Have you ever thought of reading as prayer? Through Wilhelm Leibl’s Three Women in Church, we discover how sacred words and images can speak directly to the heart. Join Pastor Rob as he invites us to ruminate on scripture and art until we hear God’s quiet voice within.

Deuteronomy 11:18-21

What does it mean to listen for God through reading? In this episode of Art and Prayer, Pastor Rob McPherson invites us to reflect on the sacred act of reading as a form of prayer. Drawing from St. Jerome’s words — “When we pray, we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us” — we are reminded that the written word can become a vessel for divine conversation. Just as contemplative prayer calls us to stillness and listening, reading scripture or sacred texts opens our hearts to hear the gentle voice of the Divine.

Our time of reflection centers on Wilhelm Leibl’s Three Women in Church, a quiet, intimate depiction of three country women gathered in devotion. The youngest, dressed carefully for a village festivity, stands beside two older women — one reading from a book and the other praying in silence. As art historian Timothy Verdon notes, the presence of the prayerbook reflects a moment in history when literacy was spreading to rural communities. The act of reading sacred words, once reserved for priests and scholars, had become a practice shared by ordinary believers. Yet Leibl reminds us that prayer does not depend on literacy alone; the silent devotion of the eldest woman holds just as much holiness.

The scripture passage from Deuteronomy 11:18–21 reminds us to “put my words in your heart and on your body.” This ancient call to bind God’s words to our hands and hearts resonates deeply with Leibl’s painting. Reading, remembering, and praying — each becomes a way of carrying the Word of God within us. The words we dwell on shape our faith and ripple outward into the world, teaching the next generation what it means to live in the love of the Divine.

Through guided reflection, Pastor Rob encourages us to pause, listen, and “squeeze from” the words of scripture all their spiritual nourishment — just as Pope Benedict XVI described in Lectio Divina. By pairing sacred text with sacred art, we learn to let both image and word irrigate our lives like living water.

As the episode concludes, we are invited to write down what God has spoken to our hearts — perhaps even on a simple sticky note — so that the Divine Word continues to echo in our daily life. For in the marriage of word and prayer, of reading and listening, we are drawn ever closer to the sacred presence of our Beloved.