The reading
When you pray, you talk to God;
when you read, God talks to you.
The first word of the Rule of Saint Benedict is “listen”,
and the last is “you will reach.”
Listen, my son... you will reach. Obsculta, o fili,… pervenies. Amen
For those who let themselves be guided, this word, this attitude, is enough. For all the others, between the beginning and the end of his Rule, Saint Benedict gives indications in order to learn this attitude of listening.As there is a “musical ear”, so there is a “spiritual ear” which is the root of all listening. In the same way a long training is needed to develop a musical ear, so developing a spiritual ear demands a long education. The privileged form of this education is lectio divina, an attitude rather than an exercise of devotion.
It is really an education: whoever pratices to lectio is led outside of himself.
But this education leads to a lot more than a sum of knowledge or of how to live: very often in a person’s life, the Bible brings together the wedding and the first welcoming of the Word. It is a matter of welcoming this Word as a spouse, as the only spouse that can completely satisfy: it is she, Lady Wisdom, the “strong woman” (Proverbs 31) with whom the husband is filled.
Keep the words of this covenant and put them into practice in order to succeed in all you undertake…
If you learn to scrutinize a text, if you are attentive to its details, then you will also bring care to your work: lectio is the best school to learn to make good cheese!
If you learn to listen to an author, to discern his preoccupations, then you will also be able to listen better to your brother: lectio is the best school for learning to love.
If you let yourself be led, rbe corrected, be instructed by the Word, then you will be able also to see your callousness, to soften your thoughts, to measure the distance between yourself and the surrounding world: lectio is the best school to learn how to be converted.
Then, life becomes a great ballet, whose music is the Word, and whose dancers are the brothers.