Ignatian Contemplation

Every Autumn when I go on retreat, I work my way through the Ignatian Exercises. These are the exercises first practiced by St Ignatius of Loyola and passed on to his order which we now know as the Jesuits. This October the exercise I was concentrating on was Ignatian Contemplation or Imaginative Prayer.

Kevin O’Brien from the Society of Jesus writes the following about this practice:

“Ignatius was convinced that God can speak to us as surely through our imagination as through our thoughts and memories. In the Ignatian tradition, praying with the imagination is called contemplation. In the Exercises, contemplation is a very active way of praying that engages the mind and heart and stirs up thoughts and emotions.

Ignatian contemplation is suited especially for the Gospels…accompany Jesus through his life by imagining scenes from the Gospel stories. Let the events of Jesus’ life be present to you right now. Visualize the event as if you were making a movie. Pay attention to the details: sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings of the event. Lose yourself in the story; don’t worry if your imagination is running too wild. At some point, place yourself in the scene.

Contemplating a Gospel scene is not simply remembering it or going back in time. Through the act of contemplation, the Holy Spirit makes present a mystery of Jesus’ life in a way that is meaningful for you now. Use your imagination to dig deeper into the story so that God may communicate with you in a personal, evocative way.”

It just so happens that today’s gospel reading was one of the passages used during the retreat. The invitation to practising Ignatian Contemplation with the passage is this:

“We ask the Spirit to show us what Jesus was like growing up. Accompany him as a friend, relative, or neighbour in Nazareth. Though fully divine, Jesus is also fully human. Notice, then, how Jesus grows into his humanity.

It doesn’t matter whether the details you supply are historically accurate. We are not reconstructing history. Instead, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we are coming to know Jesus more intimately so that we can love him more dearly and follow him more closely.”

So, I thought I’d share with you what I wrote using this imaginative method of prayer:

I work in the temple, it’s been so busy with Passover, I was looking forward to a bit of rest – but then I met The Boy. Ordinary looking, but so very not ordinary.

He wanted to talk about God! Why not? That’s the best thing a boy could want, so I took him to where the men were debating. I don’t know what I expected but my goodness….his answers, his questions! The sophistication of his thoughts and understanding of God. So raw, so pure.

I think he would have talked all night but I needed to get home, and I hadn’t seen him stop to eat. I invited him home to eat with my wife and I, and then with seemingly no where to go he stayed overnight.

The next day we returned to the temple and started again. For nearly five days this continued. Of course, we asked him about his parents and he spoke of them with such love, but no indication of where they were. We were getting used to him, both in the temple and at home.

I couldn’t help but wonder if we might have gained a lodger, we’d have been more than happy for him to stay. But then on the fifth day a man dashed in, wild-eyed, a mixture of relief and rage:

“Jesus, where have you been?? How could you do this??”

“you should have known I’d be in my father’s house” the boy replied.

I saw the mother in the partitioned area, wringing her hands. I led the boy and his father over to her and the three embraced, although the boy still didn’t seem to understand he’d scared them half to death.

I invited them all back home, to begin their journey anew in the morning. As I passed by the room where the couple were sleeping I couldn’t help – God forgive me – but over hear what the mother said:

“We’ve become complacent Joseph, since our return from Egypt, we’ve got so used to him being a normal boy, it’s made us forget he’s anything but ordinary. We must hold him lightly, my love, he’s never truly been ours after all”.

I often wonder what she meant? And I wonder if I’ll ever hear from the boy again. I feel like there’s greatness in his future.

The exercise ends with the following prayer:

Lord Jesus, from the start

You invite ordinary people to come to where you live.

When they come, you welcome them

and call them to labour and rejoice with you.

You are the most beautiful among all men,

and I hardly believe you want me for your friend.

You are powerful, Lord.

Draw me more and more into your friendship

and lead me along the way you took with friends.

—Joseph Tetlow

Justice and Joy

Preached on the 15th December and forgot to post...

We’re 3 weeks into Advent already – can you believe it? Without a word of exaggeration about 20 people have asked me this week if I’m ready for Christmas, and I’ve given the same answer every time – I’ve never ready…and yet… Christmas comes anyway. It being the third Sunday of Advent means it’s Gaudete (Gow-d’-tay) Sunday- the Latin for Rejoice.

This theme runs through our readings: Zephaniah’s Song of Joy declares:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;

   shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

   O daughter Jerusalem!

In his letter to the Philippians, St Paul tells us:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything - Which is pretty much my mantra during Advent.

So far so good, we’re feeling those rejoicing vibes…and then… we get to John in our gospel reading from Luke – what an absolute downer! How can this man have been the baby who leapt for joy inside pregnant Elizabeth when she encountered Mary, pregnant with Jesus? He’s grown into a proper misery-guts.

How can John’s words give us cause to rejoice?

What I’ve read this week is that it’s all about perspective, that what concerns John are the things which will make God rejoice, this flips it on its head and gives us a different way of thinking about John’s words…

…and John doesn’t mince his words, a prophet is a speaker of truth, particularly speaking truth to power, and pointing out hypocrisy and injustice, and when you examine it, it’s justice which is at the heart of the advice John gives to those who come to him, asking what they must do. Justice and joy are at the heart of God’s kingdom.

At the start of this 3rd chapter of Luke’s gospel we hear of Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, his brother Philip, Lysanias of Abilene, and the high-priests Annas and Caiaphas. Immediately after this we’re told; the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

God didn’t send his word to the Emperor, the Governor, the kings or high-priests; he sent it to rest upon an eccentric in the desert. Where humankind thinks power and wisdom reside are very different to where God actually places them, so it may also be worth looking a little differently at what we think John is saying to those around him.

It strikes me what a diverse group of people have been drawn to John. Ada Wong Nagata writes: The crowd seems to represent the Jews who have enough; the tax collectors, the outcasts; and the soldiers, the gentiles. They all seek to change their lives. Even though John is harsh in the beginning, he gives advice to them all. John’s advice is not dramatic, he just asks them to turn from what they are doing their own way, and instead to start doing things the right way—God’s way.

Marcea Paul tells us: John doesn’t ask the people to change the world, but rather to change themselves. He doesn’t tell them to leave their lives and stay with him or start a revolution; he tells the crowds who came to him to consider sharing what they have with the cold and hungry. He told the tax collectors to be honest and fair. The soldiers, he cautioned to act with integrity, avoiding abuse of their power. “Go home,” John told them. Go home to your families, your neighbours, your vocations, your friends. Go home and live your lives as deeply and as generously as you can right now. Do what the Lord requires of you and do it now. Be generous now – Be merciful now – Do justice now.

For me this turns around the perceived harshness of John’s words, into something where if we were to go and live out that advice, I’m sure it would create something which would make God rejoice.

But what about the wheat and the chaff? How can that possibly be something worth rejoicing about? Well, I think that has something to do with what the wheat and chaff truly represent.

Have you ever met anyone who’s completely good? Even the best person you know? What about the worst person you’ve ever met? They can’t have gone through life without, even accidentally, doing something good. Surely no one is all bad or all good? How then will we be judged on who is wheat and who is chaff? I think the answer is, we’re all both.

We’re made of both wheat and chaff, good and bad, our hope is that living as people who love Jesus, who desire to follow his teaching, that when we’re baptised in his Spirit and flame, the Spirit fills our hearts, and the fire burns away our chaff.

Our chaff are the times we didn’t consider the outcast, the times we didn’t share the ways in which we’ve been blessed by plenty, the times we haven’t been honest and fair, when we acted without integrity or abused our power.

The longer we sit in the burning heat of Christ’s love, immerse ourselves in his ways, the more of the chaff gets burned away – it’s like the refiner’s fire of Zechariah 13:9:

And I will put this third into the fire,

    refine them as one refines silver,

    and test them as gold is tested.

They will call on my name,

    and I will answer them.

I will say, ‘They are my people’;

    and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’

I think God may indeed rejoice at seeing our closeness to Jesus, refining us in his fire, and becoming more fully the person God intends us to be.

I think, generally, we’re not very good at doing Advent, the penitential, prayerful preparation that it’s intended to be, but we’re here, trying our best to be close to Jesus, letting ourselves be slowly refined, bit by bit, year upon year. And I think that refinement leads us to change not the world but ourselves, as John advises his listeners, and if enough of us make those changes it does, in time, change us, our families, our communities and then, eventually, can change the world.

To go back to that question I, and probably you, am being asked constantly right now, are you ready for Christmas - how can we ever be ready for Christmas? For Godself to come and live amongst us with his spirit and flame? Where would we even begin to prepare?

So, as John was sent to prepare to way for Jesus, I guess the best thing we can do is follow his advice, and change ourselves, to focus on God’s rejoicing, and on seeking God’s justice and joy right here, today.

It’s comforting. In a world where we can change so little, where our anguish and anxiety are rising over wars, climate crisis and those gaining political power, our comfort comes in seeking what God seeks; justice and joy.

So Gaudete! Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything.

Amen