Wonderfully Made

So, welcome to our fourth session as we move into the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. And this time, we'll take another step deeper into the foundation. But before we do that, I want to take just a couple of minutes to share an example of imaginative contemplation.

So let's keep in mind that two different saints in our tradition, Saint John of the Cross and Saint Ignatius, both use the word "contemplation," but they use it in very different senses. So, I'll put an adjective in front of the way one saint uses it and the other to see the distinction.

Ignatius speaks of, as I've said, what we can call imaginative contemplation. So that is the application of this rich faculty of being present to things that are not physically there—the imagination as a way of entering into the richness of God's Word.

When John of the Cross speaks of contemplation, he means infused contemplation, which is a different kind of prayer that generally comes later along the path in the spiritual life, in which a person is more receptive. That's what the word "infused" means: that God simply pours love, fruitfulness, and communion into the person's heart, and the person's call in that case is simply to receive it.

But we are speaking here of imaginative contemplation, and this is Catherine. Catherine was, as a young woman, alive, intelligent, bright, full of life, and then suffered a minor illness when she was 21, went into the hospital for it, and underwent a rather severe stroke as a result of the procedure. And she lost a good part of her memory, she became subject to huge mood swings, and it was this long seventeen-year process of gradually recovering her emotional stability and peace.

And this day, she is praying with the Passion of Jesus, and it's in the Gospel of John. And it's the moment when Jesus is standing before Pontius Pilate, and the people are calling for His death, His crucifixion. So she describes this: immediately upon beginning, I found myself desiring to pray with the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel.

I saw Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate and His accuser. So this is pure imaginative contemplation. She’s there. She’s walked into the movie. She’s taking part, and she sees Jesus standing there before Pontius Pilate and the crowd of people around Pontius Pilate who are shouting accusations, calling for His death.

And she finds herself wondering, how could Jesus stand there while everyone called for His death, I wondered? How could He be so calm? This woman who underwent, as it were, out of nowhere or in a totally unexpected way, a trial that shaped her life for those seventeen years. And here is Jesus on the verge of His own death, and there He stands so calm.

You can just see grace working, beginning to touch as she prays with Jesus. She’s there contemplating, watching Jesus go through His own Passion that will lead to His death. Grace is already speaking to her own passion, if I may use that word, in her own heart, her own life.

"As I placed myself completely into that scene," which is a beautiful description of contemplation, "feeling Jesus’ calmness, I began to hear Jesus saying quietly to the crowd, "Yes. Take Me. Do what you want with Me, for My death will be your salvation."

“Give yourself over to them,” God told His Son. “I can never let you go. No matter what happens, I am with you. You are safe in My arms.” Now, if I may approach this with reverence, obviously those words are not there in the Gospel literally in that way, but this is how Catherine, as she prays, touches the deep love and bond between the Father and the Son that will keep Jesus safe through this.

The experience continues and leads to a deep healing in her own heart. But that's just a little taste or touch of the richness and the fruitfulness of how God's grace can work in imaginative contemplation.

Our text this time will be more along the meditative lines. So our text is Psalm 139:1-18. And here, in keeping with Ignatius' foundation, we explore how God is at the origin of our being.

So again, as you begin to pray, let your heart be settled. Let some of the worry go for a moment. Just be present to the Lord. Open your heart like a sponge that's relaxed and ready to receive the water as it gently enters. Let your heart be open to receive God's Word and see the love in the Lord's eyes for you, as when you open yourself to His Word, you allow Him to speak His Word to you.

Lord, you have probed me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand. You understand my thoughts from afar. You sift through my travels and my rest. With all my ways, You are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord, You know it all.

Behind and before, You encircle me and rest Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to reach. Where can I go from Your Spirit? From Your presence, where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there.

If I lie down in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn and dwell beyond the sea, even there Your hand guides me. Your right hand holds me fast. If I say, surely darkness shall hide me and night shall be my light. Darkness is not dark for You, and night shines as the day.

Darkness and light are but one. You formed my inmost being. You knit me in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.

My very self, you know; my bones are not hidden from you. When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw me unformed. In your book, all are written down. My days were shaped before one came to be. How precious to me are your designs, O God. How vast the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sands. When I complete them, still You are with me.

If you feel so moved, you might just pick up that text, either listen to it again, take up the Bible when you have a chance now or later, and just reread those words.

If we let the Lord speak those words to our hearts, the truth of our life and this deep truth of how infinitely, personally, closely, warmly we are loved will come alive in our consciousness.

So we're praying with a psalm here. Psalms are prayers, and they are words spoken from the human heart to God. As you pray, make these words your own.

Lord, You have probed me and You know me. Let this be your own heart that speaks to the Lord.

And this is a psalm of wonder, a psalm of marveling at the closeness of God, as we've said, to each of us. You have searched me and you know me. And my heart now, as I pray, ponders this marvel: that the infinite and eternal God knows me and that I am important to Him. One of the greatest sufferings in life is to feel that no one knows me, and it's not true. There is One who knows me, who knows you infinitely, deeply, daily.

You know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts. Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you know it all. And there it is again, the sense of marvel that God is so infinitely close, always faithful, sharing, knowing, loving me in the depths of my heart, where my hopes and struggles and thoughts and joys stir within me. Maybe as you pray, invite the Lord into those deep places of your heart. Behind and before, You encircle me and rest Your hand upon me. The Lord's loving and protecting hand is always with me, no matter where I am, in all the times and places of my life.

And finally, this is a psalm of wonder, of marveling at God's eternal love that calls me into being. What a blessed thing to reflect on: that from all eternity, God knew me and arranged providentially, down through the centuries, all that would bring my parents together so that I would have life in this place and this time with these people. You knit me in my mother's womb. Maybe pause here and just sense the love that lies at the origin of your being, my being.

And my heart now responds together with this psalmist at prayer. I praise You. Wonderful are Your works. Gratitude stirs in my heart, and my heart responds in praise to God.

So I read, maybe I reread the words of the psalm just slowly, unhurriedly, letting the Lord speak to me and reveal their meaning to me.

And, again, Ignatius invites us as our prayer concludes to ask what word in the Scripture most spoke to me. Maybe take that word with you for the day. Saint Francis de Sales calls this a spiritual bouquet that he invites us to take from the prayer to the day, like a person who walks through a field and maybe gathers some flowers that the person takes home. And do this at the end of the prayer, something that your heart can return to and rest in throughout the rest of the day.

I'll conclude with this sentence. Well, I'll-just about two sentences from Saint Ambrose because we've prayed with the Psalm, and Ambrose speaks beautifully of the place the Psalms can have in our life of prayer. I remember my mom kept the Bible by her bed, and every night before retiring at the end of long and tiring days, she would read one of the Psalms. It's a beautiful thing. Saint Ambrose says, a Psalm is a cry of happiness. It soothes the temper, distracts from care, lightens the burden of sorrow. It is a source of security at night, a lesson of wisdom by day. It is a shield when we are afraid, a celebration of holiness, a vision of serenity, a promise of peace and harmony.

Perhaps today's prayer can also invite us to consider the place the Psalms can have as we pray daily. May God fill the hours of this day with His grace. Amen.