Week One Exercise 1 - From Above

Preparation – At your prayer place, recognize any feelings of hopefulness about something you are anticipating. Consider how God longs to fulfill your most earnest hopes. Make a gesture of reverence, such as the Sign of the Cross.

Opening Prayer –Ask for the grace to enter into the spirit of Advent, a time of hope, longing, joy and peace. Desire to hear God saying, "I am your hope" over all the other voices of this day.

Suggested Readings –

Isaiah 40:27-31    Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength

Psalm 33:12-22    We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield

As you prepare for this time of prayer using your imagination, find a comfortable place to sit with your back straight and your feet on the floor. Notice your breathing as you breathe normally. Close your eyes and prepare to listen to whatever God may say to you during this prayer.

Imaginative Prayer – Imagine that you are lifted into the earth’s atmosphere where you can sense events and emotions from all over the world. Suspended there, you become aware of conflicts all around—wars, disasters, families coming apart, people despairing. The scenes come to you in waves. As these waves crash into you and all around, you feel them add weight to your body and soul. You feel yourself take on the sorrow, grief, rage, and confusion caused by sin in the world. You carry the hopelessness that numbs and paralyzes. You drift through the sky, growing heavier and groggier, as if the world’s woes have taken away your voice and your ability to think or act.

After a while, a clear tone cuts through the murky atmosphere. It is bright and high and yet deep and beautiful—like a trumpet blasting multiple notes at once. A light accompanies the sound, and you can feel the dark masses of hopelessness melting away as it approaches. Your eyes and ears seem to open, and you recover the sensation of being yourself, with the ability to hope and to make choices. The heaviness you had collected from the world’s darkness sifts away, leaving you light and full of clean, new breath.

You recognize the One whose light it is. He speaks about how the world is, and you weep to hear this truth. You weep for all who have suffered in every time and place. You weep out of relief that Jesus has known all the trouble and anguish you have felt. Your own pain is real. You have suffered, too. He proclaims this truth without hesitation.

Then his words change, and the brightness grows. Now he speaks of mercy, forgiveness, healing and hope. His voice sends waves of fresh air across skies and seas, and you can feel humanity and all creation respond with lifted faces, open hearts. Even the most desolate begin to have hope, to dream anew.

Now, you descend back into your ordinary life, and you find that you are free—free to be hopeful, and eager to be a source of hope to others.

Meditation adapted from Arts & Faith: Advent—First Sunday Imaginative Prayer Exercise by Vinita Hampton Wright. ignatianspirituality.com.

Conversation – Ask God to help you view your life from His perspective. Tell God about the situations that concern you today. As you do, God will increase your sense of hope. Trust God to use anything you are going through to fulfill good purposes in your life. God’s intentions toward you are always good. Take the next step that God leads you to take. Then rest in God with the hope and confidence that God will provide what you need. End by praying an Our Father.

Reflection – Looking down on the Earth today, what is God seeing? What do you notice about our world today? How is hope visible in your life? Where has it faded? What is one way in which you have experienced hope today?

Activity – Look around your community and observe where there are people in need. Can you give a little of your time or gifts to respond to one of those needs, to help them experience a little more hope, in the weeks ahead?