Phase Two, Week Two For Non-Christians: the Gift of Incarnation and Life

For most of the second, third and fourth phases of this retreat, my focus will be on the prayer experience of Christians. I am not discriminating against non-Christians. I am just being realistic about my own training. I pray that non-Christians themselves can learn to adapt the Spiritual Exercises to their own spirituality. Nonetheless,when I sense inter-religious possibilities, I will explore them.

As Christians ponder the birth of Jesus as the birth of the son of God, non-Christians may want to ponder the birth of a great prophet and teacher. There is another possibility: it may profit all people to contemplate the reality of incarnation. As a Christian, I believe that the second person of the Trinity became incarnate in the person of Jesus. There are Christians whose Christology may use language a little different from my own. I respect that, but let's contemplate the reality of incarnation. We are all incarnate. We have bodies. As a Christian, I believe that the holiness of my incarnate condition is tied in an integral way to the incarnation of Jesus, but incarnation is a reality I share with non-Christians.

If you are not a Christian, it may be profitable to take some time to contemplate what it means that the holy is found in the material. The holy is found in the tender skin and fragility of a baby. It may help to use Ignatius' method of finding God in all things--what Howard Gray describes as attentiveness leading to reverence which leads to devotion. Allow yourself to be attentive to the birth of any child: let the scene become itself. Do not force an identity on the scene. A mother laboring. A child is born. The child lies there. What do you see? What do you hear? When you touch the child, what do you feel? What do you smell? There's nothing like the smell of a baby.

Next, accept and esteem what you are noticing and feeling. Find the good of holding that baby. Accept the experience.

You are then moved to devotion--the way that God is working in the birth of that child.

I hope this helps! May the God we all worship through our acts of prayer and meditation enlighten all of us to respect the beauty, truth, and goodness of human life! May we all respect children and labor to deliver them from warfare, terrorism, famine, injustice, exploitation, and all evils that currently oppress children!

Peace! Namaste! Shalom! As-Salamu Alaykum!