In this step-by-step exercise book Anthony de Mello SJ uses gentle physical exercises, scriptural contemplation and humorous symbolic stories to teach us how we can experience true happiness.
117pp. Columba press. Tto purchase this book online, go to www.columba.ie
CONTENTS
A note to the reader
42. The living flame of love: God’s action in history
43. The name of Jesus in creation: all good things come from on high
Suggested readings 1
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1.
Exercise – Bodily Sensations
Begin this prayer hour with the relaxation and silence exercise below. Remember that feeling is not thinking:
1. Take up a comfortable and relaxing position. Your eyes may be gently closed or fixed on some object nearby, more or less three feet
away.
2. Feel your clothes touching your shoulders.
3. Feel your back gently against the chair.
4. Feel your neck, gently moving your head forward and back,right and left.
5. Feel your chest expanding as you inhale, and relaxing as you exhale.
6. Become aware of the feelings on your right arm… in your left arm … in your right hand and in your left hand. Keep your hands open, in a receptive and relaxed manner on your legs. Also feel your hands, lightly moving each finger.
7. Feel the soles of your feet touching your shoes.
Focus
• Simply getting in contact with oneself and feeling the reactions of the body are helpful for entering into dialogue with God, but the greatest obstacle to interior silence is nervous tension.
• Eight or ten minutes of exercises at the beginning of prayer will be enough to feel relaxed and at peace, and to find in silence a climate suitable for contemplation. If we should meet God during the relaxation exercises, we can extend the time devoted to those exercises without fear.
• Sitting straight up in a chair is helpful.
Contemplation – God’s Plan
1. God’s saving plan in Jesus Christ (Eph 1:3-14): This text shows God’s saving plan in Christ Jesus. It expresses overflowing praise celebrating the spread of God’s blessing: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Verse 3). God is further praised for all his graces in Christ, also in verses 6,12, and 14. God’s Plan is achieved:
• in our selection (verses 4-5): God has chosen us to be holy;
• in being children (5): God has made us all adoptive children;
• in liberation (6-7): by his blood we are liberated;
• in kinship (8-10): we have been united in Christ;
• in inheritance (11-12): we have been made to share in God’s glory;
• in the gift of the Holy Spirit (13-14): we are marked with the sign of the Spirit.
2. God’s particular plan (Jer 1:5): In this text we find God’s particular plan for a specific person, Jeremiah. We may take it that God says to each one of us the same words spoken to Jeremiah: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
3. God’s presence in the life of human beings (Ps 138, 139): In psalm 138, the psalmist expresses his wonder as he experiences
• God’s intimate presence in his life (verses 1-6);
• the universal presence (7-12);
• God’s loving presence (13-18).
One day Saint Therese of Jesus
in a moment of closeness to Jesus,
introduced herself by saying:
‘I am Thérese of Jesus,’
and Jesus came back with these words:
‘I am Jesus of Thérese.’
2.
Exercise – Breathing Sensations
1. Feel the air passing through your nose as you breathe. Feel the air and how it is: warm air? cool air?
2. Feel the areas where you feel it. Inhale the air through your nose slowly in order to feel it.
3. Feel whether more air comes through one nostril than through the other.
4. Feel how your lungs fill up as you inhale and how your chest relaxes when you exhale.
5. Now concentrate your attention on yourself as you observe your own breathing. Note that the observer, the Self, is different from the breathing that is being observed. You may explicitly tell yourself: ‘1 am not my breathing.’
6. Focus again on your breathing. Don’t try to control it or
deepen it, just become aware of it.
7. Become aware of the movements taking place in your body, your lungs, and your diaphragm. Become aware of your inhaling. .. and your exhaling. Say to yourself, ‘I’m now drawing in the air… I’m now letting go of the air.’ Without thinking. Just be aware.
Focus
• An excellent way to remedy distractions in prayer is to perceive images, memories, or thoughts when they arise, realising that the act of thinking is different from the Self that is thinking.
• Becoming aware of one’s own breathing or bodily sensations leads to interior silence. God’s revealed word is understood only in silence.
• This exercise quiets the mind and opens the way to wisdom and silence.
Contemplation – God loves us
1. God is father (2 Cor 6:18): ‘I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’
2. God tells of his love (Is 43-44):
‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you’;
‘I have called you by name, you are mine’;
‘you are precious in my sight’;
‘[you are] honoured and I love you’;
‘do not fear for I am with you’;
‘whom I created for my glory’;
‘Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old; I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist’;
‘return to me for I have redeemed you.’
3. The proof that God loves us is the sending of God’s Son (1 Jn 4:9-10): ‘God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.’
4. The father also gives the Spirit to human beings (Lk 11:13): ‘… how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
5. We are called adopted children (1 Jn 3:1): ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.’
6. The Father gives us life through Jesus Christ: The Father is the one who gives us life through Jesus. It was Jesus Christ himself who said: ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (In 10:10). ‘God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son’ (1 Jn 5:11).
7. The Father is rich in mercy (Lk 15:11-32): Parable of the Prodigal Son.
3.
Exercise – Bodily Sensations: Serenity
1. Carry out and deepen exercise number 1, perceiving your bodily sensations from head to foot.
2. Try to become aware of the sensations in your head. If you feel some discomfort, become aware of it and relax until it
goes away.
3. The five senses are in some fashion centred in the head. Gently close your eyes to heighten the sounds entering your
ears, those far away and those close by.
4. Now move down to the sensations in your neck, the place where tensions usually accumulate. Try to relax your neck
and your shoulders.
5. Feel your chest. Feel the clothes over it, over your stomach, over your abdomen. Feel the beating of your heart.
6. Become aware of the sensations in your right arm. .. in your left arm… in your right hand… in your left hand.
7. Now focus on your legs: your right leg… your left leg. Feel your legs, moving down, and then coming back up.
8. Finally feel your feet, loose or tight inside your shoes. Your right foot… your left foot.
9. Try to experience the serenity and the silence of your whole body. Rest in complete inner silence.
Focus
• Keep perfectly motionless: if you have bites, itching, and so forth, sense them only until they go away.
• The exercise above can be practised during the day, while walking, feeling the movement in the arms or in the legs. .. and so forth.
Contemplation – Being More
1. We are created in God’s image (Gen 1:27): ‘So God created humankind in his image.’ Humans must freely complete the imperfect image of God that they are.
2. Jesus grew (Lk 2:52): ‘Jesus grew in wisdom, and in years and in divine and human favour.’
3. Be perfect (Mt 5:48): ‘Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.’
4. The visible image of the invisible God is Jesus Christ: Christ is ‘the way, and the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6). J And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (Jn 17:3). ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (Jn 10:10).
5. Paul’s joy in having had a noble ideal (2 Tim 4:6-9): ‘As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness…’
6. Jesus does the will of the Father (Heb 10:7): ‘See, God, I have come to do your will’; ‘Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ (Lk 2:49); ‘My hour has not yet come’ On 2:5); ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’ (Jn 12:23); ‘It is for this reason that I have come to this hour’ (Jn 12:27); ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work’ (Jn 4:34); ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want’ (Mt 26:39)..
7. Jesus has completely fulfilled the Father’s plan (Lk 23:46): ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ ‘It is finished’ (Jn 19:30).
Growth
The master used to assert the great idea
that in this matter of growth
all should go at their own pace.
He used to illustrate this theory
by telling his students this:
Someone saw a butterfly
struggling to get out of its cocoon…
The process of emergence was painful
and slow for someone watching.
So the man began
to blow his friendly warm breath
on the little bug
to help it emerge.
Indeed, he hastened things
and the butterfly was born,
but its tiny wings
ended up atrophied!
The master then finished by saying:
‘In growth, my friends, things
cannot be hastened – to do so is disastrous.
Hastened growth will end up aborted!’
4
Exercise – Breathing God
1. Return to exercise number 2. Concentrate again on your breathing. Become aware of the fact: the air entering, the air leaving. Warm air, cool air. The air filling your lungs, the air going out.
2. Reflect on deeper levels: the atmosphere is charged with God’s presence. Inhale God as you inhale the air. As you inhale the air that supplies oxygen to your blood, feel how God also enters into you, how God purifies, renews, and fortifies.
3. The outgoing air is a polluted current, carrying off the impurities there. It carries away selfishness, cowardice. As it is replaced, you are filled with love, strength, and goodness.
4. Exhaling the air may be thought of as sending out acts of praise, thanksgiving, grace, energy, love, and forgiveness.
Focus
• In doing relaxation exercises, we avoid thoughts, but rather simply observe, as though we were beside a flowing river, or rolling ocean waves.
• These and other relaxation and silence exercises which lead us to feel God’s presence within us may already be true prayer and may be extended at will.
Contemplation – Let Yourselves Be Reconciled
1. Sin in the bible: The biblical story is not always edifying: Adam’s sin (Gen 3:1-24); Cain’s sin (Gen 4:1-6); David’s sin (2 Sam 11-12); Judas’s sin (In 13:21-30).
2. Sin is against God’s holiness (Bar 1:15-17): ‘Justice is with the Lord, our God: and we today are flushed with shame… that we . .. have sinned in the Lord’s sight…’
3. Sin is idolatry (Bar 1:22): ‘. ..but each one of us went off after the devices of our own wicked hearts, served other gods, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, our God.’
4. Sin is slavery (Bar 2:5): ‘We are brought low, not raised up, because we sinned against the Lord, our God, not heeding his voice.’
5. Sin is loneliness and exile (Bar 3:8): ‘Behold us today in our captivity, where you scattered us, a reproach, a curse, and a requital for all the misdeeds of our fathers, who withdrew from the Lord, our God.’
6. We are all sinners (1 Jn 1:8-10): ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.’
7. But sin does not have the last word (Eph 2:4-5): ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved.’
One of the most disconcerting (and at the same time most delightful) points of the master’s teachings was this: God is closer to sinners than to saints. . . Here is how he explained that idea:
God, up there, in heaven, is holding on to each person with a string. Every time you sin, you cut the string; but God fixes the string again, with a love knot. Since this knot makes the string shorter, you are also a bit closer to God. Thus each sin cuts it, and each cut means a knot, and each knot draws you closer to God.
5
Exercise – Breathing God: Wordless Communication
1. Repeat exercise number 2. Concentrate again on your breathing. Become aware of the air entering your lungs. . .and the air leaving.
2. Note your diaphragm filling and emptying.
3. Inhale and exhale several times gently. Feel the air going hrough your nose and being exhaled through your mouth. Warm air… cool air.
4. Focus your attention on yourself, on the Self that is breathing. Feel how the ‘Self’ is different from the breathing. You may say, ‘I am not my breathing.’
5. The air is charged with God’s presence. Inhale God as you inhale air. Express desire, hunger, and thirst for God.
6. Desire that he permeate and purify you, as the air that invades your lungs purifies your blood. As the air that gives your blood oxygen, God’s presence is refreshing and energising.
7. Inhale deeply, desiring that God purify your life and fill it with goodness.
8. In exhaling the air, express repentance for your sins and omissions. Experience also the desire to surrender yourself. Put emphasis on this surrender as you exhale air from your lungs.
9. Consciously repeat inhalings and exhalings, giving them the meaning of surrender, love, familiarity, praise, thanksgiving, adoration, purification, and forgiveness. St Ignatius used to recommend this kind of rhythmic prayer combined with breathing.
Focus
Our desires for God are acts of love.
• This and other exercises can purify us, as the act of contrition purifies, depending on our faith and God’s grace.
• The experience of feeling that one is a sinner is true and salvific, if it is the experience of the love of God who frees humankind from sin. The experience of this prayer is that of seeing oneself purified, saved by the love of Jesus, who poured out his blood on the cross for all.
• Knowledge of sin, if true, is the work of the Holy Spirit, and never leads us to discouragement. It is a certainty of feeling that we are purified by God’s love in Jesus Christ. ‘The fact that I make known to you your sins is a clear sign that I want to heal you’ (Pascal).
Contemplation – God is rich in mercy
1. We have an advocate, Christ (1 Jn 2:1-2): ‘My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.’
2. The lost sheep is found (Lk 15:3-7): ‘So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’
3. Jesus is the Good Shepherd (In 10:11, 14, 17): ‘I am the good shepherd. ‘(he good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me … For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.’
4. A new heart (Ez 36:25-26): ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’
5. Put off the old man (Eph 4:22-24): ‘You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourself with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.’
Lost Sheep
A sheep found a hole in the fence and got out through it, happy to find itself, at last, set free.
It walked for a long time and lost the way back home.
Only then did it see
that a hungry wolf was following it close behind.
The sheep ran and the wolf ran even more
until the shepherd arrived in time, and saved the animal,
and took it home very tenderly.
And against the advice of his friends
who saw what happened,
the shepherd refused to close up the hole
in the fence through which the sheep had fled, because, he said, ‘It must be guaranteed its freedom!’
At Christ’s Feet
At the feet of Christ crucified
let me ask, with Ignatius of Loyola:
What have I done for Christ?
What am I doing for Christ?
What must I do for Christ?
