Imaginative contemplation

In a couple of weeks it will be St. Ignatius day so I'm going to have some posts every once in a while until then on Ignatian spirituality. For today, something about imaginative contemplation. Imaginative contemplation is the kind of prayer used to foster a relationship with Jesus through putting oneself with him in the gospel stories - a kind of virtual reality experience which can be very vivid and has the power to engage the emotions. I saw a page on this today at the British Jesuit site, pray-as-you-go, which has a number of podcast contemplations of some NT passages. Here's the beginning of info on the page ...

Imaginative Contemplation

Saint Ignatius believed that God could speak to us just as clearly in our imagination as through our thoughts and our memories. In his Spiritual Exercises he writes of contemplation as a very active way of engaging your feelings, emotions, and senses to place yourself in the scene described.

Contemplation isn't about trying to place yourself in a historic setting, like dreaming you were back in the Middle Ages, it's about trying to encounter Jesus in a personal and unique way. Through the contemplation, the Holy Spirit makes present the mystery of Christ found in the particular passage, and helps you to explore things in a way you might not find possible through our normal podcasts. While these reflections are much longer than our normal podcasts, you shouldn't feel constrained by the time of the track. Go at your own pace; God is in no rush ...

Creighton University has a page too on imaginative contemplation - Praying with Our Imaginations

And here's a video of James Martin SJ on imaginative contemplation ...