A Meditation Primer: Imaginative Contemplation

For some of the things you are reading, this might be another way you might like to absorb the passage

Getting Totally Involved - The Loyola Method

Here’s an approach to meditation adapted from the “Spiritual Exercises” of Ignatius Loyola:

PART ONE (Preparation)

a. In prayer, ask God for grace to direct your thoughts, words, and actions to service and praise of his Divine Majesty.

b. Read the passage upon which you intend to meditate. Read unhurriedly, but without attempting yet to meditate on the passage. Your goal now is simply to familiarize yourself with the passage.

c. Determine an objective for your meditation time and ask God to help you accomplish it. If the passage you choose, for example, is the account of Jesus’ birth in Luke 2:1–7, your objective may be a sense of awe and humility as you contemplate the mystery of-your Savior’s entry into the world.

Usually this preliminary request is formulated in terms of some emotion you wish God to give you as a result of your meditation. Ignatius Loyola believed that the ultimate purpose of meditation is application (that is, an act of the will), and that the will is motivated primarily by emotion rather than reason.

PART TWO (Meditation)

a. Visualize the scene. In the case of Luke 2:1–7, see in your mind the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Is it level, or does it wind through valleys and around hillsides? See Mary, in her ninth month of pregnancy, riding on a donkey, accompanied by Joseph, perhaps leading an ox. They are going to Bethlehem to pay a tax. What kind of people are they passing on the way? Soldiers? Peasants? Merchants? Other families?
Study in your imagination the place of the Nativity. Is it spacious or cramped? Clean or dirty? Warm or cold? How is it furnished?

b. Assume the role of one of the characters in the passage, or of someone else who might be present. In Luke 2, for example, you could be the hotel’s servant or maid.

c. Now apply your five senses to the scene. Look carefully, watching all the action. Use your ears as you listen in on conversations.

Then apply your senses of smell and touch. What odors are present? What quality of garments are being worn? Feel the woodwork of the manger. Smell and feel the straw.

Apply your sense of taste—is there anything there to eat?

d. Analyze your own feelings as a member of the scene. How do you feel about what is happening? How do you feel about the persons involved? How do you feel about yourself?

PART THREE (Conversation)

Talk to Joseph, or Mary, or someone else in the scene. Talk to them about the thoughts that have come to your mind as you have meditated on this passage.

Or you might even want to talk to God or to the Lord Jesus.
This conversation should in most cases lead to some form of action or personal application.[i]

1. Wilson, Kent R., Discipleship Journal, Issue 6, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress) c1999

2023 Update: How fun to read this again. I have given the handout for this tool to so many people since 1981, and I would always wonder who Ignatius of Loyola was and what are those Spiritual Exercises! (Back in 1981, I went to the library to look Ignatius up in an encyclopedia and found out who he was, but I didn't investigate further than that!)

Fast forward to 2017 when God woke me up and told me to read A Simple Life-Changing Prayer by Jim Manney.

It is about the Prayer of Examen (which I had discounted when I read about that in 1992 in Richard Foster's book Prayer Finding the Heart's True Home - Big Mistake). And reading further led me to understand more about Ignatius and the Exercises. As a result, I went through the Spiritual Exercises with the Creighton University Online Retreat and was trained in leading others through them the next year! (See the Body and Soul Companion Blog description of the Exercises - scroll down to the video.) 

I now call the above "Ignatian Contemplation."

Much has happened since 2007!