Visio Divina — Praying With Images

Visio Divina — divine seeing — is the practice of praying with an image in the way Lectio Divina prays with a text. You look at one image for a long time, notice what draws your eye, stay with it, and respond.

The name is modern; the practice is not. For most of Christian history most Christians could not read, and the Church taught largely through images — the windows, the icons, the carved capitals. Gregory the Great defended pictures in churches on exactly these grounds: they are the books of those who cannot read. Iconography in the Eastern tradition has never been decoration but a means of prayer, written rather than painted, and approached as one approaches Scripture.

The four movements

The same shape as Lectio Divina, with seeing in place of reading.

1. Look

Sit with the image in silence for a full minute without analysing it. Let your eye go where it goes. Resist the trained instinct to work out what the picture is about, who painted it, or what is going on — that comes later, if at all.

2. Notice what draws you

Something will pull — a face, a hand, a patch of colour, a figure at the edge, an empty space. Go to it and stay there.

The pull is often surprising, and the surprising ones are usually worth following. People sitting with a Nativity find themselves fixed on the animals; people sitting with a crucifixion find themselves on the ground rather than the cross. Do not correct yourself toward the obvious subject.

3. Respond

Pray from what you noticed. Why that? What does it touch? Say it back to God.

If you are drawn to the figure standing apart from the group, that is worth praying about. If your eye keeps going to the door out of the room, likewise.

4. Rest

Stop looking. Close your eyes or let the gaze soften. Two or three minutes of silence, asking nothing.

Twenty minutes in total.

What to look at

Icons are the most purpose-built option. They are made to be prayed with and their conventions are deliberate — the reversed perspective that places the viewer inside the scene, the stylised faces, the gold. Rublev's Trinity is the most-used image in the whole practice and repays months.

Classical religious painting works well: Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son, Caravaggio's Calling of St Matthew, any of the numerous Annunciations. These reward slow looking because they were painted for viewers who had time.

Photographs and ordinary images are legitimate. A photograph of a place, of hands, of a crowd. The practice is not confined to religious art.

The created world, directly. A tree through a window, over twenty minutes, is a version of this that needs no screen at all and is arguably the oldest form.

What does not work well: images that are busy, images designed to be read quickly, and anything with text on it, which pulls you into reading.

Who this suits

Visio Divina is worth trying if you are someone who finds textual prayer difficult — and a great many people do, without saying so.

It suits people whose reading is effortful, including dyslexic readers, for whom a text-centred devotional life carries a constant tax that nobody else notices. It suits people whose minds are verbally overloaded by evening. It suits children, who take to it immediately and with far less self-consciousness than adults. And it suits anyone who has hit a long dry patch in their reading and needs a door into prayer that is not the door that has stopped opening.

It also suits groups. The group Lectio Divina structure works essentially unchanged with an image: three periods of looking in place of three readings, with the same rule that nobody responds to anybody.

A caution worth stating

Some Christians have real theological objections to praying with images, grounded in the second commandment, and those objections have a serious history — the iconoclast controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries, and the stripping of the altars at the Reformation.

The distinction the tradition draws, settled at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, is between veneration directed through an image to what it represents and worship directed at the object. If that distinction does not satisfy you, this practice is not one you need. Scripture meditation does the same work with words.

Common questions

What is Visio Divina?

Praying with an image in the way Lectio Divina prays with a text: looking at a single image slowly, noticing what draws your attention, staying with it, praying from it, and resting in silence. The term is modern, but praying with icons and religious art is ancient.

How is Visio Divina different from Lectio Divina?

Only in the medium. Both move through attention, dwelling, response and rest; one begins with a short passage and the other with a single image. Many people alternate, and the two are often combined — an image paired with the passage it depicts.

What images can I use for Visio Divina?

Icons, classical religious painting, photographs, or the world outside a window. What matters is that the image rewards long looking. Busy images, images designed to be scanned quickly, and anything with text on it work poorly, because text pulls you into reading rather than seeing.

How long should Visio Divina take?

About twenty minutes: a minute of open looking, several minutes with whatever drew you, a period of prayer, and two or three minutes of silence. Ten minutes is a legitimate short form. As with Lectio, staying with the same image across several days yields more than a new one each morning.

Is praying with images biblical?

Christians disagree, and the disagreement is old. Objections rest on the second commandment; the historic response, formalised at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, distinguishes veneration passing through an image to its subject from worship of the object itself. Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism accept that distinction; parts of the Reformed tradition do not. If it does not satisfy you, Scripture meditation offers the same practice in words.