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Healing Through Imaginative Prayer: Being set free from infirmity

This week begins our guided imaginative prayer reflections.  This week’s scripture is the cure of the crippled woman on the Sabbath.  It is one of the beautiful stories in scripture where Jesus sees the crippled woman and responds to her deepest desires.

As you pray with this scripture, I invite you to consider, where might you feel crippled in your life?  What might be weighing you do so much and for so long that you are bent over as the crippled woman was for eighteen years?

May God set you each free from your infirmity!

Week 1 Guided Imaginative Prayer: Cure of the Crippled Woman on the Sabbath

https://soundcloud.com/beldredge98/healing-through-imaginative-prayer-week-1

Click here to listen!

Steps of Ignatian Contemplation or Imaginative Prayer (Adapted from Busy Lives & Restless Souls)

  1. Select a Scripture: Pick a passage from one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  
  2. Read:  Read the passage several times slowly so that you almost know the story well enough to share with another person.  
  3. Imagine the Scene:  Close your eyes, and imagine the scene. Imagine what the scene looks like.   Who is in the scene? What are they doing? Where are they located? What do you notice about the environment?  What smells are there? What sounds? Let the Holy Spirit guide this unfolding in your mind for you.
  4. Put yourself in the scene:  As the scene begins to take shape in your mind, put yourself in the scene.  Notice where you are.
  5. Notice what happens:  Let the story unfold in your mind.  Stay with it until you feel nudged to move to reflection.  
  6. Respond and Rest:Share with God what you noticed and experienced.  Then rest in God and let God speak to you.
  7. Reflect: Reflect back on what you experienced in prayer.  What did you learn about Jesus? About God? About another character in the scripture?  About yourself?

Go Deeper?

Cultivating Space for God Together:

Taking Stock:  Living Our Greater Yeses

As women, we are skilled at multi-tasking. Sometimes life might feel like we are trying to tend to multiple boiling pots on a stove that all need our attention simultaneously.   Being pulled in many directions can cause us to neglect our own spiritual lives and feel like we have little left to give to our main prioritie

Join us for a day of reflection on Saturday, July 21,2018 from 9:00AM-2:30PM as we pause and take stock of our lives.  Learn ways to nurture your relationship with God so that your spiritual life guides your commitments.  Leave renewed with a clearer focus of how to live your greater yeses and make sure the pots on your stove are the ones God is actually inviting you to tend. Register here!

Women’s Ignatian Silent Retreat: Joy of the Encounter

Join us for a Women’s Ignatian Silent Retreat from August 23-26, 2018 focused on the Ignatian Exercises. Stop and enjoy a weekend of reflection, rediscovery, and refreshment. The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. Click here to learn more!

Becky Eldredge
July 9, 2018
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