Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

One of the gifts of Ignatian spirituality is the invitation to bring your imagination to prayer. It takes practice but once grasped can offer great insight. It requires some detachment from your surroundings, a quiet place, time, and the willingness to dream.

When you feel tired, lonely or confused by the world around you hearing Jesus saying the words from today’s Gospel, “ Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest,” is comforting.

 Imagine sitting with Jesus as he listens to whatever is on your mind. You could be sitting in your living room by the fireplace with a log burning or on a park bench just as the sun is setting or on a rock overlooking the sea. If you are a busy mother or father of young children your head might just be hitting the pillow before sleep.

The next step would be to take in all your surroundings, the temperature of the air, the breeze if you’re outside, and the smells of cooking or baking that might waft in. Listen for background noises. Truly put yourself in the scene. See and feel Jesus sitting there with you, calm with nothing but your concerns on his mind, and then pour your heart out. How would that feel? What might you learn?

An image that came to mind when I read these words about being burdened and needing rest was those groups named as marginalized in the synod reports from around the world. These groups include women, LGBTQ persons, and divorced and remarried Catholics to name a few.

I can easily imagine people from any one of these groups and a number of others gathered around Jesus telling him how tired they are of being ignored or worse not welcome. I see them in a large room encouraging each other to go talk to Jesus and explain their frustrations. There’s the coffee pot and the round tables and chairs of a church meeting room. Finally, one of them takes a deep breath and approaches Jesus, nervous but hopeful knowing he or she represents the group. You can finish this scene as you imagine it might be.

Today there was a story in the newspaper about the last few men in the Guantanamo Bay prison who have been cleared to leave but have not found a country that will take them. The article cited agony, brutality, and hopelessness within the walls of the facility.   I imagined Jesus saying, “I will give you rest,” but couldn't go any further. It was too difficult.

Yet, if we believe the words of Jesus there is hope even in the most difficult of places and circumstances.

Peace,

Anne

A Day’s Walk Through Jerusalem

 When my wife and I travel, we like to walk through a city; we like to get lost and then be found. So, on our recent trip to the Holy Land, we decided to break free from our pilgrim travel mates and disappear into the crowd.

As the tour bus stopped at the crest of the Mount of Olives, our Jewish-Mexican tour guide, Rafael, eyed us with concern. Seguros?” (“Are you sure?”) he asked. Seguros!” we answered. He let us off and the bus filled with our fellow pilgrims trundled off toward Masada. We were now alone, on our own, completely lost in Jerusalem.

First stop: Church of the Pater Noster. We linked up with a group of pilgrims led by two guitar-slinging Danish priests. We soon found ourselves crowded into a tight cavern, under the church. We all prayed the Our Father aloud in our various native tongues. We no longer felt so lost.

Down the hill, we found the Tombs of the Prophets. Jameel, the guide who had been doing this for 70 years, led us with a thin, dim candle through a labyrinth of caves, where he showed us where Old Testament prophets and their disciples rested.

Further downhill, we came to Dominus Flevit, where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. We sat in the chapel overlooking the massive Temple Mount in the near distance. At the bottom of the hill, we came to the Garden of Gethsemane and, a stone’s throw away, the Church of All Nations. In front of the altar is the rock where Jesus sweated blood while Peter, John, and James slept in the garden.

Crossing the Kidron Valley -- laden with graves that had been there since before Christ we entered the old city through The Lion’s Gate. Meandering westward, we walked the Via Dolorosa. Bronze plaques announced in Latin:

Here. Jesus was condemned.

Here. Jesus was scourged.

Here. Jesus was imprisoned.

Here. Jesus was crucified, laid out, entombed, and rose from the dead.

We continued through the bazaar, haggling for olive wood tchotchkes, and ended up at the western Jaffa Gate on our way back to the hotel. We got lost again. And again, even with my phone’s navigation app.

At one point, a young Jewish mother pushing a baby stroller pointed our way -- in perfect American English. We got lost again. I went into a coffee bar and asked for directions from the Yarmulked barista, who spoke no English. A young Muslim woman wearing a burka and with a beautiful smile, asked for my phone and tapped in our destination. We were on our way again.

We weaved our way through all sorts of neighborhoods. Muslim, Jewish, and Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods with bearded men in black suits, broad-brimmed hats, and tzitzis and long-skirted women with many children in tow. We felt safe but still lost. Then suddenly, we turned a corner and there it was: The Saint George Hotel. Our hotel. Lost, now found.

It was the adventure of a lifetime.



Gary N. Pontrelli

Gary and Maria Elena Pontrelli

Gary Pontrelli feels privileged to have been educated by Jesuits at Loyola High School and St. Louis University Medical School. He joined Ignatians West in 2016 and serves at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard where he practiced pathology off and on for 35 years or so. In addition to serving as an Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister at the hospital, he is also a member of the hospital’s Ethics Committee and Quality Improvement Board. In his words," It has been an honor to serve this hospital with such an important presence in our community.

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