What is it like to stand before Jesus as a blind beggar? What is it like to hear Jesus tell us the words: “What would you want me to do for you?”
Praying with the Sacred Scriptures can be a daunting task. Yet the type of prayer known as Lectio Divina (divine reading) is ancient and has borne fruit in the lives of many saints. Pope Benedict XVI himself writes that “If [Lectio Divina] is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the Church – I am convinced of it – a new spiritual springtime.” Praying with Sacred Scriptures should continue to be developed in the lives of the faithful.
An Ignatian Introduction to Prayer by Fr. Timothy Gallagher helps us to pray with Scripture. It’s an exercise book, not a textbook, and It selects forty different passages of Scriptures and then leads the reader through a meditation on that passage.
For example, the first meditation is on the story of Blind Bartimaeus, from Mark 10:46-52. Simply begin by reading the text of the Sacred Scriptures. From there, Fr. Gallagher uses our imagination to lead us into a meditative prayer with a variety of prompts. What is it like to stand before Jesus as a blind beggar? What is it like to hear Jesus tell us the words: “What would you want me to do for you?” For some meditations we may use Fr. Gallagher’s prompts directly, for other meditations it may just be a first step on the path that Jesus wants to lead us in that prayer.
The forty passages from the Sacred Scriptures that Fr. Gallagher chooses are wide in variety, but all ripe for imaginative prayer. From Jesus and Peter walking on the water, to the woman anointing the feet of Jesus shortly before his crucifixion, to Jesus washing the feet of His disciples, or all the way back in the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis, Fr. Gallagher’s choice of texts can help us all be led deeper into prayer.
For anyone who doesn’t know where to start in prayer, or if prayer has become dry, or is simply looking for another avenue to pray during your daily fifteen minutes of prayer, this is for you. An Ignatian Introduction to Prayer by Fr. Timothy Gallagher can be found in our Adoration Book Library.
“I stand before Jesus. Our eyes meet…I see his face, I hear his words, his question to my heart: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Now Jesus and I are alone in the midst of the crowd. And I speak to him from my heart, unhurriedly. I dare to tell him all that I hope he will do for me…all that I hope for from this time of prayer…”
