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October 15, 2020 | Gussie Ambrose '21
My name is Gussie Ambrose, I am a prefect and Lectio leader in St. Mary’s dorm. This is my fourth year doing Lectio, and my second year as a leader. I have always been a very outgoing person. I like talking about my feelings and my experiences with people, except when it came to my spiritual life, my relationship and love for God. I think that the reason is because the idea of God, the idea of loving Him and being loved by Him is so immense, so out of this world that I found it difficult to put it into words to share with the people around me.
When I started doing Lectio my freshman year, I began to think that maybe God had the same desire that I did. That He wanted to take His immense, incalculable love for us and put it into words, and that’s where the Bible comes in. The Bible is the word of God, to me. It is not something we read in our Theology classes or a set of rules. It’s God’s way of telling us that He loves us, and it is my way to express my own love for God every time I do Lectio. I’d like to share a line from the prophet Isaiah, which I read in Lectio: “you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.” The most beautiful thing about the Bible is that God wrote it for each one of us individually, and it is written because He loves all of us individually. God’s love creates us, fills us and sustains us.
The most beautiful thing about Lectio here at the Abbey is that we do it in community. God speaks to each member of the group individually, through the Bible verse, a line that speaks to me at that point of my life could have a completely different meaning to another member of my group at that point in their life. And that’s so special. God’s love for us speaks to us in so many ways, because He knows us, He knows everything about us, and He still loves us and speaks to us. My Lectio groups over the years have taught me how better to love God, myself, and my neighbor. I hope you will come to Lectio and experience God’s love through His Word.