Today's prayer is based on a story from Scripture that is suitable for Imaginative Contemplation.
Stilling: Take time for stilling and coming into God's presence.
Grace: That we might recognise the presence of the Risen Lord in this challenging time.
Prayer Suggestion: Pray with the Gospel passage below using your imagination.
Imagine the place, the sounds, smells, hear the conversations, put yourself in the place of one of the characters in the passage.
The Disciples Commissioned
In the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because of their fear of the Jews. Then Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” Having said this, He showed them His hands and His side. So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” After saying this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Thomas Sees and Believes
But one of the Twelve, Thomas (called “Twin”), was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe!”
After eight days His disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them.
Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and observe My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Don’t be an unbeliever, but a believer.” Thomas responded to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed.”
The Purpose of This Gospel
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
Conversation: As your prayer comes to the end talk with Jesus as a friend.
Finish with a formal prayer such as the Lord's Prayer - "Our Father"
In facing into our fears and doubts we begin to see them not as threats, but as invitations to be transformed, encouragements from within us to enter into a new way of seeing the reality in which we find ourselves, a reality full of attractive possibilities.
We begin to see that this new way of seeing is not something we have created for ourselves, it is something which has been there all the time and which we are now beginning to recognise.
It is a light in the darkness, a stillness at the heart of our turmoil, a deep reassurance. Despite of the continuing chaos around and within us, that I am not alone, that I am being held in being by a power greater than my conscious mind can grasp, a power in which I live and move and have my being.
from A Cry of Wonder by Gerry Hughes SJ p.43)
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