speaking with God. Our heart and mind if they will move towards the Mister that is the Good Shepherd, and this movement of the heart towards God is the beginning of the prayer. Contemplation is the high point of the experience of the prayer, it is completely the deep communion with God that involves us and transforming our life.
To begin, separate thirty minutes every day. Find a calm place and go to bed for the reading. Leave on his/her side perception critical, academic, analytical and it is put in an expectation attitude. This is a posture that, usually, the pragmatic people would call of “to lose time”, because he/she doesn’t bring with itself any objective proposal. The reading devocional is a form of absolute submission, of letting to happen. God will drive us and it will define his/her own calendar. We will never be sure the where the practice of the reading will drive us. In a certain way, we gave all the control need on the text, and allowing that God freely drives us for the encounter with Him.
Every personal relationship requests time, effort and attention. The daily practice of the reading devocional establishes a pattern that becomes the base for a serious and deep relationship with God. Maybe, for demanding time and an approach no addressed, it aims at, with results concretes, the reading devocional doesn’t have great acceptance in the modern world characterized by his/her praticidade, rationality, superficiality, impessoalidade and urgency.
The reading devocional can also be practiced openly. Actually, the people learn better when they can see of the when they just hear or they read. The group can be it of the Escola Dominical, or I group family, or even the public cult in a church not very big. Invite the people so that they close their eyes and, for some instants, quietly, invoke the presence and aid of the Espírito Santo. However, it is nescessário that before even of the invocation of Espírito Saint presence, they should invoke his/her own presence. It is very common to arrive still to our encounters and meetings with our spirit very agitated, restless and distant. After a brief moment of silence and quietness, somebody begins to read and to repeat the biblical text calmly and pausadamente, in a calm and calm tone, always giving a pause among a sentence and other, taking the group to meditate and to pray. A text that I have been using frequently is that of the blind man Bartimeu that hears Jesus’ surprising question: “What does want Me to do you?” (Lucas 18:35-43). Usually, does the group end with a prayer answering the personally that question of Jesus.
It is important to remind that so much in practice personnel as in the group, each person should penetrate in the narration as if she was a character of that report. In the blind man’s case Bartimeu, as if he/she was the own blind man or one of Jesus’ disciples, or even any pedestrian. It is a spiritual exercise that it requests a more little of imagination. Therefore, we should leave our aside rational academicism for a more effective and personal approach.
The practice of that spiritual exercise will also bring great influence in our relationships interpessoais, because it will help us to hear the other ones better, leaving that they are revealed to us avoiding the precipitation of our judgements preconceituosos.
To read the Bible is not always the same thing that to hear God. An action not always it implicates other. To hear God demands a posture, an attitude before His/her Word. The reading devocional is a form of we put ourselves before God and His/her Word as in fact he/she wants to hear, to meditate, to pray and to meditate. It is of that posture that is born, not just the pleasure for the Word of God, but also the experience transformadora of the power of the Divine Grace.
