King Arthur Movie Tristan

Friday is the feast of Ignatius of Loyola and I thought I'd post a bit from an article on Ignatian prayer by Philip Sheldrake. There are many things I like about Ignatius but one of the best is his style of prayer in the Spiritual Exercises - gospel contemplation/colloquy - in which one puts oneself in the company of God, allowing for interaction. When I first learned about this kind of prayer I was intrigued at the implications, but I have to admit that lately I've been skimping .... face to face conversations can be daunting if you're not sure all's well between you and the other person :/

The article is pretty long and I've only posted just the first four paragraphs of it, but it can be read in its entirety or freely downloaded if you search in the archives at The Way.

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Imagination and Prayer
by Philip Sheldrake

IN RECENT YEARS many people, seeking to deepen or expand their experience of prayer, have found great help in what is called gospel contemplation. Stated very simply, this consists in taking a scene from the gospels, and 'putting oneself in the midst of the action', or making it present through the use of the imagination. Perhaps the easiest way to explain how gospel or imaginative contemplation proceeds is to begin by describing the experience of one retreatant, a school teacher, who had never tried this way of praying before. She was asked to use the incident of Peter walking on the water (Mt 14,22-33). When she came to describe this, she said that to start with she had no difficulty in imagining herself in a boat, as she had in fact been sailing as a youngster. She knew what it was like to experience the frustration and fear of fighting against a strong wind and current. This helped her to 'get inside' the scene. She recognized that Jesus was there, and found herself, like Peter, with a strong desire to join him, to be alongside him. However, she also felt unable to get out of the boat. Try as she might, she could not imagine herself doing this 'and so the prayer went wrong at that point'. Why did she feel this? 'Because, up to then I could identify with the actual story in the gospel, but when I could not get out of the boat, it all broke down'. And so, what did she do? 'I said to Jesus, "I can't get out of this boat" '. And then, 'I felt that Jesus asked why and I had to admit that I was scared. You see', she said, 'I can sail, but I can't swim very well'. Then she felt that Jesus was asking her whether she thought that he would make her do something beyond her capacity. 'Yes, you would . . . you often have'. This experience led the person to spend the remainder of the prayer sitting and talking to Christ about the fact that she did not really trust him because she did not know him well enough.

This example, it seems to me, underlines with great clarity some of the more important elements of the imaginative kind of prayer. Most importantly, the person was fully involved and was not just a spectator observing a picture, as one might contemplate a painting in a gallery. Quite instinctively she found herself identifying with one of the characters in the gospel scene. And yet she did not become Peter, she remained herself. In this sense she did not put herself back in time. Rather, the story became present, and became her story. In this case she found it easy to enter the scene by some initially detailed imagination of being in a boat. However, as the story progressed, the degree of pictorial imagination grew less and less. Those with a strong ability to picture details find the notion of seeing the people, or feeling the wind on the face, or smelling the fish in the bottom of the boat very easy indeed. However, this is not a necessary part of imaginative prayer. Pictorial imagination is only one way of imagining. Not all are capable of it, and not all find it necessary. This person, as the story progressed, found that this aspect was less apparent. She 'sensed' that Jesus was asking her something, rather than heard specific words coming from a figure whom she could visualize and describe. This fact is important because some people object to trying imaginative contemplation precisely because they feel unable to imagine pictorially, or because it is unreal. Likewise, for those who do find it possible and helpful, there is the danger of becoming too involved in the trivia which, if used at all, are only a means to an end. That end, of course, is some kind of personal encounter with the Lord which touches the deepest parts of my reality. And that encounter was really present for this woman in that the imaginative representation of a particular scene provoked a realization of something very vital to her relationship with Christ: that she did not trust. Did the prayer go wrong because it ceased to follow the gospel story in literal detail? On the contrary, the gospel was a medium for the revelation of something very important and true about herself. And yet the gospel story was not left behind entirely. It was this specific scene of walking on the water which formed the backdrop to everything else that was valid about the prayer. And the prayer certainly remained within the general parameters of the gospel passage.

Another characteristic of this form of prayer is that it can free the person to allow deep-rooted feelings to emerge which are blocking any further growth. Imaginative contemplation, when it works, takes on a life of its own -- and the life is that of the person praying. It therefore serves to bring the gospel into direct contact with the reality of this person's life, and frequently in a challenging way. Such prayer may also help a person come to terms with, and admit to, inner feelings which previously he or she felt were inappropriate before God. 'I should not feel angry'. A more distanced approach to scripture, where one asks 'What did Jesus say? What did he mean? How does this apply to christian action?' rarely does this. For when one is bringing only reason to the gospels there is a tendency to apply a priori limits to what is valid. Thus another retreatant, in praying the calming of the storm in Mark (4,16) was brought face to face both with what she felt about Christ, and how she herself behaved in life. Jesus, lying at the bottom of the boat, was in the way as she rushed around trimming the sails in the midst of the squall. At first she was politely apologetic at bumping into him, but eventually she shouted at him 'What do you think you are doing there? Lolling around when we have to do all the work? Why don't you do something useful?' To which the only reply was 'Who is in charge here anyway?' This brought the person to a halt and led her to reflect that this imaginative experience underlined both her feelings that God was generally uninvolved in her concerns, and that, in fact, she rarely let him act because she did not let go, or relax, either in life or in prayer. A similar realization came to the person who prayed the call of the first disciples in John (1,35-39). When Christ asked him 'What do you seek?' his instinctive response was 'To be with you'. Jesus then invited the person to follow, and set off at a rapid pace which prevented him from keeping up. When he cried 'Why do you have to go so fast?' Christ merely smiled and kept going, up hill and down dale and eventually into a town in whose winding streets the person finally lost sight of Jesus. Final panic set in, but with it the realization that the problem was that he felt that Christ was always too fast for him, and that consequently his life was always a struggle to keep up with impossible demands.

The realization of 'impossible demands' raises the question as to whether all images which emerge from such gospel contemplation are true. If we take the example of someone who felt in prayer that Jesus said to him 'I'm not going to start loving you, until you learn how to love me', it is clear that this is not a truly christian image of God. We all come to prayer with images -- of God, of self and of
our world 7 but none of them is perfect and some are radically unhelpful. Does this mean that the feeling just described (that God demands that we merit his love) is totally untrue? It is true, surely, in that it is what the person actually feels. Distorted images cannot just be repressed; they can only be refined if exposed, admitted to, and offered to God. But such an image is not from God for, if we follow the sound advice of St Ignatius's 'Rules for discernment', we can see that what produces joy, harmony and growth is the gift of the good spirit, and that which produces sadness, despair or fragmentation is (to use Ignatius's language) a temptation of the evil spirit ............

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Tomorrow will be the feast day of St. Ignatius so here's a little music for him, Viva Ignacio Viva! written by Gaspar Fernandes and Lux Æterna ......

Sup dudes! Hope you guys are enjoying my videos and whatnot - really, really chuffed about the response I'm getting! This week has been great so far to be honest, this Summer seems to be passing in a sort of boredom blur so this week has been fun.. Yesterday I went to the new playground in Marley Park (a huge park in Dublin) and it was my second time being there - and it's amazing! I spent a lot of my childhood playing in Marley and I was so used to the old playground.. my friends and I visited it last week and it was like a ghost town, it was kinda creepy! Anyways, the new playground is out of this world. It's so modern and colourful and the new features are crazy, nothing like the playgrounds I went to as a child! My 2 little sisters were stunned at it and didn't know where to go, there was so much to do! This playground's concept is all about the senses - touch, sound, sight... and not smell or taste but you catch my drift. It is fully equipped for children with disabilities, many of the features have areas for children in wheelchairs for example - which I think is fantastic, it's about time! I really would recommend going to this playground - if you want to bring a younger spouse or cousin or whatever.. or even if you and your pals want to go! It's a laugh. Mind if you're bringing a few kids though, the playground is huuuge so it's hard to keep an eye on each child at a time! I have a picture of a section of the playground here, to see it larger - click on it!

I usually don't visitthe Anchoress's blog because I find her so conservative, but today I was in the First Things neighborhood and so took a look. I came upon this post by her which reminded me so much of my cat Kermit. I was surprised she and I could feel so differently about some things and so much the same about others .....

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It is the sort of day…
Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 10:25 AM
Elizabeth Scalia

Where you stumble out of bed, put the coffee together, and make a soft-boiled egg for the sick dog, who should now be trying food. You make one for yourself, too. The dog watches you create her egg-and-bread, then turns up her nose at it, once you place it before her.

As you prepare your own egg, letting the lovely hot yolk drip over a piece of crumbled rye bread, you gently try to coax the pooch into eating, “you must get strong,” you say. “I can’t give you your medicine in yummy pill pockets unless you eat…”

You dip your spoon into your own breakfast, and it tastes good. The dog is watching your every move, because she is a dog, and she is very attentive. You say, “okay, I’m going to take a bite, and you take a bite…”

And she still doesn’t eat.

This depresses you. You cannot enjoy your egg while the dog is sick, but you suspect that maybe–out of mere habit–if the dog has an opportunity to eat your food, she’ll go for it.

So you put your soft-egg-and-bread mess into her bowl.

And she tentatively eats your egg, and your bread, and leaves her own untouched.

Because she loves you so much that she would rather share what is yours than have her own. Or something.

Then you get a little moist-eyed because once again your dog has shown you something mysterious and vital which must be pondered. She’d rather have communion than singularity.

That’s love. It’s also pretty good theology.

You forget about eating breakfast, and give the dog her medicine. Fresh water goes untouched.

Then you go to get a cup of coffee, so your day can begin and you find…you never turned on the pot.

When you finally do get coffee, you come into your office, click on the email and turn your attention to work. The dog lays at your feet with a thud, because she is still weak; her back legs are giving out. You open your email to the rhythmic thwacking of her tail against the desk.

The first three emails are expressing hate for your religion, your political affiliation and your stupid family and stupid life. You are surprised that none of them end in, “and your little dog, too!”

You look down at the dog, who looks back lovingly, seeming almost to smile.

And you feel nothing but gratitude, for the dog, and for your life, and for the ability to raise a cup of coffee to your lips unaided, and the ability to walk to the kitchen to get another.

It’s the sort of day when giving thanks opens a route to joy, which speeds along God’s glory.

Joy can take us far.

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I'm almost finished with Angelology: A Novel and finally I can see why some reviewers compared it to the movie National Treasure ..... the main characters (chased by bad guys) are following obscure clues left by someone deceased (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller) that lead to three well known public places (The Cloisters, the Museum of Modern Art, and Riverside Church), one of which might be the secret repository of an object that could transform the earth into paradise or hell - a lyre that once belonged to the archangel Gabriel :)

Some photos from the three places mentioned ...


- Head by Alexei Jawlensky at the Museum of Modern Art (website)


- The Unicorn in Captivity at The Cloisters (website)


- a gargoyle (Flicker) on Riverside Church (website)

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.




Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;

Where thirsting longing eyes

Watch the slow door

That opening, letting in, lets out no more.




Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again tho’ cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.




-Christina Rossetti



photo above was taken in Arecibo, Puerto Rico

There's a post at America magazine's blog about the pope's new children's book, The Friends of Jesus, and it quotes a story at NCR by Dennis Coday ....

The prologue, by Spanish Fr. Julian Carron, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, begins: ""One upon a time there was a small group of men who, one day two thousand years ago, met a young man who walked the roads of Galilee . Each had his own job and family but, in an instant, their lives changed. They were called Andrew and John, Peter, Matthew, Thomas, etc. They were twelve and we know them today as the 'Apostles'. ... In Jerusalem at that time everyone knew that they were Jesus' 'friends'. ... Later they were joined by St. Paul ..."

Carron writes that Benedict XVI "takes us by the hand and accompanies us as we discover who Jesus' first companions were, how they met him and were conquered by him to the point that they never abandoned Him." [What about that "three times you will deny me" bit and who went to the grave first on that first Easter?]

I guess left out of friendship are Lazarus and his two sisters (who Jesus loved but apparently liked not so much :), Mary M, and doubtless others, including everyone who follows Jesus' teaching.

I read an interesting paper on the subject of friendship with Jesus from The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University. Here's just a bit from the beginning of it ......

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"I Have Called You Friends"
by Gail R. O'Day

[...] Friendship was an important topic in the Greek and Roman cultures in which the early Church took shape and the New Testament documents were written. For Aristotle and classical philosophers who followed him, friendship was a key social relationship. In the democratic ideal of the Athenian polis, or city-state, friendship exemplified the mutual social obligation on which the polis depended.

But it is also true the virtuous man’s conduct is often guided by the interests of his friends and of his country, and that he will if necessary *lay down his life in their behalf*…. And this is doubtless the case with those who give their lives for others; thus they choose great nobility for themselves. (1)

This quotation from Aristotle represents the classical ideal of friendship expressed by many writers. In the Symposium, Plato writes, “Only those who love wish to die for others.” Lucian, a Hellenistic philosopher and storyteller, promises to tell his readers of “many deeds of blood and battles and deaths for the sake of friends.” (2)

For modern readers, Jesus’ definition of love and friendship in John 15:13—to lay down one’s life for one’s friend—is completely unprecedented. Most contemporary language about friendship does not speak in terms of life and death. We celebrate our friends, we eat and drink with friends, we take vacations with friends, we are there when a friend is in need; but the modern ideal of friendship is not someone who lays down his or her life on behalf of another. In the ancient world, however, Jesus’ words articulated a well-known ideal for friendship, not a brand new idea. This does not mean that any more people laid down their lives for their friends in the ancient world than are inclined to do so today—but it does show that the ideal of doing so belonged to the ancient perspective on friendship.

An additional aspect of ancient friendship is important for understanding friendship in the Gospel of John. In the first-century world of the New Testament, discussions of friendship moved from a friendship ideal to focus on the more pragmatic realities of patron-client relationships and on the political expediency captured in expressions like “friend of the emperor” (see 19:12). One of the main distinguishing marks of a friend in this context was the use of “frank speech” (parrēsia). Philosophers counseled the patron to be on the lookout for whether “friends” were speaking honestly and openly or whether they were engaging in flattery to further their own ends:

Frankness of speech, by common report and belief, is the language of friendship especially (as an animal has its peculiar cry), and on the other hand, that lack of frankness is unfriendly and ignoble…. (3)

According to the Hellenistic philosophers, to be someone’s friend was to speak frankly and honestly to them and to hold nothing back.

The New Testament writings were not created in a social vacuum. These two dimensions of friendship in the ancient world—the gift of one’s life for one’s friends and the use of frank and open speech—informed the way that the Gospel of John and its readers understood language about friendship.

John 15:12-15 is the key passage in John for a theology of friendship. Jesus enacts friendship throughout the Gospel, but these verses provide the words to describe and name who and what Jesus is as friend. In John, Jesus is both the model and the source of friendship. As the model of friendship, he calls the disciples to love as he has loved. As the source of friendship, he makes possible their own friendship through what he has given them .......

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(1) Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IX.8 (1169a18–25), quoting from H. Rackham, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), italics added.
(2) Plato, Symposium 179B, also 208D; Lucian, Toxaris 36. In the New Testament, Paul echoes this theme: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).
(3) Plutarch, How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend, 51.

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