August 4, 2003

 "Jesus is Born"

Jesus as He took on humanity is the heart of the Exercises, and the grace of this week is to know Jesus intimately, to love Him more intensely, and to follow Him more closely.  This is the grace that we'll be asking for every day as long as we're in the Second Week.  This is why this is the heart of the Exercises.  This is the time to really come to know Jesus intimately; not about Him, but to know Him intimately, to love Him more intensely, and to follow Him more closely.  Obviously this is the whole purpose of the Spiritual Exercises. 

Ignatius wants us to know that our prayer will start to shift into contemplation.  Contemplation is a gazing on God, watching Him, looking at Him.  It's not a lot of thinking about Him.  This is why it's much easier to do this in the Second Week of the Exercises because we're not talking about concepts now, we're talking about a Person.  So we're going to see the movement and the mystery of Him as He moves through the Gospels. 

Ignatius says that now our meditative type of prayer will start to change into contemplative prayer.  Contemplation uses the imagination in its beginning stages.  This is probably why the Lord refers to us as little children because it's so natural for children to use their imaginations.  Ignatius says to use the imagination to reconstruct the scene of the mystery being considered.  In other words, try to enter into the scene and be there.  Don't be a spectator on the outside; enter in and be there.  Ignatius says to let Jesus be here with us right now.  The main fruit is that we will have an experience of the mystery and ultimately the experience of Jesus Himself.

"In the fullness of time God sent His Son" (Gal 4:4). The Incarnation - now this is the fullness of time.  This is that moment.  What was God looking at?  What kind of a world was He looking upon?  Discouragement, despair, sin, people in confusion, lots of evil.  It probably wasn't that much different two-thousand years ago than it is today. Ignatius says that we should try to enter into the vision of God looking upon the world and see it in its larger setting using the gift of  Wisdom.  Consider what was God really seeing when He looked upon the Incarnation?  What made God take this tremendous leap of joy to leave Heaven and come?  Scripture says, "When the night was half spent" (see Wis 18:14).  So it must have been in the middle of the night when this happened.  When the night was half-spent, the Word just leapt down into this tremendous mystery. 
 
Or we might find that we're going to really feel God's concern for a dying humanity that was going nowhere because there wasn't any life, and He was going to give life.  Or Ignatius says we should try to enter into the stillness of the night.  Picture the scene.  It was night.  Those of us who have had prayer experiences in that faith walk, there's a air of stillness.  That's one thing about night.  We don't have a lot of distractions.  There's a gift about night.  We might pray about nighttime.  We were just talking about that up at Crofton the other day.  It was  very easy to get clear out to the farmhouse in the daytime, but at night we missed the turn.  At night, we don't have that broader view.  We have a very tunnel vision.  We can't see things in relationship to something else.  On the other hand, we're very focused at nighttime on something that's almost right in front of us because we can't see at a distance.  So there's a lot of giftedness about nighttime.  At nighttime is a gift of intimacy.  So really go into the stillness and intimacy of the night.  Enter into that stable. 

Ignatius says we might want to focus on Mary and Joseph.  Just watch them.  Were they talking to each other?  Were they simply watching the baby?  See what kind of revelation comes.  Ignatius says that we might enter in and take note of the hardship that brought them there, the labors of the journey, the struggle that they went through to find a shelter, and the tremendous anxiety of Joseph.  Joseph had no idea they wouldn't be welcome at the inn.  How he must have felt at the stable!  Their extreme poverty.  Maybe their hunger.  Where did they eat?  They weren't welcome at the inn; there wasn't any restaurant.  It was cold that time of the year.  We forget the tremendous hardships that Mary and Joseph went through, and from the very beginning Jesus entered into that world.

Ignatius says that maybe we want to imagine ourselves as the shepherd boy whom Joseph asked to help him.  There were shepherds all around.  Just kind of be there.  The main thing is to be with either Mary, Joseph, Jesus, or the Father gazing down upon this.  We want to use our imaginations to be there.  One time I made this meditation and decided to be with the angels that were announcing it, to try to see what they saw and to understand their message of peace on earth in a deeper way.  They saw Peace in the flesh and good will toward men.  They sang, "Glory to God in the highest" (Lk 2:14).  They saw the full glory of God in that child, and for the fist time on earth, full glory was being given to God on high.  We want to use our imaginations to be there.  Or be with the shepherds.  What did they see? 

Bethlehem is a contemplative type of prayer.  There are not any words really; it's an experience.  Anytime we go there, the experience will be different.  So St. Ignatius says to try to just let go of the thinking process in these meditations this coming week and become totally immersed in the scene-be there.  This is where we want to use all five senses.  Try to see the scene and the persons.  Try to hear.  You're going to hear Mary and Joseph speaking.  Are you going to hear the angels singing?  Are you going to hear a baby's noises?  Are you coming to hear the animals?  See what you hear.  Are you going to hear the wind at night?  Try to smell.  It had to be very odorous there.  Try to smell the smells because it makes it real.  You're there then.  Try to smell the hay in the manger.  Try to taste the sweetness of the moment of the mystery, of this tremendous gift of God in flesh-not only in flesh, but in baby flesh.  You might find that the Spirit's going to let you to experience the tremendous poverty of this child.  Jesus was extremely rich.  He's God.  He had everything in Heaven.  He left it all when He descended.  The last sense to use is touch.  Try to touch something in the mysteries that you'll be gazing upon.  Maybe touch the straw at Bethlehem.  Maybe hold the Baby, maybe touch Mary's hand, maybe experience how hard the ground that Mary and Joseph were on was.

To conclude, this whole scene might lead you to an awareness that this is actually taking place within me.  There's a new birthing now within me.  The child Jesus is being born now within me.  The beautiful mystery of the rosary, "Finding the Child Jesus in the Temple", might be your experience as you find them deep within yourself.  So the week will be one of quietness.  It will be one of revelation.  It will primarily be one of experience.  Contemplation is an experience.  It's the experience of the truth.  It might be the experience more of the Incarnation itself. 

Teresa of Avila said one of the greatest mystical graces a soul can receive is the experience of Incarnational spirituality-to really know that that Child now lives within me, that Child now has taken on my flesh.  This is where it will ultimately lead me.  That's Incarnational spirituality: we become one with Jesus.  He became one with me.  The Word now has become enfleshed in me.  So you want to have the experience.  The Spirit will lead, and ultimately your prayer might end up just being lost in the mystery and wonderment because it's so beyond the human mind.  This is what contemplation ultimately comes to: being lost in the mystery, gazing at the beauty, and being lost in the goodness of God and that He has done this for me.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Heart- to-heart Listening: Experiencing Jesus Intimately," 2000.