Lectio Divina with the Spiritual Masters: The Book of Daniel with St. Jerome

Margaret Rash reviews a Lectio Divina prayer guide through the Book of Daniel with insights from Saint Jerome.

Lectio Divina with the Spiritual Masters: The Book of Daniel with St. Jerome 

Published by TAN Books

Lectio Divina with the Spiritual Masters is a collection of prayer guides from TAN Books which guide the reader through the ancient practice of praying with Scripture along with the insights of a saint who has written on the particular book of the Bible. 

At the time of this writing, there are currently four different books in the series available. For the purposes of this review, we will look at Lectio Divina with the Spiritual Masters: The Book of Daniel with St. Jerome, specifically.

The Steps of Lectio Divina

The book opens with a Publisher's Introduction to the practice of Lectio Divina and an outline of the basic steps. The Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible is used and commentary written by Saint Jerome. There is also an introduction to the Book of Daniel, for context, and an introduction to Saint Jerome and his commentary, which is used for reflection throughout.

The guide offers recommended prayers for the reader to begin their conversation with God through Scripture and prayers before their time of meditation to help guide the reader.

Easy Daily Prayer

Each section begins with a passage from the Book of Daniel, followed by commentary on that passage from Saint Jerome's writings. The reader is then given reflections to be used as material for guided meditation with the Scripture passage and commentary just read.

Finally, the reader is presented three reflection questions to be taken to prayer in light of the readings and meditation. The last step of Lectio Divina is contemplation. Since contemplation is marked by resting with God in love, there is no further guidance here, but there is plenty of blank space and lined space for journaling thoughts, prayers, notetaking and so on.

The readings, reflections, and questions are insightful and thoughtful. I found they brought new meaning to the Scripture passages for me. Through the commentary from Saint Jerome and the reflections for meditation, I also learned a lot about the Book of Daniel in general and the historical context for the events that take place.

The layout is beautifully done. Aside from the blank space and lined pages at the end of each section, there is also lined space in the margins of the pages and the paper itself is thick and sturdy, making journaling an easy addition to deepen prayer time. The clear steps made daily prayer with Scripture both easy and fruitful.

Who is this book for?

Anyone who wants to deepen their prayer life by reading more Scripture will benefit from this guide.

For someone first learning the steps of Lectio Divina, the steps are made clear and easy to follow. For someone familiar with this type of prayer, there is still a great amount of benefit from the commentary by St. Jerome, the reflections for meditation, and the questions to bring to prayer.

I was very impressed overall and will be purchasing another one of TAN's guides to pray with soon. My only problem now is deciding which book of the Bible I want to pray with next!

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Copyright 2026 Margaret Rash
Images: (top) detail from cover