If we follow our imaginations into the text, we may find our pathway converges with the venerable reading practices of the pre-modern church. The practice known in the Latin as lectio divina (“spiritual reading”), with its four connected phases: read; meditate; pray; contemplate. In the twelfth century, the ancient four-dimensional practice was crystallized by a European monk, Guigo the Second: Reading, as it were, puts solid food in our mouths, meditation chews it and breaks it down, prayer obtains the flavour of it and contemplation is the very sweetness which makes us glad and refreshes
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