Lectio Divina: the ancient monastic practice of reading God’s word not purely as study, but even more to inspire deep in the reader’s heart a passion for words that, originating as all words do in The Word, bring to life the certainty of Divine purpose, Divine immediacy. What space could contain words with such power? What place could, within its very silence, make room for the act of reading and absorbing the divinity of words? 

La Chapelle de l’Invention de-la-Sainte-Croix is exactly such a place hidden in the heart of downtown Montreal. Once a place where the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, the Grey Nun’s, worshipped, prayed, confessed their sins, read the Divine Word for almost 150 years, it has been transformed yet meticulously preserved as a reading room of Concordia University where, at any given hour of the day, students observing strict silence pore over their books and their electronic devices in pursuit of knowledge, yes, but even more in a setting that speaks to them still of the way words are the gifts of God for the people of God.