Love and Follow

As we start our twelfth session, I'll share another one of these many counsels that Saint Ignatius gives for prayer with Scripture. Now, the presumption here is, of course, he is directly addressing the person who is making the retreat. But the presumption here would be a person who prays daily with Scripture in whatever setting or time or way that this can work well for the person.

Let's presume that the person begins the day with prayer like this, maybe gets ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes at home before going to work or before the children get up, or gets to Mass—maybe daily Mass—twenty minutes ahead of time to have time to pray.

And what Ignatius suggests is that we choose the Scripture for prayer the evening before, which is a really helpful thing so that we're not getting to the time of prayer and at that point saying, well, now what will I focus on? But this has been chosen ahead of time. And this would only take just a minute or two. It doesn't take very long.

Let's say, for example, that a person prays with the Scriptures from the daily Mass, and a person might just look through those and find that the First Reading or the Psalm or the Gospel seems to speak to him or her most, or maybe still feels drawn to yesterday's Gospel rather than the Gospel that will be given today. So the person makes that choice the evening before.

And then Ignatius says, just before falling asleep, for the space of a Hail Mary. So again, there were no watches; this is just a way of indicating a very brief space of time. And he invites the person, for that space of the Hail Mary, just to think about that Scripture and to call it to mind, knowing that the person will be praying with this the next morning.

And then, upon awaking in the morning, instead of just having our thoughts turn wherever they will, to dedicate our thoughts to a gentle focus on that Scripture.

There's a kind of psychological reality here that somehow the seed is planted the night before; it germinates even through the rest of the night, and it's very present to the person upon arising. And you can see that a person who does this—and it really adds, at the most, a minute or two the evening before—is going to find it so much easier to enter into prayer with that Scripture when the time comes. So this is one counsel that's kind of classic for a person who does pray like this daily: just choose the Scripture the night before. Let it be present to you as you retire, and then let your thoughts turn gently to it as you awaken the next morning, and it will be that much easier to enter into the prayer.

Now we'll move in this session to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and so I'll propose two different texts. The one that we'll look at is Luke 2:1-20, which is the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Ignatius invites us to pray with this text so that we grow in intimate knowledge of Jesus, who chooses to be born in poverty, unknown, to be surrounded by people like the shepherds—intimate knowledge of Jesus so that we will love Him more and follow Him more closely in our lives.

So we let our hearts be at peace. Just be aware of the Lord. See again the warm, deeply personal love of the Lord as He gazes upon us. And in this way, allow Him to speak His words to our hearts.

In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.

And Joseph too went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

And if you pray this contemplatively, you would just be there. I remember Saint John Paul II, in a Christmas homily one year, saying, we're here in Saint Peter's, but let's be less here and more in Bethlehem and present to these events as they take place.

Now there were shepherds in the region-living-in the fields and keeping night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.

And always the same answer, the angel said to them, do not be afraid. And now we can let our hearts hear these words, we who live in the modern world with so many troubles, where behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, a Savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.

And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.”

Now I will read to you an experience of praying with this text in the course of the Spiritual Exercises, and I'll call this person Steve. And he begins by just these two words: hold me.

"As I knelt before the manger, gazing upon the newborn Infant lying in the straw," and so it's very clear that he is praying in the imaginative, contemplative way. He's there. He's present. Mary and Joseph, the newborn Child.

"Marveling at the wondrous notion that this tiny, fragile baby was at the same time the eternal Word of God made flesh for my salvation, I heard these words echoing in my mind: Hold me." So, an invitation unexpectedly surfaced in this prayer. "Initially, I hesitated. In the first place, I was not used to holding babies, having grown up as the youngest child in a very small family with no exposure to the world of infants and their ways. That alone made me feel a bit awkward. But the thought of picking up this particular baby, in whom dwelt the infinite majesty of God—well, the prospect was almost frightening."

So with reverence, because, again, we're on very holy ground here. In this imaginative setting, can you see that Steve is being invited to take a new step in closeness to the Lord? Grace is working.

"Nonetheless, the voice was persistent: Hold me. Nervous but obedient, I reached into the manger and picked up the Child, cradling Him in my arms. As I embraced Him and held Him close to my heart, I found myself suffused with an unearthly peace, the warmth of which penetrated my body and soul with a consolation that could only have come from Heaven." And Steve uses the very word that Ignatius himself uses: spiritual consolation, when our hearts are warmed with a sense of God's love and closeness. "For a time, I just sat there, delighting in the joy and peace that filled my heart as I held my Savior."

And again, this is perfect. Steve knows that this is the deep point. This is where he and God are close together in communion and love. And there's no hurry now, just to be here. "Such was the depth of my peace that I wanted to stay in that moment forever, but I knew that I could not do so, at least not in this life. At length, I handed the Child over to His smiling Mother and reverently made my way out of the cave, which served as their maternity ward, and walked away into the cold clear night."

Now Steve reflects on his experience. "The preceding is an account of a prayer experience that I had while meditating on the birth of Jesus as described in Luke 2:1–20. In accord with the instructions given by Saint Ignatius for meditating—he would more specifically say contemplating—upon the Nativity, I placed myself inside the Gospel story and imagined myself as a poor, little, unworthy servant watching the events of Jesus' birth unfold before my eyes in the cave outside of Bethlehem.

And in fact, in Ignatius' text, he invites us to do more than simply contemplate and watch and see and hear, as beautiful as that is. He also invites us to feel free to take an active part in the mystery. And so he invites us, and Steve quotes his words, "to see myself as a poor, little, unworthy servant"—maybe helping Joseph or assisting Mary in some way, or attending to one need or another as I contemplate them.

And something unexpected happens as Steve does this. "What I never expected to happen"—and this is just where you see grace at work—"was the moment in which I went from being an observer of the scene to a participant, when I heard the words, "Hold me," and I found myself picking up the newborn Jesus and holding Him in my arms. The unexpected direction my prayer experience took"—and this will happen to us as grace works in our prayer—"and the deep feelings of peace and consolation that followed left me with no doubt that I had had a genuine encounter with God in prayer."

I'll just read his final reflection here. "Eight years have passed since my profound experience of the newborn Christ in my Christmas meditation, but the fruits have remained with me to this day."

I'll again ask: What if we prayed with Scripture daily, in a realistic way that fits with the time and availability that we have? For some of us, it will be listening to an app, commuting to work, or picking up the children after school, or while we're doing laundry or getting a meal. Some of us will have more quiet time in the more formal sense.

But what if we did this every day? You can see that this is one invitation that flows from the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.

"I can still vividly recall imagining Jesus as a tiny, vulnerable baby, and this image remains with me as a reminder of how much God loved me and all of humanity in His willingness to come to us in human form." So, as we have even briefly contemplated the journey to Bethlehem, the birth of the Savior in such simplicity and poverty, the exalting joy of the angels as Redemption has now come into the world today—a great joy for all the people: a Savior.

As we contemplate Mary and Joseph, the simple faith of the shepherds—simple in the deep Gospel sense of Gospel simplicity, openness, and availability to God—what word speaks to me? What is God saying to me? What grace has He given me? Does He want to give me?

And how is He inviting me to take this into my day?

Amen.