Praying with Bartimaeus

This post is based on Week Six of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.

Before I was a Jesuit, I worked in the corporate world for an American computer company near London. Slowly I became tired of the self-indulgence of my carefree yuppie lifestyle, and I ended up in a bad place personally. The lack of purpose and real meaning was soul-sapping. Something inside me rebelled and clamored for my attention that this lifestyle was not right. When I look back from the Jesuit point of view, it was desolation, a sense of unease and moving away from God, a wake-up call.

Out of desperation I went to a silent retreat at the Benedictine Abbey on the Isle of Wight. One night in the darkened chapel I got this insight, “You have to get out of England. The lifestyle is killing you.” Impelled to action, I got the chance to emigrate to Australia and a new start. I was determined to renew my faith and resolve the interior emptiness I felt.

Providentially I was inspired by one charismatic Jesuit, who began meeting me regularly for what I now realize was spiritual direction. He introduced me to the story of Bartimaeus, a man who was blind (Mark 10:46–52), and asked me to use my imagination to enter into the story. I could easily picture the scene and could see the place and the people, but it took me a while to see myself there. To my great surprise, the story spoke to me, and this continued unfolding over several months as I prayed with those simple seven verses. There was something about Bartimaeus crying for help, calling out in desperation, and how he had to cast off his cloak to come to Jesus. Slowly I realized I was the one that was blind and in need of help, that I was trapped in a “cloak” of inanity and had to cast it off and make some major life changes.

At that same time, I was attending some retreats at the Sydney Jesuit center, which was also the Jesuit novitiate. I felt at home there among the novices. After two years I resigned from my position and returned to Ireland to join the Jesuit novitiate in Dublin and began a new rewarding life of following Jesus and ministering in his name. I will never forget the crucial role of that story of Bartimaeus from Mark’s Gospel and how God worked powerfully through my imagination to awaken me to a new life in Christ.

Pick a Gospel story that allows Jesus to speak to you and your life. Use your imagination to put yourself in the scene, to see it, smell it, and taste it, and have a two-way conversation with Jesus. The experience might lead you to new life too.

“Bartimeo almozulo de la evangelio” image by Wikipedia bo under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.