“Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” (John 13:31). Jesus speaks these words in our Gospel passage today. The scene is the Last Supper and Judas has just left to put his betrayal of Jesus into action. The suffering and death of Jesus has begun and yet Jesus says it is the hour of his glory and of God’s glory too.

We have had articles in this space during Lent and Easter which invited us to pray with Scripture passages in an imaginative way—seeing the setting imaginatively as though we were present, seeing the persons, hearing what they are saying and observing the action. This kind of prayer, a form of contemplation, allows you to participate personally in the event.

Sometimes though, a Scripture passage doesn’t present a scene which you could imagine being in. Instead, the passage may be a statement or a series of statements of revealed truth and you are invited to consider what is being affirmed, to understand and assent to it and to make your own. This is the kind of passage that we have in today’s Gospel. With this type of Scripture, rather than trying to imagine a scene, you could use a meditative approach to pray over it. This would involve more thinking than imagining, but it would also involve love. You could call this kind of prayer loving reflection on revealed truth.

As Fr. Michael Burbeck of our diocese told some of us not too long ago, you would pray with this type of passage “point by point,” rather than “all at once.” And Fr. Burbeck recommends doing three steps with each point. He says, “1) I call to mind this truth, with love, 2) I ponder it, with love, and 3) I embrace it, with love and desire.” (Do you notice how much love you are doing in this prayer?) You may not get to each point of the passage in the time that you have for prayer, but as St. Ignatius would say, “getting through” a passage is not what matters. The important thing is to be present to God and to allow God to be present to you. So if you are praying with today’s Gospel passage, first call to mind, with love, the truth of what Jesus is saying—that his passing through this agony of suffering and death is his entering into glory, to the glory of God. Then, ponder the truth of that, again with love—the redemption of humankind is the great victory of Jesus, his most glorious moment and the Father’s as well. Then, finally, embrace what Jesus has said, with love and desire—he loves you so much that the very moment of his glory is his saving you and winning for you eternal life. Are you not moved to love a God who has so loved you?

This kind of prayer is also very Ignatian. It’s not so imaginative, but it places you in touch with God through the truth he has revealed. In another place, Jesus says, “The Spirit of truth … will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:13) Prayer is an important place where the Spirit does its work!

In prayer,
Fr. Bruce Bavinger, S.J.
Parochial Vicar