Building Intimacy Through Imaginative Prayer

Ignatian prayer changed my life. And I'll tell you why at the end. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. We had a great crew of people go through OCIA this year, right? Just this massive group. But one of the questions they would bring up again and again is, how do I pray? I thought, oh my gosh, that's a great question. Because regardless of whether someone was baptized earlier in their life or we got to baptize them at Easter, a lot of people just don't know how to pray. There's so many different ways to pray. We've talked about the pirate prayer here on this channel. We've talked about other ways to pray. Um, Lexiodavina, there's a way to pray that I don't know if we've shared on this channel before, it's called Ignation Prayer. It goes back to a guy named Saint Ignatius of Loyola. It's a very simple way to pray, but it is a powerful way to pray, it engages the senses, it engages the imagination, it engages God's word. Here's some steps to ignation prayer. Now, obviously, if there are some Jesuits who are watching this, they'd be like, this is like first grade level ignition prayer. So go watch some Jesuits tell you how to do ignation prayer. They're they're better at it. It's not a technique, but it's kind of there's some there's some steps here. First, as always, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. And one of the things I'm always so moved by our students, whenever it's like, hey, would Joe, would you pray for us? Or you know, lead us in a prayer? Jennifer, would you start us off in a prayer? A lot of times they'll say, okay. And they would always pray the same prayer. Come, Holy Spirit, teach us how to pray. And I think, oh, that's so good. So first step, ask the Holy Spirit, just guide you in your prayer. Trust, trusting that God is going to guide whatever there is. Okay, great. Number one, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. Number two, pick a scripture, a scene typically from the Gospels. This is one of the best ways to go from the Gospels. And say for example, um, here's the scene in the gospels where where Jesus gets into Simon Peter's boat to preach from the from the boat, and then he says, Go out into the deep for a like for a catch, and Peter says , Lord, we've been working hard all night, but at your word I'll do it. And so they lowered their nets. They have a big catch of fish. Okay, maybe something like that. Because there's a lot of action happening, there's a lot of scenes. So Holy Spirit, help. Second, breathe through the scene. Third, pause . Sometimes it helps if you close your eyes. And what you're gonna do in this is you're gonna go back in your mind over the scene and you're gonna you're gonna add one sense, one of your five senses. You're gonna add the sense of sight. And so that's what I do. You go and stop and say, okay, wait, what would that look like? They're on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Okay. So picture the Sea of Galilee. And like and do do use as much detail as you can. Like here's the shore. Is is it wavy right now? Is it early in the morning? Probably early in the morning because they've been working hard all night. Okay, so set that scene. It's early in the morning. But also it's early morning on the shore when there's a fisherman there. Are Peter and his brother Andrew are they the only two fishermen there? Or is James and John also there? I mean, how many other boats are there? Just kind of look up and down the shore. Is it is it like one of those situations where a bunch is like a fisherman's wharf. Are there a lot of be is a lot of activity or is that kind of quiet? Just picture the scene. Also, Jesus has to get into Simon Peter's boat because the crowd. So picture the crowd. Like what do they look like? Are they listening atten tively? Have they just gotten up that morning? Have they been up all night as well, listening to Jesus speak? What does Jesus look like? You're just adding the just looking at the scene. You're kind of setting the scene. Jesus walks up to Peter. What's how does he look as he walks up to Peter? What's Peter look like? And just watch the scene unfold. Doesn't have to be super fast. In fact, it's best if it's not. It's best if you're kind of watching and unfolding the scene with your senses of sight. You also can do this where maybe you're Peter, maybe you're a bias, maybe you're yourself and you're interacting with with Peter, interacting with Jesus or the crowd. So you pray that way. Now, sometimes that's the whole prayer. Just added one sense. Sometimes you can go back if you have more time. Add a second sense. Maybe the sense of sound. And and so you're listening. And you're you're maybe you can hear like the birds crying as as they you're you know, calling as they as they fly overhead. Maybe hear the the Sea of Galilee hitting the shore. Maybe hear the creak of the boats, maybe the mumble of the crowd. Maybe again, maybe maybe there's a lot of commotion, and so you can hear all these sounds. When Jesus speaks, what does he sound like? When Peter responds, what's he sound like? So you add the sense of sound. Then you can add the sense of of touch, right? That sense of, okay, so it's cool in the morning, but it's getting warmer now. And you can add add the sense of of smell. And just kind of like that sense of like what's a what's a morning smell like? Now, as you're doing this, maybe some of those later senses are less important . But the more most important thing is you're watching the sc ene and you're letting Jesus show you how he interacted with Peter, with Andrew, with the crowd. And you're watching, you're getting to know Jesus. Now, people say, well, yeah, but are you filling in the gaps? Like, well, no, yes, yes, and no. You are using scripture as your basis, and then you're allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your imagination to watch the scene. Of course, if your your imagination goes crazy and all of a sudden there's you know Jesus takes out a machine gun, like okay, you've lost the the thread, right? But when asking the Holy Spirit, just guide me in this. Let me see Jesus. Jesus, show yourself to me. And you just're, you just picturing the scene. You know, if you want to know what this looks like, it's a TV show called The Chosen. Basically, I remember talking to Dallas Jenkins, and I was like, okay, so basically what you did with the series The Chosen is you took Ignatian prayer and you just put it on film. And he's like, yeah, kind of. And it was one of those situations where like, yeah, but that's that's really what it is. But this is not his prayer. This is your prayer. You know what's funny about this kind of prayer is it's not intercessory prayer, really, right? It's not praise or thanksgiving . It's not petition. It's not uh uh repentance. What is it? All those prayers are good. All those kinds of wa to praysy are good. This prayer is intima cy . This prayer is relationship. Here's what I mean. I had the chance when I was a first-year seminarian to go to a 30-day silent retreat, uh Jesuit retreat, Ignation retreat. And so for 30 days, I did that, this. I did it five times a day, more or less . And the beginning of the day, we'd pick a scene, and I in silence, you know, I just add sight and then next hour, take a break, you know, next hour, add hearing, and then add smell, and then interact with the people . And just did that consistently, day after day, hour after hour. And at the end of that 30-day ignation retreat, there were two enduring blessings that I walked away with . The first one is one I just cannot begin to thank God for . It's so good. I walked away with I think a supernatural gift of just knowing I can trust the Lord. Knowing that no matter what happens, God, I know your heart. I know that you care. I know that I matter to you. I know that you're good. I know that you love me. I know I can trust you. No matter what happens, I know I can trust you. That's the first one. It's just this this deep trust in the Lord. The second one was : I feel like God, I know you. Jesus, I feel like I know you now. Now, up to that point, I was I was seminarian. I was praying every day, going to mass every day, and I've been praying for years up to that point. After those 30 days, I was able to look at Jesus and say, Jesus, I love you. And it meant something so much more. And it wasn't because I got to had the special gift of going away for 30 days. It was because of this kind of prayer. Again, not petition, not praise, not thanksgiving, not contrition, not repentance, but just intimacy, just relationship. And this is my invitation for all of us. We need God's help, obviously, right? We need to pray for others. Of course, we need to pray for ourselves. We need to have repentance . But above all things , we need union . We need to know his heart. So my invitation is , pick one scene from the Gospels. Let this be your exercise. Pick one scene from the Gospels. And then each day this week, just spend a little bit of time, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. First time, pray through it, get your bearings, add sight . Second second day, go back to the same same scripture, add with add sight, add sound. Each day, add a little more. And each day, just go back to that same scene and just look around. Explore, interact with Jesus. Watch him interacting with others . And watch him show you his heart. Like, truly, watch him show you his he art