INSIDE OUT:
CONTEMPLATION AND TRANSFORMATION Through meditation, a priest takes troubled teens on a healing tour of the Gospels
PHOTOS BY EDDY MARTINEZ
BY AMY DURKEE
To deepen their understanding of God and their relationship with Christ, every Jesuit novitiate is required to practice the Ignatian exercises, an intense 30-day experience of contemplation, spiritual conversation, and Scripture-based prayer. The exercises establish a foundation for the young priest-tobe, a root system which will allow him to thrive in difficult situations over a lifetime of service. When Michael Kennedy joined the Jesuit order in 1966, he incorporated the Ignatian method into his daily life, journaling his experiences in contemplation as a way to deepen his understanding of them. The ’60s were a tumultuous time, and while young Kennedy was a university student he became involved in both anti-war activism and serving the Appalachian poor.All the while, however, he remained constant in his contemplative life, discovering that the deeper he went within the more he was able to commit to the external work of God’s kingdom. But Kennedy didn’t really get a chance to test his reliance upon contemplation until 1987, when he took a mission trip to El Salvador to bring supplies to those displaced by the civil war. While driving down the road, he and his team found themselves in the middle of crossfire. Suspected of
subversion, Father Kennedy and his group were taken to the headquarters of the “Treasury Police” and thrown into a dark basement cell. It was in that cell, as he listened to the screams of two young men being tortured nearby, that he began to taste more fully the fruit of his years of contemplation. Later he would write the following, in the introduction to his book Eyes On Jesus: “It was as if simultaneously I could both imagine and truly feel something of what Jesus experienced being jailed, knowing that his own death was near. I remember so vividly feeling a closeness to the Jesus who was persecuted and crucified. It was as if my own contemplation was suddenly turned on ‘automatic pilot’ and the power from this gave me strength to pass through the experience.” In the midst of his suffering and fear, Kennedy was able to experience peace and even joy. In 1996, Kennedy was living in yet another war zone— the streets of East Los Angeles—working with the people of the Dolores Mission parish. Day after day, Father Mike, as his parishioners call him, watched as his community lost its young people to hopelessness, destructive relationships, substance abuse, prison, and death. Good kids in tough situations were
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