What Mary of Bethany Seems to be doing at the feet of Jesus is practicing what came to be called Lectio Divina. This Latin phrase means "reading," or more exactly "listening," to the book we believe to be divinely inspired. She is listening to Jesus' teaching. She is getting acquainted, finding out what he thinks, what he likes and does not like. We too can read Scripture to find out who Jesus is, what he likes and what he does not like. To get acquainted is to develop a personal relationship with someone towards whom we feel an attraction.

The reading of Scripture is the basis and support for all our ways of relating with God. However developed our contemplative or meditative practices may become, they still need to be nourished by Scripture. The practice of Lectio Divina is a method developed very early in Christian times. You find it in the desert fathers and mothers of the fourth century. You find it in the homilies of the fathers of the church who absorbed the teaching of Jesus and interpreted it in the light of their personal experience of relating to Jesus.

Lectio Divina is a distinct method from other contemplative practices. It is not the same as Centering Prayer or the practice of meditation taught by Dom John Main. The method of Lectio Divina has been described as methodless. A relationship with God cannot be structured or controlled. It is spontaneous. It follows the same pattern we use in getting acquainted with another human being. We have to hang out together. At first our exchanges are awkward. We make sure that our hair is parted right and our tie is on straight. We walk on eggshells lest we behave improperly or say the wrong thing.

Taking Mary of Bethany as our model we might again ask the question, "What was she doing at the feet of Jesus?" The question suggests an important principle: all prayer is related to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Prayer is primarily relationship. Its growth reflects the way we make friends with any person. Getting acquainted is a little awkward in the beginning. Acquaintanceship gradually moves into friendliness and familiarity. Friendliness evolves into friendship. The latter always involves a mutual commitment. Commitment may unfold into various degrees of union, like spiritual friendship or marriage.

In human relationships we feel each other out to see if going steady is a good idea. If we miss our appointments, there are consequences. But little by little we begin to feel at ease with this person. It is important to know that the other person likes us.

Gradually this evolves into the being-at-our-ease of friendliness. People at this stage begin to share their feelings with each other. They call each other up when they are upset or if they are going somewhere. They send post cards when they are traveling. As the relationship draws closer, one may even call the other person at work to say "It's just me. I wanted you to know that I am thinking of you."

Both Martha and Mary had passed through these initial levels of relationship with Jesus. Remember this was the house where he often stopped on his journeys to Jerusalem. All the members of the household had developed an ease in conversation. This happens to us when we speak to God in our own words. The more honestly we share our feelings with God, the more our relationship is likely to grow in intimacy.

True friendship is characterized by commitment. We can walk away from an acquaintance, but we cannot walk away from a friend without breaking someone's heart. As we move towards a commitment with a particular person, there is usually a crisis. We ask ourselves, "Can I share my problems and difficulties with this person? Will he keep my secrets? Will she still love me if she knows all about me?" These are important questions. One would be wise to resolve them before making a permanent commitment.

Friendship with God

Something similar happens in our relationship with God. In the beginning we say prayers that someone else has composed. Later we feel at ease in spontaneous prayer. At a certain point God invites us into a deeper commitment: to let go of the false self, to accept him as our Divine Therapist, and to show up for our daily interviews. If you don't show up regularly, a busy therapist might say, "There are plenty of other people who want my services. Please find somebody else."

Fortunately for us, God is not like this. If you miss your interviews, God says, "It's up to you. If you want to get well, come for treatment. If you're not yet ready, I'll wait for you. Come back in ten years." Meanwhile we have lost the opportunity to develop right now the special graces of the invitation.

Mary sat at the feet of Jesus listening to his words. At some point she was not listening to what he was saying. She was penetrating beyond his human characteristics and identifying with the divine Person whom her faith was intuiting and who was filling her with delight.

In the beginnings of contemplation, we are absorbed in this initial stage of meeting God at the spiritual level of our being. We feel the Spirit wants us to emphasize periods of solitude and silence when God can become present to all our faculties; not just the superficial faculties of thinking, imagination, and memory, but the spiritual faculties of intuition and will. It is a process of centering. I am not speaking of Centering Prayer as such, but the process that John of the Cross writes about in The Living Flame of Love. It is moving from one inner center to a deeper one, from our ordinary psychological awareness to the level of our spiritual faculties, and from the level of our spiritual faculties to our inmost being or true self. Finally, there is the moving through our inmost being into the divine presence itself which is the source out of which we emerge at every microcosmic moment of time.

Certain Buddhists have an intriguing teaching that is very friendly to the Christian idea of creation. We are coming into being, going out of it and coming back again at every split second of time. From the Judeo-Christian perspective, we are in the palm of God's hand, totally dependant on God and sustained is a struggle to be ever more available to God and to let go of the obstacles to that transforming process. The Gospel is not merely an invitation to be a better person. It is an invitation to become divine. It invites us to share the interior life of the Trinity.

The Trinity, of course, is not just present in our inmost being but throughout all creation. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "God is existence. Hence God is present in everything that exists." The question is, What kind of presence are we dealing with? God is present to us at every level of our being. Here it is worth remembering that classical incident in chapter 12 of the Book of Numbers when Moses, the leader of the Israelites, was having administrative difficulties with Miriam and Aaron who were criticizing him. God told Moses to bring them to the Tent of Meeting. That was Moses' hangout when he was in trouble.

God said to them, "There may be among your race prophets. To one I appear in a vision. To another I reveal my thoughts in a dream. But with my servant Moses I speak mouth to mouth"--that is, being to being, without intermediary. This is the ultimate relationship with the divine.

Lectio Divina, as we saw, is a methodless method of prayer, the dynamics of which are similar to the growth of a personal relationship with anyone. Hence, we have to give time and put energy into it. After we have investigated the other person's qualities, likes, and capacities, we have to be willing to take the plunge of trust. In the case of our relationship with Christ, we are faced with the call to discipleship and we experience a crisis of faith. We ask ourselves, "Can I really trust this God whom I have come to know so intimately? Given my circumstances, do I really want to commit myself to a life of prayer?"

Continued . . .

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Excerpted from The Better Part by Fr. Thomas Keating

You can obtain a copy by visiting the Contemplative Outreach Bookstore.