Throughout this entire semester Professor Corrigan has been challenging us to go beyond the text and experience literature in a whole new way. Before the break, he had us actually practice Lectio Divina, which I found to be quite odd, but now looking back I understand the importance of the impact that literature can have on someone. In the exert of the essay, Reading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manely Hopkins, by Francis X. McAloon SJ, I see another reason of why this method of studying and meditating on literature is amazingly important. McAloon explains that throughout his years as an undergraduate, he had to study Manley Hopkins' poetry, a type of poetry that was so intricately designed that it was very difficult for McAloon to comprehend without getting his thoughts all jumbled up. Even though he dreaded trying to understand the poetry, he gave it another chance after a professor encouraged him to further his studies on the poet. The only way that this was made possible for him was through the method of Lectio Divina, in which McAllon stated that he " came to a fresh appreciation for the man and his poetry."
The five steps in Lectio Divina that he went through were (1) he began with prayer in silencio, in order for him "to clear the mind of distracting thoughts"; (2) he performed lectio, which is "a slow reading of the day's poetic text; (3) he spent time in meditatio as he paused "to reflect upon words, phrases, metaphors [and] images; (4) he led himself into oratio, which addressed "God in personal prayers of praise; and (5) he entered, once again, into a prolonged silence, known as contemplatio, "which typically involved sitting quietly in silence," so that he could be open to God's presence.
Without this, McAloon, would have not progressed to the state of understandment as he is in now. This made me think, if McAloon was able to be transformed through the knowledge grasped by doing the method, Lectio Divina, how much more would we, as Christ followers, also attain if we were to perform the same method while reading scripture. How much more revelation would we achieve and how much transformation, which is ultimately the outcome of this practice, would we receive? With everything that Professor Corrigan has taught this semester, I feel that every bit of it ties back into this concept; to reflect and meditate on the things around us, whether it is through literature, nature, or simply, the subtle things of life. If we can learn to approach the things we read and do with prayer, meditation, praise and silence I believe that we will be transformed as the essay describes.
I liked the activity also because sometimes we just read text because we are obligated to for school or something else. But when we sit and let the words soak into our minds and grasp what the author is trying to get across to us, it's then that we begin to be transformed by the text which is what every author intends to do - they intend to move us by their words.
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