Ignatian Reading

 Earlier, I posted a reflection of my devotional reading of the Luke passage for my class using Lectio Divina.  Another type of devotional reading we were asked to do was to read the post Ignatian Style.  I actually found that one to be more fruitful for me.

I read through the chosen passage, Luke 18:18-25. As I read, I noticed a couple of things I had missed before. This passage is also in Matthew (19:16-22) and Mark (10:17-31), and I think I was hearing those in my head when I read the Luke passage previously.  In Mark, the passage says, “Jesus loved him…” and in both Matthew and Mark, the young man leaves the scene, sad, before Jesus talks about the rich entering the kingdom, and how with God, all things are possible.  In Luke, there is nothing that says the man leaves, and Jesus tells HIM how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

When I pictured the scene, I saw it as Jesus, the disciples, and others seated on the ground (a cleared area, maybe sand) around a fire, talking.  I entered the scene as one of the people in the circle, listening to the young man and Jesus talking. I would have smelled the fire and the people around me, heard the crackling of the fire, Jesus and the man talking as well as the people around me whispering to each other. I would have seen Jesus and the man as well as the others, maybe not as clearly as I could have in the day because of the smoke from the fire. The light would have helped to illuminate the scene.  (I have no idea why I pictured it at night).

As I thought about the scene, I wondered how the people were reacting. I wondered if they would have resented the Ruler who felt sad about selling what he owned, but they don’t seem to be resentful.  By their questions, they seem to be defending the young man, maybe because they don’t like this reversal of the world – they don’t want to sell what they have, either. They think they are obedient; after all, they are following Jesus. They see in the young man part of themselves – the fear of letting go of what they own, the selfishness of not wanting to do what Jesus asks.  And they are disbelieving – how is this even possible. They don’t seem to be comforted by the idea that with God, all things are possible.

The thoughts in the third paragraph above are what I shared with God in prayer at the end of the time using this method.