Week 28 - The New Creation

Welcome to this Ignatian meditation. I begin by placing myself before God who is looking at me with love.

Theme:

The theme is “The New Creation”.

What has happened to Jesus who passed through death, becomes slowly more visible as one experience builds on another. And Jesus also takes me by the hand. He wants me to also be a part of the New Creation: in a new way of looking at God, of looking at my life, of looking at others. But a new way of looking doesn’t happen by itself. It happens one step at a time.

What I may wish to ask:

That I can let Jesus lead me, one step at a time, along the way of discovering that new way of looking.

Muziek: The Gadfly, Op.97:3. Youth (Romance),

Dmitri Shostakovich,

By Barry Wordsworth, Janine Jansen, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Spotify

John 20, 19-22

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 

After the death of Jesus the disciples have lost their friend, their teacher and their future. They are scared of the outside world and turn inwards, shutting themselves off. I look back on moments in my own life when I felt abandoned. What was that like for me?

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Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 

Then suddenly Jesus is there where nobody else can come. Jesus shows with his wounds of crucifixion that He knows human suffering and sorrow. Nothing more is needed. When I look back at the moments when I shut myself off from the world around me, do I recognize the experience that even in the deepest dark corner of my life I am not alone? Did that give me a feeling of peace?

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Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus wishes his friends peace not once but twice. I imagine that Jesus wishes me peace. What could that peace mean for me in my life?

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Jesus calls us just as His Father called him from his Spirit: not to do something but to be there for others, in joy and sadness, out of love. I look back on the last period of my life. Was I there for somebody? Was someone there for me?

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