STUDENT LEADERS OF LECTIO DIVINA, THE LIVING WORD. groups over the years. The Abbey’s close relationship with the members of the Manquehue Apostolic Movement of Santiago, Chile, has inspired more participation in Lectio since the first three Manquehinos established an annual winter residency on campus a decade ago. Manquehinos express and live out the Benedictine values, fostered in Lectio Divina, which they put into practice in their school teaching and their relationships with the young. Over the past two years at Portsmouth Abbey School, students themselves have taken the lead and guided their peers through the steps of Lectio each week. Abbey students have described Lectio Divina as “praying the Bible in a personal way to connect with God and your friends outside of the classroom.” In a recent interview, Head Girl-elect Marron Gibbons ’22, who has been a Lectio Divina leader of the Fourth-Form girls in Manor House over the past year, shared some inLectio Divina Leader Marron Gibbons ’22
THE PRACTICE OF LECTIO DIVINA,
or Divine Reading, traces its roots back to the sixth centu-
ry, by which time St. Benedict had made it a regular practice in most monasteries. The quiet prayerful reading of the Bible, along with meditation and prayer, was intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of God’s word. With the motto Ora et Labora (“Pray and work”), daily life in a Benedictine monastery consisted of three elements: liturgical prayer, manual labor and Lectio Divina. And while in its beginnings this prayer method was set aside for monks and religious, today Lectio Divina is widely practiced by many laymen and laywomen. Lectio Divina does not treat Scripture as text to be studied, but as the Living Word.
Q: As Lectio Divina leader for the girls of Manor House what are your responsibilities?
Once a week we will have a meeting of all of the Lectio Divina leaders on campus, about a dozen of us. We meet to come up with ideas of how we want to lead Lectio that week. During exam week we will talk about readings that will help with stress. We are slowly learning how to lead people of our own age group, and sometimes that can be intimidating. For now we are trying to create the environment that we, as students, know the other students all want.
Q: When did you start to participate in Lectio, and what originally drew you to it?
At first, I accidentally walked into the Common Room meeting, and Cata, one of our Chilean Manquehue visitors, who
At Portsmouth Abbey, Lectio Divina has been practiced by our monastic community since the monastery was founded in 1918. Lay faculty have also met for Lectio Divina readings and have shared the practice with student
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sight into her experience:
was leading the group, asked me to stay. She was really amazing. It wasn’t that much of a choice at first, and it was initially a little intimidating because everyone had already done it before, so I didn’t share at that meeting. I just lis-
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
