The Gaze of God
July is St. Ignatius de Loyola’s month, so to speak, since we celebrate his feast on July 31. So much has been written on his Spiritual Exercises and what I would like to share is just a very small aspect of my experience of making it year by year. I am struck by the method of prayer called “contemplation.” In prayer we are asked to “contemplate” a mystery in the life of Jesus, for example. For me, it means to enter into the mystery by gazing on the scene, by listening and looking. Contemplation invites us to gaze deeply and profoundly into the event. Thus it is not just to look, nor to see but to GAZE. When one gazes at something, the “gazer” becomes affected by the object of the gaze. As when one contemplates something happens and the process transforms.