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When I decided to participate in the Week of Guided Prayer, offered at my chaplaincy during the Lenten period, I had no expectations. I would not boast and say that I am a master at praying, but I do pray regularly, every day, reading the Gospel, a commentary on it, a part of the Bible and journaling (it only takes 15 minutes of my day). In reality, I participated because I am a curious person and also because it was a requirement to pray 30 minutes per day, which I found hard, and therefore I was willing to take up the challenge.
People who know me would not say (I guess) that I am a proud person, but I am pretty confident that I know what I am doing, because I question myself on why I do things in the first place. So, when I first met my prayer guide, I was quite sure that what I was doing was probably ok, but my guide was so different from what I had expected! I don’t know why, but I expected a priest or a nun (indeed some guides are) but my guide was a lay person. And this, at first, came as a surprise. Then after a couple of meetings, I started to share more of my faith and I found it really touching that someone truly cared about my relationship with God. My guide asked me how I was doing, for real, and was there to listen to my hardships and difficulties, which really opened my heart and spirit.
While I was not so sure that I wanted to share something so personal as my relationship with God with a stranger, in the end, my prayer guide was the most wonderful human being to talk about it, so invested in my experience of the faith, and always ready to suggest some ways into the difficulties I was going through in my practice of prayers. More than anything else, however, I really need to thank my guide because, for the first time in my life, I was introduced to Imaginative Prayer, also known as Ignatian Contemplation. I do not know why I never came across this before, but it is the most wondrous way of praying as it translates well to real experience.
It is a way of approaching the sacred text in which you are yourself present in the moment and in the very space narrated in the Bible. You need to let yourself be in the space, experience on your skin the atmosphere and let yourself be part of the scene.
Once, I was praying in this way the Tempest (or Storm at Sea) and I was in the boat with the disciples, I felt their panic and anxiety, I heard the waves crashing into the boat, I tasted the salty water and I felt it on my skin. I realised that in all this panic, nobody was paying attention to Jesus, who was peacefully asleep while the wind was blowing and boat was rolling all around. I could smell the salty air, the rotting wood and the fear of the disciples, who were sure they were about to die. I was then faced with a choice, help out the disciples battling against the waves, or join Jesus, in his peaceful sleep. I chose to be calm, to allow the example of Jesus show me the way, so I laid on my pillow and I let myself float on the waters. Jesus was next to me in the tempest, from his pillow I could sense a fresh rose-like scent, much better than the salty water and the panic in the other parts of the boat. I understood that none of the disciples could see him because they were too busy focusing on their problem.
This mode of prayer made me experience the Gospel in a way I could have never done before. It made me understand deep concepts without the need of words but with the direct action of my imaginative prayer. I could feel on my skin what was going on, and I learned from it as if I was there myself.
The major problem I was having in my previous way of praying was that through the analysis of the Bible, I was exploring many abstract concepts and ideas. These were important of course, but as soon as I closed my journal, I could not remember what I was praying for that day, the day before, or the previous week. On the contrary, with this new way of praying, I am feeling the Gospel on my skin, and I will never forget, I will take this memory with me all the days of my life.
Giorgia M. Maffioli-Brigatti
You can try an Imaginative Contemplation based on the Calming of the Storm on the Imagine Youtube channel:
A University Chaplain’s Perspective on A Retreat in Daily Life
Pray As You Go have collaborated with the Jesuit Institute team to create a new CD for prisoners, to help prisoners to pray in an Ignatian way and to meet with Jesus right where they are.
