You know, well now, one of the things that we were given is the capability to contemplate, right? When you look at exegesis, scriptural exegesis, there's, you know, the historical layer, the events layer, but then there's like another thousand layers. There's an... actually not thousand, forgive me, there's an endless number of layers in which we can enter into the Scripture.
You know, one of the ways it to really contemplate the different characters, find yourself in the crowd, find yourself and not just the good guys, right? Especially not just the good guys! But like, jump in into the minds and the attitude of the Pharisee, see why he's saying what he's saying and would you be that different, right? And then repent. And so, enter into the psyche of the different characters, for example, that's one way of contemplation.
Another way of contemplation is kind of discovering the... you know... the kind of, what's happening on a, in a microcosm in your own soul. How is your heart a fig tree, right? Almost in an allegorical kind of way. And then, also try to get behind, you know, the motives and the heart and the intentions of Christ. You know, that's one thing, one of the things that Father Anthony Paul does so beautifully in his book is that the whole week is about this love story, right?
So there's ways of seeing, you know, connecting all the stories as a theme, a theme of, you know, love between a groom and his... a bridegroom and his spouse, right? His wife. One of the things is to take the readings of the prophecies, take the readings of the Psalms, take the reading of the Gospel and be like What's happening? What's the connection?
I actually got to watch Father Anthony Paul prepare for these sermons and I gotta tell you, I learned so much from him. He sat in the front and he literally was like cutting out, you know, pieces of the Psalms and connecting them to the words of the prophecy. You know, a lot of times, we just read the prophecies like ah, don't get it, next! No, he was like digging deep into the actual text of the day and each hour connected to the next hour and there was a progression in the prophecies, there's a progression in the Psalms, there's a progression in the Gospel readings and he was making connections.
So, as far as taking advantage of the events and the stories, there's so many different ways. I would definitely encourage specifically this one prayer. I would encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit, say: O Holy Spirit, prepare me to receive Your Word and show what it is that you wanna tell me. And that's the thing, you know, Scripture was inspired by the Spirit and He's the one that can communicate to us most clearly and most deeply what it is that we need and how we need to be healed.
So, these passages from the prophecies, the Psalms, the Gospel, they're all there not by happenstance, like oh we need... we've got a filler, we need a filler 'cause Monday evening's a little short this week so... They don't just throw in prophecies for no reason. So it's to really try to enter into the inspiration of the Church and why she put it the way she put it and the readings and you'll see that these holy men that put the... it's really liturgical art, really. They're brilliant. You'll find incredible amounts of beauty.
But in the end, the number one thing is to enter, through the Scriptures, into the heart of Christ, try to jump in and to see what's going on. Why is he saying this? What's, you know, knowing that He is love and knowing that He is on His way to the cross and knowing that, you know, with a great desire, He longs to save us and heal us, why is He doing this? What is He teaching us?
So, exegesis, jumping in, contemplation, all these things are given to us as long as we seek it out through the Spirit of God.