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The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
Cardinal “Ambo” David on blending biblical scholarship with Ignatian contemplation
00:41:17
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- [00:01]
A
Santa Clara University's new Cunningham Showquist center for Applied AI and Human Potential asks a simple question. How can we develop real world AI applications that put people first? The answers could make a world of difference. To learn more, visit SCU Eduai Center.
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B
There was some point when the Jesuits made me realize that I had to pray if I needed to survive the many trials that I had to face in my life. So I am like that now. I pray not because I'm required to pray, but because I have to survive the ministry. I call prayer my survival mechanism. I wouldn't do without it.
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A
Welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Fr. Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their prayer and in their daily lives. And I'm joined by my sleepy producer, Maggie Van Dorn. Maggie, good to be with you. Why are we a little sleepy tonight?
- [01:07]
C
We're sleepy because we're recording this episode at night. If you're watching on video on YouTube, you might be able to see the difference, but that's because we have a guest today from the Philippines. So he's recording in the morning, 12 hours ahead, and we're recording at night.
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A
And that guest is is our friend, Cardinal Ambo. Can you tell us about Cardinal Ambo?
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C
Yes. So Cardinal Ambo from The Philippines, that's 12 hours ahead of us. So his official name is Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David. He does go by Cardinal Ambo for short. And Jim and Cardinal Ambo have a very fun conversation about that. He is the Bishop of Kalaokan in the Philippines and was the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines from 2021-20. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals in 2024 by Pope Francis. And in Kalaokan, he established 21 urban mission stations in poor areas to accompany, protect and empower communities, especially those that had been affected by extrajudicial killings carried out by the government's war on drugs and which were opposed by multiple human rights organizations. Cardinal Ambo brings a real focus of mercy for those struggling with mental health issues and drug addiction and those just living on the margins. He has a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of Louvain and is a formidable biblical scholar in his own right, which made for a really fruitful conversation on Ignatian contemplation or an imaginative reading of Scripture. So, Jim, could you say a word about this Ignatian approach to Scripture?
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A
I can definitely explain the Ignatian approach to Scripture. I also want to say briefly why we're having him on. I Met Cardinal Ambo at the synod, and he was one of the most welcoming, joyful, friendly people you could ever want to meet. And he's very popular and well known in his home country. But back to Ignatian contemplation, which he talks about very interestingly as a scripture scholar. So here's someone who is really grounded in scripture, knows the scripture. Right. And talks about Ignatian contemplation is sort of, you know, coloring between the lines or filling in the dots, I think, is his metaphor. Ignatian contemplation really invites us to use our imaginations to enter into a scripture scene. So we ask ourselves, when we're praying, what do I see? What do I feel? What do I hear? What do I taste? To really kind of jump into the scripture scene, as one Jesuit said, you're not just sort of looking at it from afar. You are knee deep in the Jordan River. Right. You're kind of there. But I really think, you know, one of the benefits of his background is that it's not simply, as he said, just sort of fantastical, you know, imaginings. And it's not just sort of people kind of going off on their own. It is grounded in the Bible, in the text itself. Yeah. And he talks about, you know, that kind of, I would say, tension between, you know, really sticking to the text. Right. And understanding what the text means and maybe using a Bible commentary or an annotated New Testament and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through your imagination. So it's a really fruitful part of our conversation. And I think it's kind of a Both. And it's not simply you imagine what's going on or you just look at the text, you know, sort of, you know, in kind of rigorous way. It's both. It's allowing for both. And I think he describes that very well.
- [04:42]
C
Yeah. We're very lucky to have a biblical scholar on who also practices this kind of Ignatian contemplation. And the audience question that we have this week, I think actually does play very well into that style of prayer. This question comes from Dan, and it is, how does Jesus's resurrection change reality?
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A
Yeah, it's quite a question, Dan.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Right.
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A
Carnel Ambo does a great job with it.
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C
Yeah. So if you'd like to ask Father Jim a question, you can write to us at the spiritual life@americamedia.org well, thanks
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A
so much, Maggie, and thanks for staying up late with us.
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C
It is my pleasure.
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A
And now onto our conversation with our friend in the Philippines, Cardinal Ambo. So, Cardinal Ambo, welcome to the spiritual life.
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B
Thank you very much for having me, Father Jim. It's a great pleasure and honor.
- [05:42]
A
Well, it's an honor for us, and I enjoy seeing you. I always enjoyed seeing you at the synod, and so it's nice to see your smiling face again. Cardinal, I want to ask you about your name, just so we don't scandalize anybody. Your full name is Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David, but you go by Cardinal Ambo. Can you talk about where that nickname came from and what it might mean?
- [06:04]
B
Well, in the Philippines, when you're Pablo, you are usually called Ambo. I don't know why, but I used to hate my name, you know, until my former American spiritual director, Monsignor Thomas Ivory, told me that it was a beautiful name. And I said, why? He said, ambo. That's the stand from which the word of God is proclaimed, he said. I said, oh, wow. Yeah, that's right. Well, from then on, I started loving my name, so I'd rather be called, you know, Cardinal Ambo.
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A
Well, it's great to have you. And from what I remember from the synod, you don't like people calling you your Eminence, is that correct?
- [06:43]
B
Yes, that is correct. And I think up to now, that's one of the great scandals for us church leaders, you know, to ask to be addressed by titles like, your grace, your eminence, your excellency. You know, I can still tolerate that when it is ambassadors addressing us, because it's usually a protocol. But, you know, for us to be addressing each other that way, you know, we're brothers and sisters. So I think Jesus would be very upset with that, you know, remember Mark, chapter 10, what he said to James and John when they were aspiring for positions of authority? Said, it shall not be so among you, you know.
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A
Okay, well, to say nothing of call no man your father. I remember preaching on that once on a homily. And afterwards, this woman came out to me on the steps of the church and said, oh, Father, I really liked when you said, don't call anyone father. Well, thank you. So I'll call you Cardinal Ambo. Can you tell us a little bit about your vocation story? Maybe first about your religious upbringing.
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B
So, you know, I come from a village in Pampanga called Betis, and our patron saint is Saint James the Apostle, you know, brother of John, son of Zebedee. It has produced close to 50 priests. And it is just a village. It's not even a town. So you can say the atmosphere, the religious atmosphere is very Strong in my hometown. And yeah, I think I discovered my vocation very early, when I was just about four or five years old when the catechist told us that to find out if Jesus was there inside the tabernacle, we had to check if the vigil lamp was burning. And so from, you know, from the time that I was five years old, on my way to school, I would drop by church to check if the vigil lamp was indeed burning. And then I would say, oh, you're there, Jesus, you know, hello. And that, you know, that initiated me to a very personal relationship with Jesus. I didn't even know how to pray yet.
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A
What was going on inside of you? Was it this sort of mystery that Jesus was in there or how would you describe what was happening inside of you?
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B
Well, I just somehow was drawn by the fire of the vigil lamp. And I think I was fascinated. The first time I saw a priest actually sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I felt that he was engaged in a, in a heart to heart talk with Jesus. And I said, wow, so maybe priests can talk to Jesus, you know. And one time the tabernacle was open and I panicked and the vigil lamp was not burning. And I ran home and I said to my mother, Jesus is missing. You know, it's like I was Mary Magdalene saying, you know, he's nowhere, he's lost, you know. And my mother said, what do you mean? I said, the tabernacle was open and the vigil lamp was not burning and said, oh, you haven't heard yet. Our parish priest got ill and it's been two weeks and we haven't had a mass, you know. So he said, you pray for him, for his healing and recovery. And I connected, you know, the dots. And I said, oh, so we need a priest to have Jesus with us. And I said, wow, I'd like to be a priest, you know, if that is what it takes for Jesus to remain with us.
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A
So that's beautiful at that young age to feel that sense of vocation, did that continue pretty much unbroken, you know, through your teenage years and young adulthood?
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B
No, it wasn't always like that. You know, of course, we all grow up at some point. And yeah, I became very irreligious also at some point when I became an adolescent, I also started reacting and rebelling, you know, and there was a point in my life when I said, oh, you know, religion is never my choice because I was born in a Catholic country and I was baptized and I didn't even ask for it, you know, and all that. I went through all of that adolescent phase, you know, and it's good that I had very good mentors, Jesuit mentors especially.
- [11:23]
A
Glad to hear that. So how did you. How did you come back? What. What sort of prompted you to come back to religion?
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B
Well, actually, I never lost religion. I was there, but at some point, I felt it was just, you know, complying with requirements. It was going through the motions. I think it was the Jesuits who really initiated me to a more what you might call intimate relationship with God. You know, my Jesuit spiritual directors who taught me the discipline of prayer and discernment. You know, at the start, when I was a young seminarian, my prayer was like a requirement. I had to pray the breviary. I had to, you know, go through the whole thing, like going through the motions. But there was some point when the Jesuits made me realize that I had to pray if I needed to survive the many trials that I had to face in my life. So I am like that now. I pray not because I'm required to pray, but because I have to survive the ministry. I think I call prayer my survival mechanism. I wouldn't do without it.
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A
Let's talk about that prayer. So at this point, you're a college student. Are you at the Ateneo? Yeah, at this point, at the Ateneo. And you're. You're being taught by these Jesuits. What was the prayer they taught you?
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B
And.
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A
And how did. How did they teach you to pray?
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B
Well, one of my favorite prayers was the Anima Christi. Yeah. Soul of Christ, sanctify us. Body of Christ, save us. Blood of Christ in every. At us. I don't know. I always prayed that, especially after Communion. And, of course, one of my favorite prayers also was the prayer for serenity. Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And I think the Jesuits gave me that wisdom to. To know the difference between the two. And that's what I call discernment.
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A
Did they teach you much about contemplative prayer and kind of imagining yourself in the scene, that kind of Ignatian contemplation?
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B
Oh, they did. They did. As a matter of fact, that's the reason why I published a book recently entitled Yeshua Son of Man. You know, it was a product of a course that I taught at the Loyola School of Theology, which I subtitled Reading between the Lines of the the Role Imagination in Biblical Interpretation. And I've always been convinced that the Holy Spirit speaks best. To us, not through our reason, but through our imagination.
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A
Yeah, let's unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by that, through your imagination?
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B
Well, I call it connecting the dots or filling in the blanks, you know, because the Gospel writers don't give it all to us. You know, sometimes people call it an interpolative reading. I am a biblical scholar and my area of expertise is apocalyptic literature. I did my license and doctorate in sacred theology, major in biblical studies at the Catholic University of Louvain. But when I came home to the Philippines, you know, at some point I just felt that I was getting burned out by all the historical critical study because I felt I was a failure. I couldn't make seminarians fall in love with the Scriptures. So I gave it up at some point. And then I started switching to a different kind of reading, more hermeneutical approach to the Scriptures, you know, and it was St Ignatius who helped me with that, his contemplative reading, using imagination, you know, putting yourself in the scene and all of that. But I also, as a biblical scholar, I wanted to avoid what we call fantastic reading. Otherwise you turn the whole thing into fiction. No, there are rules also. You read between the lines, but before you read between the lines, you must take the lines seriously. Before you connect the dots, you establish the dots very carefully. The establishing the dots, that is what I call an intertextual reading. You have, like the passion narrative, for example, and the resurrection narratives. You have much data from all four gospels and they're not always consistent with each other. Sometimes you would have to ask yourself the question, like, was the Blessed Mother. How come the Blessed Mother was there at the foot of the cross, according to John, but apparently she was not there anymore at the burial. Where was she? Was she in the upper room? Was she trying to mend the conflict among the apostles, among the disciples in the upper room? Was John able to persuade her to just stay? Because most likely, and this I believe, that the Blessed Mother must have insisted on a burial in Nazareth. And she probably said, no, please do everything you can, Joseph of Arimathea, you know, to get the body of Jesus. Because otherwise the Romans would have dumped Jesus in the valley of Hinnom and let him burn there in the dump site of Jerusalem and allowed his body to be eaten by dogs and by birds. And it was Joseph of Arimathea who mediated to be able to get the body of Jesus. All of that is a lot of detail. What do you read between those lines? I think your imagination can be guided through prayer.
- [17:43]
A
I Think that's a great sort of framework where you take the text seriously, and that presumes that you know something about the text, you know? And I always say to people, you know, if you can get a good sort of annotated Bible or a good Bible commentary, that can help you a little bit so you know a little bit about what's going on. So you're not just, as you say, fantastical, but using your imagination and the Ignatian contemplation of, what do I see, what do I taste? What do I feel, what do I hear? Let me ask you something. I asked my first spiritual director, though I'm curious, Cardinal, what you would say to this. I said to my first spiritual director when he described this kind of prayer, Ignatian contemplation, intertextual contemplation. I said, well, gosh, aren't I just making this up in my mind? You know, and isn't it just my own brain going on? And I'm curious what you would say to a person who would say that. Oh, this is just in my head. Well, what do you say to people who say that?
- [18:36]
B
Yeah, I mean, do not underestimate how the spirit can speak to your mind, you know, and like I said, it's not just your reason, it's your imagination. In my prayer, the Lord speaks a lot, you know, And I don't know, it takes a lot of predisposing oneself, you know, because it's really a discipline. We're not like faucets, you know, that you turn on and then the water and the grace is flowing automatically, you know, I've learned to accept that the spiritual life is not like that. It's a discipline. And I do know somehow in my heart of hearts that it's the Lord speaking when I get the promptings.
- [19:24]
A
That's interesting. So what is it about the quality of your prayer that says that this is the Lord speaking? Like, how would you distinguish between something that's maybe just a distraction or just coming from you and something that's coming from God? What are the ways we look at that?
- [19:40]
B
Well, peace and a deep sense of equanimity and sometimes even consolation, you know, I don't know that serenity is so difficult to describe. It just gives you that kind of an inner certainty that it's the Lord. It is the Lord.
- [20:02]
A
Yeah, I agree. There's kind of a quality to it. I often find, Cardinal, that it feels like it's also coming from outside of you. This is not something that I would have been able to make up, in a sense, it's a surprising insider emotion or desire. And you say, oh gosh, where did that come from?
- [20:17]
B
That's true. And you know what helps me a lot, Father Jim, is the consciousness examine that I do immediately after prayer. It's not like you pray and that's the end of it. You know, I have the discipline of keeping my journal, my spiritual journal, and I think that's one great discipline that the Jesuits taught me also the consciousness examined to review what happened in my prayer. And when I review what happened in my prayer, I am able to track down the spirit somehow and I'm able to identify the moments when I felt deeply disturbed by certain things. And the disturbance is usually coming from, you know, certain experiences, for example, that were very unpleasant or, you know, the devil has a way of distracting your prayer. And if you are able to review what happened after a period of prayer, there's a lot, a lot to learn about the discipline.
- [21:27]
A
That's a great insight. I also think that the evil spirit encourages us to forget things, which is why I sometimes say to directees, you know, if you don't want to forget it, write it down because the evil spirit is probably going to say to you, oh, that never happened, right? Or oh, you were just, you were just emotional that time. You know, that's true, yeah. Cardinal Ambo, I'm really curious about something. I'm curious about a lot of things. You studied Aramaic, is that correct?
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B
Well, yeah, of course I had to because I worked on the Book of Daniel, which is a trilingual book. Part of Daniel was written in Hebrew, part of it in Aramaic and part of it Greek, you know.
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A
Did that help you understand Jesus more fully in the Gospels, would you say?
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B
Oh, yes, indeed. You know, my focus has always been the so called intertestamental literature, you know, the bridge between the Old and the New Testament, the Jewish writings between the Bible and the Mishnah, which many people are not very familiar with. For example, I did much research on the expression Barnasha, the son of man, in the book of Enoch, for example, which helped me really understand what Jesus probably meant when he kept, you know, talking about the son of man, who must suffer greatly, be rejected, put to death, and after three days rise again. I would suggest to people, you know, especially in the age of digital technology when research has been made more easy to get better acquainted with the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, which were writings that Jesus probably was familiar with, you know.
- [23:10]
A
No, it's interesting. I'M kind of a Jesus nut, and I hope most members of the Society of Jesus are. I'm also very curious. A couple of years ago, I did a book on humor, and one of the insights that I got from Father Dan Harrington, the scripture scholar who taught me New Testament, was that we miss a lot of the humor of Jesus because we don't understand first century Judean and Galilean jokes. And one of the things he told me was, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that when Jesus says, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel, to the Pharisees, it's Galma and Gamla. And that Dan Harrington said that it's a little bit of wordplay, like he's doing a little bit of a pun. Are we missing things that if you translate it back into the Aramaic, are we missing kind of jokes and cadences and sort of rhymes and things like that?
- [24:02]
B
The one that comes to my mind is when Jesus said, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. You know, And I think he was deliberately exaggerating, you know, precisely to make people react to that. You know, he was being funny in a kind of. It was like black humor. You know, it's like you're supposed to react to the text, you know, and the moment you react to the text, you're hooked precisely by his point. Why would you want to mutilate your body? It's the same way with the body of Christ. You know, it's like we're one body. You know, you don't just cut off your brother or your sister from the rest of the body just because that part is ill. Would you. You know, that's a.
- [24:55]
A
That's a great insight. And it also has. Has a lot about sort of marginalized people. Right. People who are kind of on the margins and seen as not part of the body. Now, that brings me to a question. You've done a lot of work to bring the church closer to marginalized communities yourself, especially those affected by poverty and violence. Can you what an urban mission station is and how that work began for you?
- [25:18]
B
Oh, yeah. Okay. It was actually in response to Pope Francis. He visited us in 2015, and I happened to be the chairman of the physical. What do you call this arrangement Committee. And I do remember when he challenged the Filipinos and said, go out. Go out to the peripheries. And, you know, people were not familiar with that term periphery. Yeah, we're probably more familiar with the term margins. The margins of society rather than peripheries. But that went into our English vocabulary, periphery, the peripherals, you know. So it was in response to Pope Francis that, because I discovered that many of our parishes were being attended by, you know, traditional churchgoers, but they were not so attractive to the local migrants. I would notice that our churches are full, but the churchgoers would not even be 20%. I'd say what are the 80%? You know, so you have your churches full and you're quite happy, but you don't realize that, that the majority are not being reached by the church. They don't come to church. So I said, if the poor do not come to church, I think the church must go to them. And that's when we started opening inserted communities in the slums. So I invited some missionaries. You know, some are women religious, some are male religious, some are lay missionaries. But they, the requirement is that they be full time, you know, really inserted communities in the slums, living the way people, poor people live, you know. And of course their main task is to build what we call basic ecclesial communities. Because one of the most important things that the poor need in a situation of poverty is not just food, it's not just housing, but community, community. Without the community, you will really be the poorest of the poor.
- [27:38]
A
Now that's beautiful. Now what, what do those communities look like? So you, you're talking about people living in the slums. And is it mainly faith sharing? Is it, are there masses held? What, what does it look like day to day?
- [27:54]
B
Well, the, the main form is a weekly conversation in the spirit that we call in Tagalog Biblia Rasal. It's praying with the scriptures. It's a faith sharing guided by the scriptures. So we were doing conversations in the spirit long before the idea of conversation in the spirit was introduced in the synod on synodality. And that's what builds our basic ecclesial communities. The weekly faith sharing about, you know, their daily struggles. But guided by the, the readings for Sunday,
- [28:37]
A
we're going to pause for a short break, but we'll be back in a minute.
- [28:43]
C
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- [29:06]
A
Now I know you've done a lot of work with drug related violence. Have these mission stations helped in that effort?
- [29:14]
B
Well, yes, also, but our community based drug Rehabilitation program was actually initiated through a partnership between church and government, you know, I mean, local government, because during that time, we were being bashed by the national government because we took a very strong stand against the extrajudicial killings. But it was really in response to the killings that we participated in what we called a community based drug rehab program. In fact, we even try to avoid the word addict, you know, because it was used like. Like a label. So the people with substance use disorder are people who are usually coping with some mental health issues. You know, what they need is not our judgment, but our understanding and compassion. And so we tried a three pronged kind of approach to rehabilitation with the individual's career, the family care, and community care, you know, and we felt that it was. It was more. A lot more effective than locking up people in institutions, rehab institutions, you know. But I think the wisdom of it is the involvement of the whole parish. So, like, a parish suddenly becomes a rehab center, you know, and, yeah, it worked somehow. And our drug rehab program, we also called it a Schindler's List.
- [30:42]
A
In what way?
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B
Yeah, because, you know, the Schindler's List, how Oskar Schindler saved a few lives, you know, because by enlisting them in our rehab program, at least we were able to save a few people from extrajudicial killings.
- [30:58]
A
I'm really curious about this. In the United States, there are many, as you know, Filipino Catholics, at least in the northeast where I live, would you say? And maybe it's unfair to stereotype, are there traits of a distinctive Filipino Catholic spirituality, would you say?
- [31:13]
B
I would say Filipino Catholic spirituality is very strongly devotional, and the popular religious expressions are very important for us. Like, you know, we have just concluded the celebration of Easter, and I doubt if you celebrate Easter the way Filipinos celebrate Easter. You know, we congregate together. And like, I was in the middle of a ritual celebration that had at least 10,000 people, and it was all focused on the unveiling of the Blessed Mother, the removal of the black veil. We call it the salubong or the encuentro. So the image of the risen Lord is being processed and made to encounter the image of the sorrowful Mother, whose face is covered by a black veil. I was really fascinated the last time I observed. I wasn't looking at the images. I was looking at the faces of the people ardently waiting for the removal of the black veil. And there were tears in their eyes. And I was asking myself, I said, my God, I wonder what black veils are covering the lives of our people that they are expressing in prayer, you know, that these black veils be lifted up and removed so that they will at least have a glimpse of the risen Lord and have a glimpse of some hope and meaning in their lives. That's, you know, Filipino spirituality is like that. Symbols matter to us. They speak to our hearts, you know?
- [33:00]
A
You know, that segs into our audience. Question. It's a question from Dan and Cardinal. I'll say the question, then I'll answer it myself, and then you can give your reflection. So the question from Dan is, how does Jesus's resurrection change reality? And Dan, I would say Jesus's resurrection changes everything. The center of my faith is the resurrection. And I think the message of the resurrection, in addition to Christ defeating death, is that hope is stronger than despair, love is stronger than hate, and nothing is impossible with God. I mean, this is the message that brackets Jesus's life in the Annunciation. You know, this is what the angel says to Mary. Nothing is impossible with God. And that's really the message of the resurrection. It also reminds us that death never has the last word. Right. And that there is always hope. You know, but really, I think from a practical point of view, I always laugh when I say this to people. If someone rises from the dead, you need to take what he said and did seriously. I mean, there's a sense of this is someone you need to listen to. Right. Even if you don't understand what it means to be the Son of God or the Son of man or the second person in the Trinity. Right. Which we believe. And I believe someone who's risen from the dead, you need to take them seriously. Right. And so it changes everything, and it gives Jesus's words and deeds, you know, added authority. So, Cardinal Ambo, how would you answer that question from Dan, as a scripture scholar and as a believer and as a cardinal? How does Jesus's resurrection change reality?
- [34:35]
B
So the resurrection is really about the humanity of Jesus, you know, because we don't talk about the resurrection of the divinity. It's. Jesus is truly human, truly divine. You know, he embraced our humanity, and he raises our humanity from the dead, you know, And I'd say this is really the foundation of the Christian faith. You know, it realizes God's dream of making us into such dignified creatures in his image and likeness, into his sons and daughters. Yeah. So resurrection indeed changes everything. But the problem is, I think a common concept of resurrection is Lazarus. And I usually explain to people that that is not resurrection, that's resuscitation. Yeah. You know, when Lazarus was summoned by Jesus from the grave, he said, come out. He couldn't come out. Why? Because he was all bound up. So he had to ask people to help in unbinding Lazarus and removing the shroud, the linen cloths that were wrapped around him. Well, nothing like that happened in the tomb where Jesus was laid. Peter entered and he saw the linen cloths lying there and the other piece that was used to wrap his head, like it was still wrapped, except that it had nothing in it anymore. It was like an empty cocoon. You're looking for the caterpillar and you miss the butterfly that's fluttering around because the cocoon is empty. St. Paul explains resurrection most beautifully in the first letter to the Corinthians. And I would probably advise someone like Dan to spend a whole day just reflecting on the words of St. Paul about what it means to be given a risen body. A resurrected body. Body, yeah.
- [36:46]
A
I love that distinction you made.
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B
I.
- [36:47]
A
You know, I did a book on Lazarus a couple of years ago, and Raymond Brown said something similar. He said, when Lazarus comes out, he's bound in his grave cloths and in his head cloth. When Jesus is raised from the dead, he leaves his behind. He's not going to need his anymore, you know, because Lazarus. The idea is that Lazarus is going to die again, not Jesus. Cardinal Ambaugh, I just want to thank you so much for the time you spent with us. I want to thank you personally for how welcoming you were to me and so many people at the synod. You were such a joyful and prayerful and holy presence there. I want to thank you for sharing your spiritual life with us and just thank you for your time. So thanks so much for all these things.
- [37:30]
B
Cardinal Ambo, It's a great pleasure and happy Easter again. Father Jim.
- [37:43]
A
Well, I was so happy to have him on over the hours in the airwaves to join us, and I really was delighted to have someone who's a scripture scholar who is talking about praying with the imagination. I thought that was a great sort of grounding of that kind of prayer.
- [37:59]
C
Yeah. And it really fed so beautifully into the audience question. I thought from Dan, you know, how the resurrection changes our lives, because you have to know the details of that story, but you also have to be able to place yourself there and imagine it and let the Holy Spirit in in order for it to have a transformative effect in your life.
- [38:23]
A
Yeah. And in the Easter season, it's important to remember that the way that the Gospel writers describe the resurrection and the Glorified body or the risen Christ is very different right from one another. It's almost as if they're having a hard time, you know, kind of explaining what this was like, what this experience, this real experience was like for the disciples. And so I think it naturally, as you're saying, Maggie, sort of invites us to use our imagination of what that looked like and what that felt like and, you know, just what that experience was like.
- [38:51]
C
So Jim, what have you written in in your reflection accompanying this episode?
- [38:56]
A
Yeah, in response to our conversation about Ignatian contemplation, I've written a little bit about that practice and how one goes about it and the link is in the show notes. Also, I'd like to let you know that I have a new book out, a memoir called Work in Progress. It's the story of finding work through a variety of crazy summer jobs like busboy, dishwasher, caddy, factory worker, and many more. And eventually finding God. Basically, it's a light hearted spiritual memoir about growing up in the 60s, 70s and 80s and is available in print, ebook and audio anywhere. Books are sold. I really hope you enjoy Work in Progress. The Spiritual Life with Father James Martin is produced by Maggie Van Doren, Sebastian Gomes and myself, production assistants from Kevin Christopher Robles and Will Gualtieri. Adam Buckmuller engineered the show. The theme score is courtesy of Teddy Abrams and Nate Farrington. You can follow me across social media@james martinsj. Thank you so much. God bless you and happy Easter. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with
- [40:09]
B
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- [40:16]
A
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B
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A
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B
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A
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- [40:28]
C
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