When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart. // Jeremiah 15:16
My mind was blown open as the priest leading the retreat read through the conference he had prepared. His words brought alive the scene of the Gospel in a way that I had never experienced before. I was in the garden with Jesus. I was falling asleep with the disciples. I was watching Jesus be arrested and fleeing with the Apostles. I was in the Gospel in a whole new way.
This style of mediation called Ignatian or Imaginative Prayer, comes from Saint Ignatius of Loyola whose feast we celebrate today. While raised a Catholic in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Italy, he lived a dissolute life as a soldier until a cannon ball shattered his leg. During his recovery, he began reading the lives of the Saints, and their example inspired him to a radical conversion. He eventually founded the Society of Jesus and has left a legacy of prayer through his work The Spiritual Exercises, where he introduced Imaginative prayer as a way to enter into Scripture.
Saint Ignatius is one of those Saints whose conversion was so immediately complete that he never turned back, devouring God’s words and accepting God’s call to him. Serving God, and God alone, “became [his] joy and the happiness of [his] heart” (Jeremiah 15:16). His life became like the men in the parables in today’s Gospel (see Matthew 13:44-46), who sold all they had to possess the greatest treasure. And the fruits of his conversion have impacted countless souls.
Sister, let Saint Ignatius inspire you to try a new way of praying with the Gospels.* Take five minutes to imagine you are in the scene of today’s Gospel. Can you see yourself as the merchant searching for pearls? Ask the Lord to show you what you are to give up in order to follow Him more fully. Try it again tomorrow with the Gospel passage for the day. Let us ask the Lord to inflame us with the same passion of Saint Ignatius—that we will be drawn into God’s Word and find joy in it.
*The Blessed is She Gospel Studies are a great place to begin praying with Scripture imaginatively.
Susanna Spencer holds a master's in Theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is the Content and Theological Editor for Blessed is She. She is a freelance writer, editor, and speaker living with her philosopher husband and four kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She loves reading theology, attending beautiful liturgies, cooking delicious food, and casually following baseball. She is the author of the Gospel Studies including Seek His Kingdom: A Meditation on Matthew; narrator for Found: Advent With the Good Shepherd and Rescued: Lent With the Lamb of God; a contributing author to our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up; and Theological Editor of the Blessed Conversations Studies. Find out more about her here.
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