Presentation on imaginative contemplation with scripture: what it is, how it works, and why pray in this way.

1. Imaginative Contemplation
Cafechurch
Tuesday 11th February 2020
Anne Pate
The Hours of Mary of Burgundy
By the Master of Mary of Burgundy
(Public domain)

2. Change Gear

3. Gratitudes

5. Experience using imagination

6. Conversation
How was that experience for you?
Where did you go to in your imagination?
How easy or difficult was it to imagine a
place where you have experienced
happiness in the past?
What was it like moving back to this
room, and then back and forth in your
imagination?

7. Traditions of prayer
Two main traditions of prayer in Christian spirituality, both grounded in Scripture and both valuable.
Apophatic (negative) Underlying theology: God is beyond our comprehension and any mental images we
may have; God is unknowable.
We seek to find God by emptying ourselves of any preconceived notions of the divine.
Exodus 20:21 ’Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God
was.’ Exodus 34:5 ‘The Lord descended in the cloud…’
St. Thomas Aquinas: we can only know that God is, not what God is.
The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century, unknown author) – what God is not, rather than what God is.
Example: centering prayer.
Kataphatic (positive) Underlying theology: we can begin to know God through all of creation.
We seek to experience God in creation, making overt use of images, concepts, words and symbols.
John 14:9 ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ God is known in the person of Jesus.
St. Thomas Aquinas: although God is ultimately unknowable, we can seek God through the things that are
‘known to us’.
Examples: lectio divina; Ignatian imaginative contemplation.

8. Ignatian imaginative contemplation
Imaginative engagement
with Scripture, usually
Gospel scenes concerning
events from the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus.
We pray our way through
the events as if we were
there (involved presence).
Where am I in the scene?
Who am I? What do I want?
The healing of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52)

9. The purpose of imaginative contemplation
Imaginative contemplation is a means to an end – personal encounter with the
Lord which touches the deepest parts of our reality.
This form of prayer can dispose me for an encounter with the living Christ who
speaks directly to my present condition. What I imagine – where I find myself in
the scene, how I respond, etc. – can reveal my desires and fears.
Imaginative contemplation can lead us into dialogue with God. The ‘imaginative
phase’ may be a preface to this time of conversation with God.
‘Ultimately, we are trying, in all this imagining, to imagine the truth about ourselves
and God.’
Robert J. Egan, ‘Jesus in the heart’s imagination’, 68.

10. ‘… if Gospel contemplation is an imaginative experience, it is also considerably
more than this. The key to its full power and challenge lies in the fact that the
Gospels are the word of God. Because of this the events contemplated
belong not only to the past but to the present of every believer, whom they
provide with the materials of an interpersonal relationship with the Christ of
the now.’ Michael Ivens, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises, 90.
Mary anoints Jesus (John 12:1-8)
Wayne Forte, Anointing his feet

11. What happens in imaginative contemplation
… ‘the ‘soul’, we could say, is a place where the self is
always, spontaneously, trying to imagine what is real.
This flow of inner images organizes our attention, shapes
our action and reveals the condition of our hearts.’
Robert J. Egan, ‘Jesus in the heart’s imagination’, p67
Imagination in this form of prayer begins with the gospel
story but moves beyond the literal text, while remaining
within its general parameters.
This prayer does not necessarily involve or require pictorial imagination; may be
more of a ‘felt sense’.
Philip Sheldrake, ‘Imagination and Prayer’, 93; 100

12. ‘How to’
• Ask for God’s grace (help) to be open in this time of prayer
• Read or listen to the passage – be present to this reality of faith
• Place yourself in the situation or story ‘seeing the place’
• Notice your desire
• Use your senses to imaginatively enter the scene – seeing the persons, hearing
what they say, watching what they are doing, etc.
• Speak with the Lord, as one friend to another, according to your inner feelings.
‘The retreatant both posits the scene and observes it at the same time: it comes
from without but it connects with something coming from within. It reproduces a
gospel situation, but the imagination is itself productive of details, new
possibilities and unexpected outcomes – outcomes that reveal something about
the depths of the retreatant’s heart.’
Robert J. Egan, ‘Jesus in the heart’s imagination’, 67

13. Conversation
What experiences have you had with imaginative prayer using Gospel scenes,
in Cafechurch or elsewhere?
How have these differed from
other experiences of prayer?
What questions do you have
about this form of prayer?

14. FAQs
‘But I am not imaginative’ This kind of prayer does not depend on having a vivid pictorial
imagination. We all use our imaginations every day.
Is there a danger of ‘heresy’ or of distorting the gospel message? What degree of
privilege should the literal sense retain? The literal sense sets a direction, suitably broad, in
which other interpretations may proceed; the contribution of the reader to any valid interpretation
is recognized in modern biblical scholarship.
Brendan Byrne ‘ ‘To see with the eyes of the imagination … ‘ Scripture in the Exercises and recent
interpretation’.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who
belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
What I discover in imaginative contemplation is primarily a message for my own
personal conversion.

15. ‘Ignatian spirituality speaks to postmoderns because it is based on a
personal, imaginative exploration of the gospel, and it invites people to
choose freely to deepen their intimacy with God through a deepened
understanding of who they themselves are. The invitation to come to
know God in this way is radically different from the approach which has
become familiar to so many: that of learning the doctrines and moral
teachings of the Church in religious education, and developing the
critical thinking that sometimes leads us to question whether any
doctrine can be judged true. Ignatian spirituality is not primarily
doctrinal, because it is not primarily an exercise of reason. It is instead a
practice of imagination, with all the affective dimensions that unfold in
imagination, often without the explicit consent of the intellect.’
Tim Muldoon, ‘Postmodern Spirituality and the Ignatian Fundamentum’.