Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The visions of the prophets are different in kind from the visions of the rest of us. Theirs are supernatural, ours are natural. Theirs come from above and possess divine authority. Ours come from below and possess no authority whatsoever, but, rather, must be subjected to divine authority.
Thus, I may be completely mistaken, but I can compose an image in my mind’s eye of the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne with the train of his garment filling the temple. Isaiah the prophet had an image of the same thing (cf. Is 6:1), but his vision, coming from above, was altogether true, accurate, and reliable.
The practitioner of Ignatian spirituality strives, on his own, to compose images like Isaiah’s, perhaps a mental photograph, perhaps a mental gif, perhaps a mental video with dialogue, maybe even something with smells and tastes included. The goal is not to replace the true image, divinely revealed to the prophet, but to ask the same spirit that inspired the prophet, in some other way, to rest upon us, too, and to guide us to all truth.