February 2024
The
following is a possible framework for the Witnessing of the Word. It can be
personalised or altered: its purpose is to serve as an example of how this
Saying might be used primarily in the context of a Prayer Group, but it may be
used by individuals too. It is not intended to be definitive. In the context of a group: the periods of
silence should be appropriate for your group - probably not less than 5
minutes, or more than 15 minutes.
Saying
for the month: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ John 14.6 (GN).
In
your time of contemplation, you may like to shorten this to ‘I am the Way’.
To
begin the exercise, first spend a short while in relaxation and preparing to be
still; you may want to relax your way through your muscles or you may find it
helpful to become aware of the sounds around you and then put them aside as you
offer this time of prayer to God.
Say
this introductory invitation to prayer, then keep a further minute or two of
silence: ‘Come to me, all you who are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11.28).
Introduction
to the first silence - a preparation for listening with the mind:
‘I
am the way, the truth and the life’.
The
context of this saying in St John’s Gospel, chapter 13 is the last supper and
the events that accompanied it. Jesus is telling the disciples that He will be
leaving them, but that they will follow Him. The response from Thomas is ‘Lord,
we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’.
Thomas
is often called ‘doubting Thomas’ because of his questioning of the
resurrection of Christ. Here perhaps he was not so much doubting as desperate,
despairing, confused; wanting to get to the bottom of all that was happening.
Sometimes he is known as ‘didymus’, the twin, though exactly whose twin is not
known. He is associated with India,
known as the apostle of the East, as he reputedly took Christianity to the
south and east of the boundaries of the Roman empire round about AD 50. Some of
the best known images of Thomas are in medieval and Renaissance art: he was
said to have witnessed the assumption of the Virgin Mary, and in an inversion
of the story of Thomas' doubts, the other apostles are sceptical of his story
until they see the empty tomb and the girdle. So there are some wonderful
depictions of the Virgin in heaven, dropping a girdle down to an earthly
Thomas.
In
this first silence we try and use our minds to deepen our understanding of the Saying
we are using for February, and one way that we can do this is to try and
imagine what it was like to hear the words for the first time: to be there with
Thomas, to imagine him, his personality, his impatience, his wanting instant
results perhaps. Often that use of our
imagination can be vividly illuminating.
So
try and imagine this scene: rather like the sultry and oppressive closeness
before a thunderstorm, there is probably a bit of an ‘atmosphere’ as the
disciples gather together on that evening before Passover. Thomas, like his friends around him, was
troubled about Christ’s impending betrayal by an unknown hand; he was upset and
anxious about Jesus leaving them; confused by Jesus’ apparent assumption that
they know what is going on: ‘you know the way where I am going’. Jesus himself, John writes, was ‘troubled in
spirit’. The disciples may have sensed
that and it could in turn have made them uneasy and anxious.
‘We
do not know where you are going – how can we know the way?’, asked Thomas. Perhaps he was beginning to get irritated and
resentful, as we often do when we don’t understand something or we can’t manage
to do something. We can imagine that
everyone was beginning to feel an uneasy premonition that something was going
to happen over which they had no control: ‘We do not know where you are going –
how can we know the way?’.
Now
imagine Christ replying: what was His tone of voice? Was He animated or serene? Did He seem confident, or was He also trying
to explain things to Himself as He speaks at length to the disciples in the two
or three chapters that follow? ‘I am the
way, the truth and the life”, He declares.
Try and imagine the effect these words have on their hearers as they
seek to make sense of all that seems to be happening around them: ‘I am the
way, the truth and the life’.
We
take this Saying into our minds, allowing the saying to speak to us:
‘I
am the way, the truth, and the life’.
A
time is now kept for silence of the mind – perhaps between 5 and 15
minutes. The silence concludes with a
short thanksgiving, and/or feel free to repeat the Saying.
The
first silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you for the gift of your
Word.
Introduction
to the second silence - a preparation for listening with the heart:
‘I
am the way, the truth, and the life’.
You
will often find the words ‘I AM’ written in capitals, used as another name for
the Supreme Reality, the One who Is The All and the Source of All … There is a whole theology behind them which
bears exploration.
In
St. John’s Gospel, these ‘I am’ sayings often act as punctuation marks. In the other gospels, the person of Jesus is
almost self-effacing, mysteriously anonymous: here however is a vivid painting
of the life of Jesus, bringing out and highlighting the texture and underlying
meaning of His teachings:
I
am the good shepherd
I
am the true vine
I
am the door
I
am the resurrection and the life
I
am the bread of life
I
am the light of the world
and
I
am the way, the truth and the life.
Where
are we going? We are going, taken by
Jesus, to the Father. And Christ doesn’t
tell us about the way; He is the way. He tells us that not only is He the way, the
road – He is also the truth – the route map, with the cross as the compass
pointing us in the right direction. Being
a Christian is to be in receipt of Grace, of Christ’s promise to come back and
take us to be with Him. Unlike the man in
the joke who, when asked for directions, said: ‘If I was going there, I
wouldn’t start from here’, Jesus comes to where we are and takes us with Him.
He
is the road – we should walk him. He is
the truth – we should know him. He is
the life – we should live him. All that
God wants to be to us and to give to us is made manifest and fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. So as we walk him, know him and
live him, by this means we come to true knowledge of God.
These
‘I am’ sayings reveal the truth about the God we worship and the Lord that we
follow. They are like mini parables,
like an ikon in an orthodox shrine, glowing with luminescent colour, drawing
our eyes, our imagination, our devotion. In our second silence we try to engage with
our saying, not intellectually but prayerfully, with our hearts, holding the Saying
as if it were a lovely smooth stone, cradling it tenderly so that the truth it
contains can enter into us, taking us on our journey towards oneness with God.
‘I
am the way, the truth and the life’: this Saying is a New Year starter pack as
we try and draw nearer to God this year in our three-fold way of prayer:
God
is Truth: that which really is; the mind or thinking part of our prayer.
Jesus
is the Way: that which we follow and the way by which (via experience and
understanding) we arrive at Truth; the heart of our prayer.
The
Spirit is Life: the energy which enables us not only to follow the Way but to
gather others to us on the journey; the intercessionary part of our prayer.
Now
we take this Word into our hearts, as we allow Jesus’ words to speak in us, to
touch us and work more deeply upon our lives, listening as He says to us: ‘I am
the way, the truth and the life’.
A
time is now kept for silence of the heart – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.
The
second silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you that your Word is
alive and within us.
Introduction
to the time of intercession – taking God’s word outwards into the world.
‘I
am the way, the truth and the life’.
Say
the name of a person or a group of people, and after a short pause, repeat the
saying. For example:
‘Alison
and your family … “I am the way, the truth and the life”’, or ‘Alison and your
family … “I am the way”’.
As
we allow the word to speak through us we might direct Jesus’ word towards those
people and situations where there is need of direction and support, of
reassurance and encouragement.
Conclude
this time of intercession with words of thanksgiving: Father, we thank you that
your Word has gone out through us to those for whom we pray.
The
Conclusion
Feel
free to use the Fellowship Prayer (below) or another closing prayer to conclude
your time of contemplative prayer:
Loving
Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your unsearchable riches which pour forth
from you as light from the sun, in boundless profusion and generosity, whether
received, ignored or rejected. And now we offer to you, in so far as we are
able, as an emptiness to be filled with your divine fullness, ourselves, our
souls and bodies; all that we are, all that we have and all that we do. Amen
You may wish to say the Grace together before departing.