How To Contact God – part XX
A change of Meditation Technique
Let’s add to your bag of tricks. Let’s add a different meditation technique. Consider it another Short Cut.
There is absolutely no reason why you should be constrained to a single meditation technique. After all, this technique we have been using seemed new to you when we started, and we will never abandon it, as long as we stay in search of the Almighty, the God of the Hebrews.
But it is very useful and advantageous to add to that single meditation style, another meditation style that is also extremely well referenced: the Ignatian (sp.?) style developed by St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.
You can look it up yourself. I will try to present it here as I remember it, and use it, but it may not be exactly like the Jesuits present it….so don’t go by my word alone…in fact, I wouldn’t pay much attention to anything I say.
(But you already knew that…or were quickly coming to that conclusion…)
Jesuit Meditation:
Get your hands on the Gospels. There’s 4 of them: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. (I always thought the Gospel of John was written as a series of video clips…check it out.)
Get prepared to spend about or at least one half hour doing this. (Sounds like an easy-chair endeavor if ever I heard of one !!)
Bless yourself, and place yourself (as per our old meditation technique) in the presence of God, in the dark room of your soul.
[This reminds me of St. Theresa of Avila’s commentary on the Our Father. She spent about 20 pages, as I recall, talking about the FIRST WORD!!) Really, reader, if you can get as far as that first step, you have no NEED of any further help from poor poor pitiful me. “They shall all be taught by God.”
“Bless yourself,” i.e. make the sign of the Cross, which, done cogently and with affection, brings grace…It’s like ringing God’s doorbell. hahahah… Ever hear the Sign of the Cross described as ringing God’s doorbell?? I like it! Get ready….
First Step: read a short section of the Gospel that includes a scene with Jesus. Try to IMAGINE yourself in it, watching, being right there with Jesus, on the scene, back then. Go over the reading a couple of times, each time trying to picture it as vividly as possible with your imagination. Once again we see we are using the POWER of the imagination, that same power Albert Einstein said was more important than knowledge, that same power our regular old meditation technique used to imagine that God was in the dark room with you, that same power of mind that makes your dreams seem so REAL.
In Ignatian Meditation the imagination is pinned to a particular scene, and not allowed to float around vaguely, like we’ve been fiddling with.
Second: FEELINGS will arise due to reading the Gospel with the power of the Imagination. Don’t lose them. This is very important. Words cause emotions. Emotions will provide the power to open the rusty iron doors of the heart. Get in touch with your feelings, those feelings provoked by the reading of the Gospel passage. Truth will make those feelings have an authenticity that goes beyond any power of your imagination to fabricate. The emotions inspired by the Gospel passages resonate with God’s creation in the Heart of Man…women being the special vessels of those emotions. (“The Human Person is of Two Genders,” – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.)
Third: Step away from the printed Gospel account, and reflect on what you have read, AND WHAT YOU HAVE FELT. Try to get a grip on it intellectually. Verbalize consciously. State rationally what it is you have experienced by this reading fueled by the imagination and tinged/singed by emotion. Write down your thoughts if you want to, if it helps making them clearer. Then, put down your pen. Read and reflect on the thoughts you have had, check them to see if they make sense, check them again to see if you still can OWN THEM as your reality.
Fourth: Thoughts have consequences. After reading over your thoughts and owning them, assenting to them: MAKE A RESOLUTION regarding an action to be taken as a result of your Ignatian meditation. Something definite. Start simple, keep it existential. “I will do such’n'such.” Try to keep your resolution as soon as possible.
This is the crossbar of the Sign of the Cross. The Holy Spirit does things. He drove Jesus into the desert. He made the Apostles speak in tongues. The Father is the Thought, The Son is the Passion, and the Holy Spirit is the Action. Amen.
How, you might ask, does this meditation technique bring us in contact with God?
Ignatian meditation pops a hole in your Dark Room. The hole in the Darkness, popped from the OUTSIDE, provides you a peak into the kingdom where God is. It puts us in organic contact with Him by our actions, which derive from the thoughts and emotions of our meditation. Contact with God involves the whole person, through all the levels of his/her being. You can’t just stay in the easy-chair the whole time! Follow where the Holy Spirit leads you!
Now, instead of having the lawn to mow and bills to pay, you have letters to write, good deeds to do, people to see, and love to share! It will come pouring out of you, first in drips and drabs, but finally in torrents!
being-to-Being are now doing the same things. and that’s fun, different, and leading somewhere new.
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