As it turns out, this was one of those Sundays, the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, for which I did not have any Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ homily notes or poems. There are a couple of reasons I can think of — the “Eleventh Sunday” might fall during one of the two Solemnities of the Lord this time of year (Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi Sunday); this started to be vacation time for the Jesuits after the super hectic school year (even if you weren’t in Campus Ministry proper); and sometimes … I just might not have made it to the one or two Masses on the “Eleventh Sunday” that he actually preached. Or, maybe there is an Eleventh Sunday OT poem hiding in my collection of poem “orts,” poems that I know he read to us (by my hearing or someone else’s) but I/we couldn’t place the Mass.
However, I can share some of the ways he taught us how to engage with scripture.
First and foremost, Ignatian contemplation — imagine yourself in the gospel (usually) scene. Observe and feel, use your senses — smell, touch, hearing, taste, sight, your social sense — and feel. Yes, that’s right experience your emotions. One of the gifts of St Ignatius of Loyola to the Church is that he shared that God is in our imaginations, too (since God created human imagination!). Those feelings — joy, elation, anxiety, fear, courage, distrust, anger, frustration, and more — those are the experiences we then share with our best friend, Jesus Christ, who can and will only meet us in Love in the scripture. I find these moments of shared humanity and Christ’s gift of restored divinity to us, as God’s Created, help me understand the Love in even difficult or perturbing gospels. Or, be at peace with my lack of understanding for now.
His understanding of his own reading of scripture then led him into the theological underpinning and to poems, new ones and ones he was familiar with after 1/2 century of engagement. He might find several poems for a particular Sunday, and there might be different ones shared at different Masses once he experienced how their shared prayer in a particular Mass was unfolding.
D2 also shared how various scripture commentaries (e.g., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Eds I and II, and now III), helped him, as well as a tight line-by-line Greek to English translation in the Left Behind and Loving It blog.
Of course, there were many, many films. This is a good reminder to me to put up the selections from our parish film series.
And, many books — again, ranging from fiction to formal academic tomes and all kinds of genres in-between that might help us understand the humanity and divinity of the gospel. One of the books of his final recommendations is The Diary of Jesus Christ by Bill Cain, SJ.
The Surest Sign 