Part 2, Chapter 4
Praying with one’s imagination can be a scary thought! St. Ignatius of Loyola would encourage us to try using our imagination in prayer. What does this mean? It is trying to enter the scene. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us to pray. It is not trying to make up something, but rather it is allowing the Living Word of God to speak to us in our day and in our time. So for instance we are praying with the woman at the well in John’s Gospel. We can picture the well, we can see Jesus, and we can picture the woman there. Sometimes when we pray this way we could be the woman at the well, we could be Jesus or we can be a person not mentioned in the Bible. When the Lord allows for this to happen, it is beautiful. The soul is moving into what St. Ignatius calls contemplation.
I remember one time I was praying with the birth of Jesus: I saw Mary holding Jesus with a tender look on her face. She began to sing. The song was “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word…” I remember thinking this can’t be right; she wouldn’t have sung this song. What immediately happened was that the contemplation was finished and I stopped the Holy Spirit from allowing me to receive more of what He wanted to give me.
Another time I was praying with death of Jesus and the taking of Jesus down from the cross. I could see them lower Jesus into His mother’s arms. Again, I saw the tender look on her face. She sang the song I heard her sing at his birth, “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word…” This time, I let it go and it allowed me to receive such beautiful consolation.
The fact is that Mary most likely never sang that song, but she probably sang to Jesus. The point the Lord was trying to make to me is that His mother loved Him and cared for Him. He was giving me a taste of what the love of Mary was for her son. The Lord was using my memory, thoughts and imagination to do this in a way that I would get. What a grace it was!!!
Yes, it is true that some scripture passages lend themselves better for contemplating and others for meditating. Still, we never know how the Lord is going to work!