While I'm on my third week away, Spiritual Exercises work on a different, kairos time. So I am on Day 3 of Week 2, which focuses on the incarnation, nativity and early life, and public ministry of Jesus. So many experiences, so many intense times of prayer. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to devote most of each day to prayer and contemplation focused on the Gospels. Just a note that Jesuits encourage reading a text, and then engaging your imagination to enter and experience the scene, and conversing with God/Jesus/Holy Spirit (and like all good conversations, this involves listening, not just talking). So below is a dialogue I created between two Psalms. Enjoy!
A Dialogue between Psalm 51 and 139
A Dialogue between Psalm 51 and 139
6/17/2014
Me: Have Mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins.
Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.
For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.
God: I have examined your heart and know everything about you.
I know when you sit down or stand up. I know your thoughts even when you are far away.
I see you when you travel and when you rest at home. I already know everything you do.
I know what you are going to say even before you say it.
I go before you and I follow you. I place my hand of blessing on your head.
Me: Against you, and you alone have I sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgement against me is just.
For I was born a sinner - yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.
God: I made all the delicate, inner parts of your body
and knit you together in your motherʻ s womb.
I watched you as you were being formed in utter seclusion,
as you were woven together in the dark of the womb.
I saw you before you were born. Every day of your life is recorded in my book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
Me: Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt.
I call on the darkness to hide me, for the light around me to become night -
But even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.
God: My knowledge is too wonderful for you, too great for you to understand.
You can never escape from my Spirit! You can never get away from my presence.
If you go up to heaven, I am. If you go down to the grave, I am still there.
If you ride the wings of the morning, if you dwell by the farthest oceans,
Even there my hand will guide you, and my strength support you.
Me: Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me, now let me rejoice.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.
God: The only sacrifice I desire is a broken and repentant heart.
I will never reject a broken and repentant heart.
I look with favor on you, my beloved. I want nothing more than to help and heal you,
To rebuild you as I made you to be.
My thoughts about you are precious. And they cannot be numbered!
Me: I cannot begin to count your thoughts. They outnumber the grains of sand.
And my God, I awake, and you are still with me!
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