Mary Margaret Funk is a Benedictine nun of Our Lady of Grace Monastery, Beech Grove, Indiana. In addition to the five volumes of the Matters Series, she is the author of Islam Is . . . An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion and Into the Depths: A Journey of Loss and Vocation. In this paperback, Funk presents a deep and rich analysis of the spiritual practice of lectio divina which she defines as "a sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While Scripture is the classic revelation of encounter with God, the text could be from other sources like a personal event from the book of life or an experience from the book of nature."
The author has chosen the book of Jonah as her text for lectio divina. She sees it as her burning bush, and invokes the Holy Spirit to guide and direct her as she listens to the literal view of the text, the symbolic view of the text, the moral voice of God, her personal senses of prayer and ascetical practices, and the mystical voice accessible through her spiritual senses.
Funk proclaims lectio divina as a way of life that colors liturgy, selfless service, community life, and an ecclesial way of being in the world. She walks us through the four voices of the book of Jonah and the four ways she receives the text through her four senses. Living with the text, it begins to speak to her in her dreams, her phone calls, and e-mails. She keeps thinking about universal salvation, running from God, and her own encounters with the afflictions of anger and vainglory.
All of these examples of her experiences of lectio divina make this a very helpful book with step-by-step instructions on how to practice sacred reading.
