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The Divine Vision for Lent: Walking our Students through Lent with Beauty

MARIE KELLY

Station of the Cross #8: Jesus Meets the Daughters of Jerusalem by Théophile Lybaert c. 1886-1887.


With
Christmas season past, the Catholic Church has been enjoying a few weeks of ordinary time, the growing season. However, many of us have perhaps started to realize that Lent is just around the corner.  

Lent, the forty day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. When I ask my students about Lent, many like to share what they (or their parents) have chosen to give up. But while we are called to abstinence, giving up something during Lent, like meat on Fridays, we are also called, perhaps more importantly, to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ’s will more faithfully.  

As Catholic educators, parents, and friends, I invite you to ponder how you, your students, and your family and friends will grow closer to Christ this Lenten season; through fasting and almsgiving, yes, but especially through prayer. How can we lead our students to walk the road to Calvary with Christ this Lent? One idea is to pray with Visio Divina. In this article, I aim to provide you with a brief history of Visio Divina in the Catholic tradition, walk though the steps of praying with Visio Divina, and share some ideas for bringing the prayerful practice of Visio Divina to your classroom, whether you teach preschool or college students.

As Catholics, we know we are both body and soul. We are not purely bodies — unlike animals, we have unique, God-given faculties, and yet we are not pure spirit either; we are not angels. We live this composite of both body and soul, and so are unique amidst God’s creation. As corporeal and spiritual beings, the ways in which we use our bodies matter, and we can use our whole bodies and senses to enter more fully into our relationship with God.  

Visio Divina is just that; it is a way of praying with sacred art that, as Father Mike Schmitz says, “…lifts our hearts and minds to the Lord in a way that words cannot.” This type of prayer is especially powerful for children, who are such sensorial beings. 

A Brief History of Visio Divina

Liturgical art is a symbol that points to a greater reality than itself. It is meant to lift our hearts and minds to the Lord in a way that words cannot.”   — Fr. Mike Schmitz 

Visio Divina literally means “divine seeing.” It is an ancient form of Christian prayer in which we allow our hearts and imaginations to prayerfully and meditatively enter into an image. The steps are similar to Lectio Divina, but sacred art is used as the focus of prayer instead of Sacred Scripture.  

Visio Divina has been a tradition of the Church for ages. Scripture shows us that imagery has long been an important part of God’s way of communicating with us. Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones (Ezek 37:1-14), and Peter’s dream on the rooftop (Acts 10), are just two instances of how images and prayer are vitally connected.

In early Church history, stained glass windows were very important for catechizing the illiterate, as they were a way to teach the lives of Christ and the saints through beautiful images. If you haven’t done so, I invite you to take an awe-walk, a slow walk taking time to look in wonder and awe, with your students through your own Church or chapel and look at the images, statues, and stained glass windows. I know I look at the art during Mass, but seldom do I plan time outside of Mass to enjoy it — and it so worth enjoying!

Even if your church or school chapel doesn’t have stained glass or statues, there are other images you can use for Visio Divina, such as the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross are a practice of accompanying Christ through the fourteen stations on his journey to Calvary. The fourteen stations are found in almost every Catholic church in the world! The practice began as pious pilgrims traced the path of Christ through Jerusalem on the Via Dolorosa. Later, for the many who wanted to pass along the same route but could not make the trip to Jerusalem, the fourteen stations were created so every Christian could accompany Christ on his journey to Calvary through sacred art, prayers, and reflections. This is yet another way sacred art is a part of the rich tradition of the Catholic Church.

Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.”   — CCC 2505

The Steps of Visio Divina

By nature men desire the beautiful.”   — St. Basil the Great

With our culture becoming more and more visually oriented, an intentional way of praying with images is needed now more than ever. Our students, children, and even we adults are overrun with non-beautiful images all the time: advertising, television, and social media, to name a few, and most of which we know does not orient us to Heaven. Imagine instead giving your students the gift of praying with beautiful images and works of sacred art, which allow them to see the beauty of God and to orient their hearts and minds to Him. What a gift that would be. 

The steps of Visio Divina are the same as those of Lectio Divina, but draw predominately from sacred art rather than sacred scripture, although certainly you may wish to read aloud an accompanying Scripture passage, especially if you chose an image related to a Bible story. The beautiful details of these masterpieces can help us and our students grow closer to God through a new lens, building up our memories of these rich paintings and the stories they portray, as well as inviting us to ponder God’s message to each of us through a particular piece of sacred art.

To begin, choose a beautiful piece of sacred art and place it somewhere visible to your students. Then, lead your class slowly through each of the four steps listed below, allowing time for the students to pray during each step.

  1. Visio/Gaze – Look at the image and be attentive to the details. Notice what strikes you.
  2. Meditatio/Meditate – Think about the painting and connect it to your life. Imagine being present in the art piece. Prayerfully listen to the accompanying Scripture, if you choose to use one, being attentive to what words or phrases strike you. 
  3. Oratio/Prayer – Speak to God about what you are noticing. This is a conversation from your heart with the Lord. Thank Him, and ask Him to help you grow in deeper understanding.
  4. Contemplatio/Contemplate – Simply rest with God. This is a time of divine intimacy, a time to listen for God’s still, small voice and note what He is trying to teach you through the art and the time of prayer. 

You may wish to have students keep a prayer journal or use a paper with space for each step of Visio Divina to write or draw their prayers, thoughts, and reflections during this time.

For someone with a more mature prayer life, these four steps don’t necessarily have to be followed in order; you have the freedom to move between each step as the Holy Spirit guides you. For our students, however, it is important to guide them through each step intentionally, slowly, and joyfully. Much like learning a memorized prayer, you first learn the words, but those words take on a deeper meaning as your prayer life matures. In Visio Divina, we must first slowly and intentionally introduce each step and practice them with our students before expecting them to be able to pray in this way on their own.  

Ideas for Praying with Visio Divina in Your Classroom this Lent


So, how can we use sacred art in our classrooms, especially during this Lenten season but also throughout the year to draw our students closer to God?  Below are a few ideas you may wish to use with your students.

  • Take an awe-walk, a slow walk taking time to look in wonder and awe, with your students through your own Church, chapel, or school building and look at the stained glass windows, statues of Christ and the saints, and sacred art.
  • Choose a favorite sacred art image to hang in your classroom. You may choose to keep one image for the entire year, especially if it relates to your class’s patron saint, a big topic they will discuss in religion, or an image that pertains to a Sacrament they will make that year, or you may choose to switch out the images according to the Liturgical season or month. Traditionally within the Catholic Church, crucifixes and sacred images are veiled or removed during Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent, while some choose to cover their sacred images for the whole season of Lent to help the faithful focus on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Before this time, perhaps you’d like to add a beautiful work of sacred art to your classroom for your students to enjoy. Once the image and crucifix are veiled, wait for your class to ask about the significance and discuss it together. Perhaps each child could take home their own purple Lenten shroud to cover the crucifix in their home. A simple piece of purple fabric will do, and you can buy it in bulk at your local craft store or ask for a parent volunteer to donate the fabric.
  • While crucifixes and sacred images may be veiled during part of or the entire Lenten Season, the Stations of the Cross remain uncovered. For students and adults who are used to seeing the crucifixes and sacred images in a church or school, only having the Stations of the Cross unveiled provides a particular emphasis on Christ’s passion and resurrection. Praying the Stations of the Cross, especially on Fridays, can be a meaningful way to accompany Christ on his walk to Calvary. There are many ways in which children can be involved in praying the Stations of the Cross, including taking turns leading a particular station, making their own Stations of the Cross booklet to use during prayer, reading from Sacred Scripture, and putting on a reenactment of Christ’s passion.
  • Praying the Stations of the Cross using Visio Divina is a way you can adapt the traditional praying of the Stations for your classroom. With fourteen stations to pray with, you might plan to pray using Visio Divina with one station each day leading up to your last day of school before the Holy Week or Easter break. You could also choose two days a week for each week of Lent to pray a Station of the Cross using Visio Divina — perhaps each Tuesday and Friday, when the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary are traditionally prayed.
  • Pray with one image from the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, or any mysteries of the Rosary, each day during Lent, using Visio Divina to enter more fully into that mystery before praying that decade of the Rosary.
  • When praying with Visio Divina, I especially enjoy having a physical image I can hold, and I have found this practice is particularly helpful for students as well. You could find sacred art for each Station of the Cross. Mystery of the Rosary, or whichever sacred image you choose to pray with, and print the image on 4×6 photo paper for your students to pray with. Many pharmacies, grocery stores, and printing stores will do this at a very reasonable cost, or perhaps you can ask for parent volunteers to donate the pictures. As students pray with each image, they can paste it into a special notebook where they can write (or draw, for the littles) their reflections, thus creating their own Visio Divina book to use year after year during Lent.
  • Choose an image related to each Sunday’s Gospel to have your students pray with during their Visio Divina time, perhaps praying with just one step each day using the same image for the whole week.
  • For students who are experienced with Visio Divina, or after they have had experience with you in class, perhaps you might like to assign days for each child to choose artwork for or lead a Visio Divina prayer experience.
  • Invite students to keep a prayer journal with their Visio Divina reflections.

“To admire the icons and the great masterpieces of Christian art in general leads us on an inner way, a way of overcoming ourselves; thus, in this purification of vision that is a purification of the heart, it reveals the beautiful to us, or at least a ray of it. In this way, we are brought into contact with the power of the truth.” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Please let us know which of these practices you have decided to try with your students. Thank you for taking the time to bring your students closer to Christ this Lent and throughout the year through praying with Visio Divina. May God bless you, your family, and your classroom as we journey with Christ this Lenten Season.

If you would like additional information or resources about introducing and praying with Visio Divina with your students and school, contact our School Services team.