Tag: Ignatian meditation

Ignatian Spirituality (SJ Types)

Note: this post is part of a series based on the book Prayer and Temperament by Michael and Norrissey. This is only an overview and I’m indebted to the authors for most of what you’re about to read. Please excuse any confusion or errors on my part and turn to the original work for clarification. Part one of this series can be found here. Please take the test to know which type you are. Other personality types include SP (Franciscan), NT (Thomistic), and NF (Augustinian).

Ignatius01Conveniently, those who are sensing-judging types are considered Ignatian, after the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola.1 40% of people, it seems, belong in this category, and 50% of church-goers. This increase seems to be because SJ types tend to be driven by duty and obligation and so may continue to attend Mass even if they aren’t “getting anything out of it.” Ignatians are connected with tradition, very past-oriented and rooted. They’re generally practical and conscientious with a strong work ethic. St. James (the leader of the church in Jerusalem who was very focused on Mosaic law) and St. Matthew (who quotes the Old Testament more than any other evangelist) seem to have been Ignatian.

Ignatian prayer is often summarized as an imaginative approach to prayer by which we put ourselves into the Gospel stories and allow the Spirit to speak. (I have an explanation here and some guided meditations here.) This style of prayer uses the senses to enhance the experience, imagining what the scene looked like, what the weather was like, how the marketplace smelled, etc. More than just being a way to meditate on the Gospels, though, Ignatian prayer finds itself rooted in all of salvation history. The liturgical year is Ignatian by nature, leading us through the life of Christ each year and encouraging us to enter into his experience. It’s hard to imagine anything more Ignatian than the Triduum, where we have our feet washed, wait up with the Lord, cry out the words of the crowd, kiss the Cross, and rise again on Easter.

Ignatian types will benefit from an organized prayer regimen, often finding great fruit in traditional types of prayer, particularly the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. Reading longer passages in Scripture and seeing how it all connects can also be very helpful for them. When reading Scripture, they should look first to the Gospels and the historical books (especially Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, if you can believe it) as well as Acts, Isaiah, James, and the Psalms.

From the book: (There are a dozen more in the book. Buy it and see what you think!)

You, a devout Israelite from Ephesus, are a stranger in Jerusalem on your first trip for the Passover. It is Good Friday morning; you find yourself caught up in a noisy crowd leading a man away to be crucified. You have never seen a crucifixion, so out of curiosity you follow the crowd to Calvary and find the man’s name is Jesus of Nazareth. You are fascinated by the proceedings and by the conduct of Jesus. You stay until he dies. Close your eyes and in your imagination relive the scene and try to capture the impressions and conclusions you may have experienced. Draw some spiritual fruit for your own spiritual growth. What change is this experience going to make in your life?

(Luke 15: 11-32) Read the story of the Prodigal Son; try to place yourself in turn as the younger son, as the elder brother, and then as the father. Try to think of times in your life when you have acted as each of the three characters. What opportunity might you have in your present life to follow the example of the Father of the Prodigal Son?

As a couple:

Talk through a Gospel story together. Discuss how you think different characters may have felt. Imagine how you would feel in their place.

See if you can read the same character different ways. (For example, read John 11 with Mary as trusting and Martha nagging, as we usually do. Then read Martha as resigned and Mary dramatic.) How does this shed light on the events and on your own walk with Jesus?

With your children:

Lead children through meditations on Gospel stories. Ask them to imagine that they are in the scene as you tell them the story. Interrupt the story to ask them how they feel, what they think, what they hear, etc. Afterwards, work out with them what they may have learned.

Have children play at a Bible story (or Saint story), complete with costumes and props if you can. Try to pull out their impressions: “Ooh, Bartimaeus, Jesus is coming back to you. He heard you! How does that make you feel?”

Other suggestions:

Pray the Mass like it’s the Last Supper–because it is. Listen to Jesus like it’s your last night with him.

When you kneel before the priest in confession, be mindful of the fact that you’re kneeling at the foot of the Cross accusing yourself before the God who hangs dying to save you. Hate your sin but let him love you just the same.

Offer each day–all prayers and sacrifices and blessings–for a specific person.

Pray a scriptural rosary.

 

Are you Ignatian? What other suggestions would you add?

  1. Get it? Ignatius’s order is the Society of Jesus. SJ. [↩]

An Ignatian Meditation on Surrender

Have you ever been in prayer and had a really powerful image and a sense that you were entering into really deep prayer–maybe even contemplative prayer–and then you realized that you were thinking about mashed potato shampoo and you weren’t actually having a vision, you were actually half asleep and dreaming?

Yeah, that happens to me at least once a week.

It’s not that images don’t have a place in prayer, it’s that coffee does.  And when I’m good and jacked up on caffeine, I can use my imagination to pray and get some images that make a lot more sense than mashed potato shampoo.  Prayer isn’t just a left-brained experience of memory and recitation, nor is it an introvert’s Mecca of silence and solitude.  Prayer is about relationship and God wants to encounter you in so many different ways.

So sometimes I put away my rosary and close my breviary and even try to turn off my interior monologue.  I turn to the Gospels and try to meet Christ there.  When the Spirit’s moving, I can open the Scriptures and insert myself into a scene, imagining that I’m encountering Christ just as the characters of the Gospel do.

This style of prayer is often called Ignatian, after St. Ignatius of Loyola whose Spiritual Exercises use this technique.  The idea is that you enter into the story and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through, essentially, daydreaming.

What’s most important here is to be open to the promptings of the Spirit.  Don’t try to dictate who you are in the scene or what you experience.  Instead, try to let go and see what happens–do you find yourself cast as a Pharisee?  Are you too distracted to listen to Jesus?  Are you afraid to approach him?

One of my students, after a meditation on Jesus calling Peter to walk on water, told me that he knew Jesus was calling him out of the boat but he couldn’t hear what he was saying because he refused to listen.  “Were you afraid of sinking?” I asked him.  “Oh, no,” he said.  “I knew I’d be safe.  I was just afraid that I wouldn’t be happy, so I turned my back on him.”  Very telling.

A seventh-grade boy explained after a meditation on the woman caught in adultery that he was a Pharisee.  When I pushed him, he got very quiet and then said, “I think I have the same struggles that the Pharisees did.”  Twelve years old.

An Ignatian meditation can definitely be done with just you and a Bible, but a guided one can be a good way to start.  So I’ve got a meditation for you on the woman who anointed Jesus.  Throughout the meditation (about 20 minutes), I ask a lot of questions.  Ignore them if they don’t help.  Definitely don’t feel the need to figure out your answer to every question.  The idea here is to immerse yourself so completely in the scene that you let go of yourself and allow the Spirit to speak to you. (You’re going to need speakers.)  So set aside some time, get comfortable, silence your cell phone, and see what the Lord has to say.

Anointing at Bethany Meditation

After your meditation, take some time to process.  Who were you in the scene?  What emotions were you feeling?  What did Jesus say to you?  What look did you see in his eyes?  Where did you go at the end?  What does all this mean?

This kind of meditation doesn’t work for everyone, but I thought I’d throw it out there for those of you who were interested.  I do a lot of these (on retreats especially) and I’m trying to get into the habit of recording them for y’all.  You can find others on this page.