“He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.” (LK 2:51-52)
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola provide a great opportunity to seriously detach oneself from the world for thirty days and enter into sacred silence and into God’s presence to contemplate the depth of his particular love for us and to pray for the grace to more intimately know Jesus, love him more freely and follow him more faithfully. In the first week of the Exercises, a person has the opportunity to review their life in light of God’s profound love. Openness to God’s holy love, sheds light on how selfishly we respond to God’s gifts and helps identify the ways, the excuses and the sins that have prevented us from loving Christ and being loved by him. From following him without hesitation or reservation. In the second week, the retreatant reflects on how to better imitate Christ and follow him as a faithful disciple by learning where Jesus worshiped, when he prayed, how he served and who he ministered to. In the third week, one meditates on the Passion and death of Christ. In Christ’s suffering, we experience God’s unconditional love for us and in the Eucharist we share in it. On the last week of the Exercises, the person experiences the Joy of the Resurrection and walks with the risen Christ as he dispels fear from the disciples hearts and shares the fulfillment of the Father’s peace. This new life inspires a disciple to make a total offering of self and encourages them to respond more generously to the call to love and serve Christ more faithfully. There is also an opportunity during the Exercises to learn different forms of prayer and different ways to experience God in prayer. One of those ways is using the imagination to experience God by placing ourselves into scripture scenes to hear what people are listening to, see what they are seeing, smell what they are cooking, taste what they are eating, feel what they are sensing. The object of this form of prayer is to use our spiritual senses to become more attentive to God’s voice, more open to his presence, and more responsive to his holy will. Try it. Disconnect and detached yourself from the world and from noise for a while and enter into silence. Imagine Jesus in the quiet, hidden years of his early life. Enter the scene. What might a school day with Jesus be like? What might a conversation with his friends sound like? How did Mary and Joseph feel living with God, caring for him, feeding him, bathing him? What must having God obedient to them fell like? What if God was obedient to you? How different would the world be?