An Ignatian contemplation of the Easter Vigil

Yesterday, at the end of the retreat with those who will be baptized at the Easer Vigil, I briefly explained the Vigil liturgy. 

2015

THE LITURGY OF THE LIGHT will begin a few blocks from the church with the blessing of the Easter Fire and the Paschal candle. The community will then process to the church behind the candle, where we will hear the praise of God – in the prayer of the Paschal Candle.

THE LITURGY OF THE WORD will follow with all the readings, with sung responses, culminating with the Gospel of the Resurrection.

THE LITURGY OF BAPTISM will begin after the homily, with the Litany of the Saints, remembering how we are surrounded by millions of witnesses of the Risen Lord. Then the water will be blessed, the elect will renounce Satan profess their faith, and they will be baptized – bathed with the water of baptism. 

THE LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST will follow with the first communion of the newly baptized. 

I didn’t try to explain everything because I wanted them to be surprised, delighted, awed by what we are experiencing in the Vigil. 

2014

But I did tell them to pay attention. I told them to be attentive with their whole being, to be especially attentive to their feelings. 

I used the questions suggested by Saint Ignatius: 

What do I see?

What do I hear?

What do I smell?

What do I taste?

What do I feel – with my body and with my spirit? 

I did not tell them what to expect but told them to be present to what is happening in them, around them, and between them.

Here are my first thoughts about what we might sense as we live through the Vigil, contemplating the presence of the Risen Lord in our midst.

What do I see in the Vigil? The Easter Fire, the Paschal Candle, the gathering space illuminated with the lighted candles of the faithful, and more.

What do I hear? The crackling of the fire, the Exultet, the readings, the songs, the Alleluia, and more. 

What do I smell? The burning wood and candles, the aromatic Chrism, and more. 

What do I taste? The Body and Blood of Christ, and more.

What do I feel? The water flowing over the bodies of the baptized, the anointing with the Chrism, the company of hundreds of people around the altar, and more.

What do I sense with my spirit? A beginning, a new life, and more, especially the presence of God.

Simone Weil once wrote that. “[the] faculty of attention […when] directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.” 

 I pray that those to be baptized and I may be attentive to God at the Vigil and throughout our lives.

HONDURAN CAMPESINOS, RETIRED FRANCISCAN SISTERS, CLARENCE JORDAN, AND THE PALM SUNDAY MULE

Tomorrow is the feast of Christ the King, but I’ve had the Gospel story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on my mind.

Palm Sunday 2015

Part of my ministry in the parish is training of catechists.

A few years ago, I did each training session in each of the four zones of the parish. Five years ago, I did the first of the sessions in the mountain village of Delicias Concepción. An account of that experience can also be found here.

Because many catechists and pastoral workers have been taught scripture in very limited ways, I often try different ways of reading and praying scripture. They are used to looking for moral guidance in the readings or doctrinal affirmations or literal accounts.

Often I try the imaginative contemplative reading in the style of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. I read the passage one or more times, leaving time for quiet. I urge the catechists to try to put themselves in the narrative and pay attention to their senses – what they hear, see, small, taste, feel physically as well as how they feel emotionally. Then, after some time of quiet, I ask them to share with one or two others. Afterwards I invite several to share their experience.

That day I used the Palm Sunday accounts, reading the Gospel three times (each time from a different evangelist).

When I asked some to share, one young man noted that he had been afraid for Jesus. Jesus was going to sit on a mule that had never been mounted before. As a campesino, he knew what usually happens: the animal bolts and the person ends up on the ground. But when this did not happen to Jesus, he was relieved.

I never had heard such a reading and continue to be amazed at the wisdom of this young man and the implications this has on our understanding of Jesus. (I’ll get to this later.)

A few months later, I was in Iowa and was asked to give a presentation for the retired sisters at the motherhouse of the Dubuque Franciscans, several of whom I have known from their ministry in El Salvador and in Honduras.

At the end of my presentation, which was pretty grim, given the situation of Honduras at that time, one sister asked me if there was anything that gives me hope. I immediately thought of this bible reading and shared the story.

When I got to the point of the young man’s concern for Jesus’s safety with the untamed donkey, I heard chuckles throughout the room. Probably most of the women in that room had been raised on Iowa farms and knew what happens when you try to sit on an untamed beast.

A retired priest who is a published biblical scholar and former professor at Loras College was in the room, since he serves the sisters. I asked him if he ever heard any scholarly note of this. He hadn’t.

But this past week, I found one Baptist biblical scholar who did. Clarence Jordan, the founder with his wife and others of Koinonia Farms in Georgia, had degrees in Agriculture and theology. He did Cotton Patch translations of the Gospels, placing Jesus in Georgia. 

Koinonia Farms is an interracial community that has sought to live the Gospel in a unique way and has suffered for their witness. 

 Last week, I finished reading a book of selections of his writings published by Plough Publishing, an arm of the Bruderhof, The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and Religion, edited by Frederick L. Downing.

The book is a delight and inspiring. But the real surprise was his chapter “Jesus, Leader of the Poor.” In it, he retells the Palm Sunday event as a great demonstration:

So he gathered together a great crowd of these poor people and then told his disciples he was going to lead the demonstration. He said, “I need something to ride on.” Now, this is interesting! Anyone who is going to enter the city as the king usually gets himself a big, white Arabian steed. We would expect Jesus to say, “You all go up to Tyre or Nineveh and get me one of those fine Arabian stallions – I want to do this thing up right!” But do you know what he said to his disciples? “I want you to go into the village there and get me a mule.” And he said, “I want you to get me one on which no one has ever sat” (Mark 11:2). Now Jesus must have been a real man to ask for that kind of mule! I tried once to sit on “a mule whereon no man had ever sat” and when I got through with him he was still “a mule whereon no man had ever sat!” But Jesus could ride that mule. The mule was the symbol of the lowly, the working classes, the toiling people.

Raised on a farm, living on a farm, he knew what happens when you try to sit on “a mule whereon no man had ever sat.”

The Honduran campesinos, the retired Franciscan sisters, and a Baptist preacher got what almost no scripture scholar had ever noticed. I am floored! 

But, as I reflect on the Palm Sunday story, I begin to see that what Jesus did that day was not just announce the coming of the Reign of God; he lived it and made it real.

In the Reign of God, there is peace and harmony in the world. The Reign of God is a restoration of the harmony in the Garden of Eden. The Reign of God is the prophecy of the Peaceable Kingdom of Isaiah 11 made real. The Reign of God is the way that Jesus was "with the wild beasts" in the desert (Mark 1).

The will of God is this peace and harmony.

Jesus makes this real and we are called to make it real.

But it is not brought about by arms and violence. Jesus enters Jerusalem, knowing that many were planning to kill him. But he enters unarmed, not on a war horse but on a donkey, a mule, an ass.

In his simplicity, in his vulnerability he saves us and shows us the way to live in the Reign of God, on earth as in heaven. 

 All this has been going through my mind as I prepared for our parish celebration of Christ the King tomorrow.

Christ the King, November 2015

A few weeks ago, Father German noted how the image of Christ the King central to the understanding of most people is that of a dominating ruler, whose word is law. Instead, he noted, we must look to Christ the servant. We’ll try to offer a different vision tomorrow.

I will give the opening marks for our procession before Mass, centered on Christ the Servant King, who brings victory by his service, his commitment even to the cross, and his love. You can read my draft in Spanish here. I hope I have time to translate it.

But above all, I pray that this message of the servant king, who enters the city on a mule, and shows us the Reign of God, a reign of justice love and peace, will transform all of our hearts, here in the parish and in the world – especially in the Church.

As I prepared for Christ the King Sunday, I came across this quotation from the address of Pope Francis to the Bishops of Mexico on February 13, 2006:

Above all, la Virgen Morenita teaches us that the only power capable of conquering the hearts of men and women is the tenderness of God. That which delights and attracts, that which humbles and overcomes, that which opens and unleashes, is not the power of instruments or the force of law, but rather the omnipotent weakness of divine love, which is the irresistible force of its gentleness and the irrevocable pledge of its mercy.

May “the omnipotent weakness of divine love” empower us to be instruments of our servant King in this world in so need of love and justice.

Ignatian contemplation among the poor

I don’t know when I first heard about Ignatian contemplation, the imaginative reading of the scriptures.

As Jesuit Father James Martin explains in his book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage:

Ignatian contemplation encourages you to place yourself imaginatively in a scene from the Bible. For example, if you’re praying about Jesus and his disciples caught in a boat during a storm on the Sea of Galilee, you would try to imagine yourself on board with the disciples, and ask yourself several questions as a way of trying to place yourself in the scene.

I do remember, though, one of the first times it really touched me. Before going on a two month sabbatical to El Salvador, to do some research for a book I’m still writing, I had an eight day retreat with a Lakota Franciscan sister on the Pine Ridge reservation.

She explained the method and gave me a list of passages to work with. I chose the Gospel passage of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

I read the scripture and, without planning, I felt myself as John within the womb of Elizabeth. I sensed something – the presence of Jesus – and jumped for joy.

Ever since that time I find myself reading the scriptures in a different way, a way also influenced by my experience with the poor.

Here I find that many people read the scriptures to get a message, often a moral message. That’s all very good but I think that the scriptures are also a way for us to encounter Jesus.

That’s what I really like about Ignatian contemplation.

A few months ago a few commentators noted that Pope Francis used a form of this in his Sunday homily in a parish in Rome.

So I thought I’d try it with catechists.

We first did breathing exercises to calm ourselves and to create a space of silence. Then I read the parable of the Prodigal Son and asked them to place themselves in the parable.

The silence was tangible and the atmosphere was one of deep prayer.

After a time I asked them to share what they had experienced with the people around them. Then a few shared with the whole group. One person noted how she felt the warm embrace of the father.

I think we are on to something.

So Padre German decided to try to renew the base communities, many of which had become top heavy meetings where one person talked and others listened or where the themes were very intellectual. He proposed that only once a month would the communities use materials. The second week they’d celebrate birthdays or anniversaries. The last week they’d discuss a situation in the village and propose some ways to respond. The third week would be “reading the bible in a different way” – Ignatian contemplation.

We tried it in a meeting of village base community leaders, I also have been using it in my training sessions with catechists. I have even written a form of this into the training for catechumens. I hope we can work this into much of our pastoral ministry.

It sometimes works, sometimes not. A few times I have read the passage and stopped with questions after a few verses. Other times I have read the whole passage, after urging them to place themselves into the situation.

I think this will be a good way to help the people revive their imaginations and see scripture not as a book to be read for its messages, but as a way into the heart of God.

Drawing - first communion class - El Zapote de Santa Rosa