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St. Gregory's Abbey and Benedictine monasticism

Benedictine Teaching on Prayer

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Benedictines have, more often than not, maintained a basic tendency
to prefer simplicity to complexity in the approach to prayer. This
simpler approach is turning out to be helpful to more and more people
in our time. Benedictine teaching also stresses the pursuit of balance
between liturgical prayer and inner prayer, with both being important
elements. There is not the space here to give adequate instruction for
the practice of prayer, but at least I can show something of the
contributions the Benedictine tradition can make in this important
area.

The Divine Office

The Divine Office is the central act of prayer for the Benedictine
monk. Other aspects of the monk's prayer life are fed by the Office.
The Psalms, which form the heart of the Office, shape one's prayer at
all levels.

Critics of liturgical prayer often complain that it is too objective
and that one is not praying from the heart while doing it. Actually,
this objectivity of the office is its greatest strength. Praying from
the heart is important, but the truth is that we just don't always have
the inner resources to pray with great inward feeling and fervor. It is
structured prayer that strengthens inner fervor when we have it and
keeps us going when we don't have it. Far from keeping us away from
deep levels of prayer, the Divine Office leads us down to these levels.

The Divine Office is also important because of its balance. It
guarantees that we will not become too one- sided in the praying that
we do. In the monastic tradition, the Psalms have proven to be
especially valuable in preserving this balance in prayer. True, there
is much that is simply human in the Psalms and, at times, this humanity
is not altogether honorable. But this is precisely why the Psalter is
such a powerful vehicle for worship. Every kind of prayer and every
kind of experience of God gains expression in one or more of the
Psalms. Some time or other, we are likely to find ourselves identifying
closely with each experience. In this way, the Psalms function as a
mirror, helping us to see more deeply the truth about ourselves and
about our relationship to God. Moreover, we are never locked into our
momentary subjectivity, whether good, bad, or indifferent. We find
ourselves sharing in the prayer of all Christians; we make their
prayers our own.

Spiritual Reading of Scripture

Reading the Bible is something that many devout Christians do
regularly. However, it is also a practice that many find easy to drop
and hard to keep up in a helpful way. The Benedictine tradition has
kept alive a tradition of prayerful reading of scripture which can
greatly enrich one's encounter with scripture. This practice is
conveniently called by its Latin name Lectio Divina or ?lectio? for short.

Lectio is approached with the conviction that the Bible is the Word
of God and will, when read prayerfully, lead the reader to a deeper
knowledge and love of God and also to a deeper awareness of self in
relation to God. Learning to do lectio means unlearning reading habits
that we are taught today. We are used to reading for information, and
that is good and necessary for many things. But lectio is reading for
insight, not insight in the sense of getting new ideas, but insight in
the sense of absorbing the Word of the God in the depths of our being.
In doing lectio, one may ask questions of the text, and of God, but
then one sits back and just lets God's Word sink in. In lectio, reading
becomes an act of prayer.

Interior Prayer

Practices of interior prayer, when one stops asking God for things,
and just listens to "the still small voice," have often been taught in
monastic and religious orders. Unfortunately, interior prayer has often
been regarded as too lofty for most people, even for most monks and
nuns, and for that reason has often been neglected. This neglect is all
the more sad when one reflects that deep prayer is not something we do
with our own efforts and can learn to be good at. In reality, deep
prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit praying within us. Techniques for
interior prayer are basically the means we can use to get ourselves out
of God's way so that God can enter us fully.

I can't say that interior prayer has actually become popular, but
many people today have become aware of a need to incorporate prayer at
this level. To help meet this need, Benedictine writers have been
reviving some early, simple methods for leading one into deep prayer.
Although complex methods of meditation have helped, and still help,
many people, many others have been helped by these older methods which
teach that deep prayer coming from the heart can be very simple — very
simple except for the way we complicate everything.

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