So much is made of the debate between faith and reason, between faith and science, faith and philosophy. And we neglect, I fear, the part that the imagination — something of a stepdaughter in the house of the intellect — may play in our faith, not only in our moral loves, as above, but in our prayer, worship, and beliefs. St. Ignatius, for one, understood how the imagination, far from arguing with faith, may nourish it in prayer. The second prelude as outlined in his Spiritual Exercises is devoted to the imagination. In contemplating the Nativity, for example, the saint counsels us to see "in imagination the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Consider its length its breath; whether level, or through valleys and over hills. Observe also the place or cave where Christ is born; whether big or little; whether high or low; and how it is arranged." In the exercise known as the application of the senses — a method of private prayer that can be used in contemplating any scene from the Bible — we are to see the persons, hear what they are saying, to embrace and kiss the place where the persons stand or are seated, to "smell the infinite fragrance and taste the infinite sweetness of the divinity."
— Nancy M. Malone, Walking a Literary Labyrinth