With The Word of God - Lectio Divina
Jude Groden RSM and Chris O’Donnell O.Carm
Published by McCrimmons (A Guide for Prayer in School, Home and Parish)

It is a pleasure to see these increasingly prolific authors delivering yet another publication that is so authentically grounded in the tradition of the Church.

In an age of soul searching within the Church where seeking new solutions to new problems is a seductive prospect, it is so refreshing to find recourse to a reading of tradition that not only goes back to the Word, but opens up a way of doing so that is genuinely rooted in an agelessness. Just about every commentator on the ills of the age is happy to speculate about how the Church should move forward. The really wise among them are more circumspect because they have that sense that they are treading on sacred ground. It is only when we are drawn into the mystery of the presence of God in the world today that we will become part of the solution.

Drawing teachers and students into a deeper understanding of their common journey in faith can only be accomplished in prayer. But, only in prayer that is rooted in the best practice and in the Word of God.

While these authors would make no claim to having re-discovered the richness of Lectio Divina, they have had the wisdom to see its potential for reviving the prayer life of adults and young people whether at home, in school or in the parish. In seeking to establish a practice of jointly engaging in “Divine Reading” are not these adults and young people pre-eminently responding to that call to accompany each other into the presence of that which is sacred. If someone out there can come up with a better first step in reviving the Church that we love, please, please let me know – urgently.

In a very helpful introductory essay, the authors locate their rationale for fishing in the depths of tradition within the post-conciliar teaching of the Church, establishing a relevance that comes uniquely from that which transcends time and place. They also offer the most practical of instructions for making best use of the thirty-six topics, each of which is divided into the four steps of the Lectio Divina; reading, reflecting, responding and resting.

Of particular interest to every Primary school that uses the Here I Am programme it very helpfully relates each text to the appropriate Here I Am topic. A sure indication that, not only do these authors have an eye for their material, but also posses an innate sense of what people need, not least what busy teachers need. For their part, the same busy teachers would do well to resist the temptation to us this resource as a quick fix to prayer. To do so would do a great disservice to the enormous potential that lies within the deceptively straightforward pages of this attractive and accessible publication.

Looking back at my own career in the classroom, one of the most influential books I ever encountered and which I cherished, was a smallish poetry book called Into the Life of Things. The poetry in fact wasn’t great but the accompanying text was full of wisdom about how to make even that poetry come alive for children and to inspire them to write their own. That book is, I trust, still working wonders for a young teacher that I passed it on to when I was upstairs grappling with devolved budgets and the like. I am reminded of the effect that that book had on my own teaching when I envisage the potential of this book by Jude Groden and Christopher O’Donnell. Could we ever do a better service for our pupils than to lead them and ourselves, as fellow travellers, into the sacred life of prayer?

Willie Slavin
Deputy Editor, Networking