One day when I was busy working with my hands I began to think about our spiritual work, and all at once four stages in spiritual exercise came into my mind: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. These make a ladder for monks by which they are lifted up from earth to heaven.
— Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks
CAC faculty member James Finley describes the wisdom that comes from contemplative reading, as taught by the Carthusian monk Guigo II (c. 1114–1188):
The first rung of the ladder to heaven is reading. By reading, Guigo means a “careful reading of Scripture, concentrating all one’s powers on it.” He likens reading to the act of eating, saying that when we read God’s word we take in spiritual nourishment…. Guigo writes:
I hear the words read: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” [Matthew 5:8]. This is a short text of Scripture, but it is of great sweetness, like a grape that is put in the mouth filled with many senses to feed the soul…. Wishing to have a fuller understanding of this, the soul begins to bite and chew upon this grape as though putting it in a wine press to ask what this precious purity may be and how it might be had. [1]
Finley continues:
The transformative power of reading, as described by Guigo, holds true in a unique sense in the reading of Scripture. For to read the Scriptures as an act of faith means that the words of the living God are on your lips. The power of God’s words works as leaven in the heart, awakening us to a personal experience of the presence of God that Scripture reveals. Read in this way, the Scriptures are one long love letter from God. Each verse tells the story of the love that perpetually calls us to itself….
Spiritual reading is not limited to the reading of Scripture…. Reading Guigo and other works of spiritual wisdom can embody our search for God. As we search for God in the writings of the mystics, we can experience in their words something of the experience of God the mystics are writing about…. As you continue on in your own spiritual journey you will no doubt come across those spiritual books, written by authors both ancient and contemporary, that you will learn to cherish. These are the books we never really finish. For each time we open them and read a few passages, we once again recognize something of ourselves and the path along which we are being led….
To commit ourselves to seeking God in the practice of meditation … assumes that we are learning to read the Scriptures … in the manner Guigo describes. That is, it assumes that we are committed to the ongoing process of quietly and unhurriedly reading, as a way of seeking and coming upon intimations of God’s presence manifested to us in the midst of our reading.
References:
[1] See Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks: A Letter on the Contemplative Life, and Twelve Meditations, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (Image Doubleday, 1978), 82–83.
James Finley, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God (HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 80–84.
Image credit and inspiration: Annie Spratt, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Through the stillness of our witnessing, word and image become thresholds—stirring the unseen and inviting Spirit to speak through the quiet bloom of our attention.
Story from Our Community:
I’d like to share my own daily practice, which blends silence and an ongoing conversation with God. I start each day with 20 minutes of quiet time (not easy for me), then lectio divina, and CAC’s Daily Meditations. During the day, I converse with God, inviting presence or simply asking for guidance—or frankly just complaining. My interaction with the Divine is human, needy, affectionate, surrendering, questioning, and, I hope, open. As my head hits the pillow at night, I remember to thank God for all of it.
—Connie V.
