It was a hot summer morning in 1150 AD. Guigo II was working in his garden in a Carthusian monastery in France. Carthusian monks are known for producing a liquor called Chartreuse. He was meditating on the story of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28 when it dawned on him that prayer is like a ladder with four rungs. Each rung represents deeper entry into union with God through prayer. He had been corresponding with a friend and fellow monk named Gervase about prayer. His 17- page letter, that came to be known as The Ladder of Monks: A Ladder on the Contemplative Life, inspired a method of prayer called Lectio Divina (Latin for spiritual reading) that has instructed believers since the Middle Ages. This prayer exercise consists of four movements, symbolized as rungs on a ladder. The first rung correlates to reading a few verses of Scripture. The second rung equates to meditating on its deeper meaning. The third rung prays what the text brings to awareness and the fourth rung rests in the quietness of God’s promised presence.
Guigo likens these four prayer rungs to eating. Reading puts food in the mouth, meditation chews it, prayer extracts its flavor and contemplation savors its sweetness. He illustrates this four-step process with a verse from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5.8). First, he advises Gervase to read the verse slowly and deliberately. Second, he directs him to reflect on its deeper meaning. What does it mean to be blessed? Since Guigo knows his heart is impure, he recalls a verse from Psalm 51, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast Spirit within me” (51.10). He imagines what it would be like, as referenced in the latter half of the verse, to see God. Third, he offers the prayer that follows here and concludes with the assurance that God receives our prayers.