From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
Jean-Pierre do Caussade, in his eighteenth-century letters to those for whom he served as spiritual director, provides specific instructions on how to read a book spiritually:
If you are to get from it all the good I anticipate, you must not throw yourself greedily upon it or let yourself be drawn on by curiosity as to what comes next. Fix your attention upon what you are reading without thinking about what follows…Pause briefly, from time to time, to let these pleasant truths sink deeper and deeper into your soul, and allow the Holy Spirit time to work…Simply let the truths sink into your heart rather than into your mind.