Ignatian Contemplation: The Segregated Balcony

This guided Ignatian imaginative prayer was developed for the April 2022 In Our Forbears’ Footsteps pilgrimage during the Ignatian Year. This pilgrimage, which was repeated and expanded to include a stop at Epiphany Church in 2025, focused on the black parishioners who played an important part in the history of our parish and who made up about 30% of the congregation. In the 1920s, most of these parishioners left Holy Trinity due to the racism and segregation they experienced here and founded Epiphany parish.
You may wish to pray this prayer while seated in our church’s balcony, which, in addition to two raised galleries that used to run along the sides of the Church, was once the only place our Black parishioners were permitted to sit. They were also hidden from view of the White choir by a screen.

How to pray this imaginative contemplation:

• Click on the play button below to start the audio, or if you prefer, slowly read the text below, pausing to engage your imagination in the prayer
• Listen, and follow the prompts
• After the prayer ends ("Close with a favorite prayer"), scroll to the bottom of this page for recommendations to review your prayer.

Introduction

St. Ignatius teaches us that we can use our imaginations to pray – that we may encounter God, especially when we ask. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius often invites us to imagine a Gospel scene and place ourselves in it using all of our senses. He also proposes scenarios that don’t appear in scripture for the retreatant to imagine - moments of holy encounter. We propose something similar today – an experience of imagining ourselves in our parish church, and in the balcony, as our Black forbearers might have experienced it.

Try not to be concerned with what you are “supposed” to be doing in this prayer, and let your imagination lead you. If at any point during the guided prayer you feel like you want to stay where you are, turn the audio off and do that. You can always turn it back on when you are ready to move on, or simply continue praying where you feel drawn. If you find yourself distracted, which is very normal, simply gently bring yourself back to the scene.

Quiet your body and mind

As we begin, settle into your pew or chair so you can be relaxed but alert.

• I invite you to close or lower your eyes
• Breathe deeply several times and let your body relax
• Breathe out any worries or stressful thoughts and put them in God’s hands
• Become aware of God’s presence here with you now, looking at you with love.

Ask for a grace

Now, ask God for a grace or gift during this time of prayer. I invite you to ask God for the grace of solidarity and fellow-feeling with our Black forebears in the past and with our Black brothers and sisters today.

Imaginative Contemplation

Think of a time – either at Holy Trinity or at another parish, when you were concerned about getting a seat for Mass. Perhaps it was Christmas or Easter – some celebration where seats were going to be in high demand and if you didn’t get one you would be stuck standing in the back or not even able to attend.

Choose one time when you had that concern and use your memory to go back there in your imagination. Remember what it felt like.

Did you make plans to get to church very early?
Did you have to wait outside? Perhaps it was raining or cold or too hot.
Did you consider not going at all because of the concern that there might not be room?

Take a moment and remember everything about that experience, how you felt and what you considered.

Now, remembering the feelings associated with that time, go, in your imagination, further back – to a time before you were born. Ask God to help you go back to the early 1900s in your imagination, to a time when Black parishioners at Trinity had to worry about getting a seat every Sunday. The limited and segregated seating reserved for them in the balcony was not enough to accommodate all Black parishioners. The main doors of the church were not open to them – they had to enter through a separate entrance and navigate the steep stairs.

Can you go back in your mind and heart and imagine that you were one of those parishioners, that you and your family or friends could only sit in one area of the balcony?

Facing this as your own dilemma, what is it like to have to have seating restricted every week? What is it like to know that other parishioners, White parishioners, don’t have to worry about this – and to know that they have not done anything to expand the seating for others like you?

Imagine that this week you have managed to secure a spot in the balcony. As you sit with your eyes remaining closed, imagine the scene from the balcony.

What can you see? Notice the people, the children, the screen separating you from the choir.
What can you hear? The other people? The choir? The priest?
What do you smell? Is there incense today?
What is the temperature like up in the balcony?

Take a moment to use all of your senses to really feel yourself in the segregated balcony.

What is it like to be hidden from the White choir? To be out of sight from all of the White parishioners?

How do you feel when White parishioners receive communion before you do?

And now turn to God or the Risen Jesus and share your feelings as you would with a friend.

How does the Lord respond to you?

Do you sense any invitation from God for you going forward?

When you are ready, close with a favorite prayer in your heart.

Review of Prayer

St. Ignatius recommends that we review our prayer. A written review has many advantages. It enables us to look back on our prayer experience, and to notice what happened. It allows us to be fully present to our experience of prayer. We do not write while we are praying. The review of prayer enables us not to judge ourselves or look for how well we are doing. It helps us to become more sensitive to how God is speaking to us in the here and now. It is also a precious record of our journey with God, which nourishes wholeness and integration.

Some questions to assist with your review (you don't need to answer all of them!):

What happened in your prayer?

What feelings did you experience?

During the prayer period, when did you feel encouraged?

When did you feel discouraged?

Did you receive the grace you asked for?

What did you receive?

Music: "Concentration" Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License