The seed of God is in us. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree; and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree; a seed of God grows into God. (Meister Eckhart)
Here, as stated before, it is my intention to draw from the forthcoming Sunday liturgy and to offer a guided prayer on one of the pieces of scripture in the same way that we have been doing in Exploring Personal Prayer. I do not intend to offer any reflections on the scripture. My suggestion is that you follow the Ignatian structure: preparation for prayer by reading the scripture, going to your prayer place and doing the prayer itself, and then moving away to another place and doing a review of the prayer. Keeping some sort of prayer journal is good practice. Note any moments of consolation in the prayer, where you felt drawn more deeply into God, and moments of desolation, where prayer was disturbed, where you were distracted and pulled further away from God: feelings of attraction and repulsion should be noted. These points may provide areas for repetition of the prayer. Also, if you have a spiritual director or prayer partner, someone who can listen with an ear to where God is in this, it may be worth sharing your prayer with them. I am following the processes outline in the prayer cards above. You may print these onto A6 or A4 card to have in your prayer space to help you become accustomed to this way of praying, remembering it is more of a flow than a rigid structure.
There has been a convergence in my thoughts recently in the contrast between light and darkness as metaphors for spiritual life. I posted a guided prayer with the image above, inspired from Isaiah, and Matthew’s gospel, which we are studying in our bible study group at church, which made reference to it. Also, in writing about my mandalas, I mentioned that they were in response to one particular imaginative contemplation that I had had on a retreat and that I was still trying to process that one prayer experience. Carl Jung says of mandalas:
In such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder of the psychic state– namely through the construction of a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt at self-healing on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse.
In other words, according to The Mandala Book, Jung felt that mandalas represented an unconscious attempt to heal psychic disturbances. In the contemplation to which I am referring, I spent some time simply touching Jesus’ face, as if I were a blind person, and what I could see was only light: more and less light, luminosity of differing intensity, rather than a skin and bones face. I do not have the words or images to describe completely the effect it has had on me, only that I have never been the same since then and that creating mandalas is a compulsion in response to it, which surfaces regularly, even ten years on from the prayer experience itself. I would describe it as a profound disturbance that is deeper than anything I am conscious of, still.
In the Spiritual Exercises, on the way the evil one acts, when using the analogy of the false lover who whispers and urges us to secrecy, Ignatius says:
But if one manifests them to a confessor, or to some other spiritual person who understands his deceits and malicious designs, the evil one is very much vexed. For he knows that he cannot succeed in his evil undertaking, once his evident deceits have been revealed.
My own spiritual director uses the image of shining God’s light on things that might want to remain in the dark when helping me to discern consolation from desolation, and the direction of my path. I have found it to be very helpful and it is an image I use myself. It is as if, with God’s help and guidance, you could pick up the lantern in the featured image, and move it around the dark areas in your soul, one by one, so that with Him, you could face all of your deepest fears and shame, and He would heal you.
However, it does not feel as simple and lovely as all that. I am reminded of my prayer that no-one can see the face of God and live.
I am also moved by “The Light” from The Proclaimers:
Light in the Darkness 2: Reading of this post.
I’ve been stumbling in the dark for years, and the light just made me blind.
The Proclaimers; The Light
I am only left to concede that there is trauma associated with stepping into God’s light, to look at Him face to face is blinding and causes a death within us. We can no longer see anything good in our inordinate desires and the way we lived before is no longer possible. It can be easier, and more comfortable to cling to the darkness of our shame than to look at it in the full glare of God’s light. We are unable to bear the pain of it alone. I would put my experience of touching His face in this category. It is as if there are moments when He does not hold back so much as previously in His desire to show us Himself. In my prayer on my journey with Julian of Norwich this week, one of the phrases that stood out for me is:
It is almost as if His enthusiasm gets the better of Him, and the usual tender and gentle respect with which He regards our protective boundaries dissipates as He gathers us up and brings us into His heart, simply because He cannot resist us. It is God who takes the initiative. And it splits us wide open. Perhaps it is what the mystics mean when they describe union with God, and it is as searingly painful, as it is blissful and transformational.
Rather than make this happen, we should simply let it happen.
When I look at the image featured in this post, and from my prayer with it, I notice that the light is neither glaring nor harsh. The image is mostly darkness, but the warmth of the light draws us gently out of the darkness, it invites us not to remain there. There are many places in that image where we may dwell: I least wanted to be in the bottom left hand corner, furthest away from the light: I most wanted to be protected, inside the shade, but not in the full glare of the light source. I was invited to dwell outside of the shade, in the bright spot to the bottom left of the image of the cross that is projected onto the wall. There is both pain and death in standing in this place.
The third week of The Spiritual Exercises invites us to enter into the Passion and death of Jesus: the desire we ask for is:
…sorrow, compassion and shame because the Lord is going to His suffering for my sins.
In my own personal experience of The Exercises, I knew that I wanted to stay, to remain with Him through it all: I could not bear to be one of those who ran away, no matter how painful it was to stay and to watch Him suffer, and to be powerless in the face of His suffering. To experience this sorrow is spiritual consolation, and is to receive the grace asked for at this point in The Exercises.
Light in the Darkness 3: Reading of this post.
So it seems to me that in terms of our spiritual journey, we exist in a darkness that is both comfortable and uncomfortable. The darkness itself is not infinite, and does not have power over the light. It is diminished by the smallest presence of light. Even as we are attracted to it, we can choose to turn our back on the light and face into the darkness, and there are times of spiritual desolation when we do. We can also face the light and choose to be drawn by its warmth and move closer to it. Such invitation and movement is spiritual consolation. Just as the light is comforting, it is also painful when we are unused to its intensity, and may even blind us. In time, our eyes adjust to our new reality.
11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; 13 let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Praying with Images – Light in the Darkness guided prayer
Background music is the album: Keith Halligan – Lifestyle Meditation, Global Journey
Here, as stated before, it is my intention to draw from the forthcoming Sunday liturgy and to offer a guided prayer on one of the pieces of scripture in the same way that we have been doing in Exploring Personal Prayer. I do not intend to offer any reflections on the scripture. My suggestion is that you follow the Ignatian structure: preparation for prayer by reading the scripture, going to your prayer place and doing the prayer itself, and then moving away to another place and doing a review of the prayer. Keeping some sort of prayer journal is good practice. Note any moments of consolation in the prayer, where you felt drawn more deeply into God, and moments of desolation, where prayer was disturbed, where you were distracted and pulled further away from God: feelings of attraction and repulsion should be noted. These points may provide areas for repetition of the prayer. Also, if you have a spiritual director or prayer partner, someone who can listen with an ear to where God is in this, it may be worth sharing your prayer with them. I am following the processes outline in the prayer cards above. You may print these onto A6 or A4 card to have in your prayer space to help you become accustomed to this way of praying, remembering it is more of a flow than a rigid structure.
Seiger Koder: Face to Face. Scan of a card in the Meditation Pack “The Folly of God” containing images of The Art and Inspiration of Sieger Koder. Published by Pauline Books and Media, http://www.pauline-uk.org
Although this image does not refer directly to the scripture for Sunday, when I read The Wednesday Word given out in my parish last week, this was the image that came to my mind, and has persisted since then. I felt a convergence of all of the readings and the psalm in this image. I hope it speaks to you too.
Praying with Images: Face to Face, guided prayer
Background music is the album: Keith Halligan – Lifestyle Meditation, Global Journey
The same programme as at Sheringham and Cromer earlier in the year. All are welcome to attend who can get there. The booklet is given below if you want to print it for yourself.
Image on flyer: Stained Glass of St. Ignatius at Loyola Castle (thejesuitpost.org)
The same programme as at Sheringham and Cromer earlier in the year. All are welcome to attend who can get there. The booklet is given below if you want to print it for yourself.
Image on flyer: Stained Glass of St. Ignatius at Loyola Castle (thejesuitpost.org)
Please follow the link to view the image. I have it on a picture postcard in my resource file from the Picasso museum in Barcelona. I chose it to pray with last week in Cromer using the the process outlined in the prayer cards above. These may be printed onto A6 card to have and use in your prayer space, should you desire it.
When I chose this image to pray with, one of the things that struck me with it was that the figure was hunched up over a book. I identified myself as the figure and felt an uncomfortable aching in my back, and in my legs at sitting in such a cross legged fashion. It resonated with a recognisable resistance to formal prayer. When things are difficult in life, and I am tired from lack of sleep and my body is aching, it can be difficult to get up at that early hour in the morning, place myself in my prayer spot before God, and to be there for the agreed time, all before breakfast. Sometimes, I have breakfast first, sometimes I go downstairs to the reclining chair where it is more comfortable, sometimes I curl up and pray in bed – and usually fall asleep again – and then I am annoyed with myself for my resistance and slothfulness. When I asked God how He sees the picture, and me, as I contemplate the picture, He saw my desire to pray, and my desire and efforts to resist the resistance to pray. He drew my attention to the leading lines in the image which come to a point in the book, scripture – His word – that the figure is intensely focused upon; and I sensed that He takes pleasure in the desire to spend time with Him in contemplation, and in the efforts to resist the resistance, which we all inevitably feel at some point, whether we are successful in acting against it or not. I am reminded of the fourth addition of the exercises where Ignatius says:
I will enter upon the meditation, now kneeling, now prostrate upon the ground, now lying face upwards, now seated, now standing, always being intent on seeking what I desire.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: trans Louis J. Puhl, S.J.
I notice that this week, I have felt encouraged in my prayer; I have been more able to act against the resistance. The generosity of God in noticing and taking delight in my desire to be more giving in my prayer has shifted the balance in favour of acting against the restance, to acting more from the desire. And St. Ignatius gives us the advice, if that position isn’t working for you, change the position until you find the one that does…and we might have to do that regularly.
