Meditation Exercises for Classroom Prayer

This booklet contains a series of meditation exercises. The goal is to introduce middle school and junior high students to the method of prayer known as LECTIO DIVINA. There are sufficient exercises to last one school year doing one exercise a week. I found it beneficial to give students a regularly scheduled meditation time. I often chose the same day we had Eucharistic adoration. The exercises meditate on passages from the Old Testament and the New Testament.

It's important that if you have students do the exercises in writing that they know that you, as teacher, will read their reflections. You do this because journal writing should never be unsupervised if required by the teacher. In other words, do not ask students to journal than ignore what you've required them do. They are not writing their reflections to you, but for the examination of their conscience and their relationship with God and others. In our everyday lives, we can forget to develop our friendship with God. In these prayer times we will focus on these ordinary times in order to see God in the day-to-day lives we lead.