The grace we are asking of God: to discover Jesus in my own personal story so that my personal myth may be transformed in Jesus, as was that of Ignatius, that I will be disposed to hear God’s call and follow it wholeheartedly

Horizons of the Heart is inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and my own notes from my thirty-day Ignatian retreat in 2022. See an index for the whole series.

“It is through our senses that we feel the ‘touch’ within the heart (Exx 335), and then the heart expands in feelings of happiness, peace and serenity, and in a renewal of spiritual strength, along with desires to ‘move forward’ (Exx 315, 329) (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises: Antonio Guillen (The Way, 47/1-2 (Jan/April 2008), 225-241). St. Ignatius mentors retreatants in this form of prayer in his Spiritual Exercises.

Preparing for Prayer

Begin by relaxing. Take a deep breath, hold it, and then let it out with a sigh. As you do this several more times, intentionally relax the muscles in your face, your shoulders, your arms, your legs. Offer a quiet prayer of gratitude. Rest in your Father’s arms. 

Settling into Prayer

Ask Jesus that every aspect of this prayer will please him and will give glory to God.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan (Mark 1:9).

Slowly read the passage for your meditation once. Leave some moments of silence and then read it again with the intention of entering into the story, of observing the details of what is happening. Take some time to set the stage and picture the environment in which the story takes place. I will share my own reflections simply as a prompt for you to enter into the contemplation more deeply yourself.

I notice as Jesus stands in line at the Jordan: just one of the crowd, talking, listening, waiting, being jostled by the large number of people around him. I enter deeply into how he is spiritually and intuitively sensing this experience, taking on his feelings as my own: his eagerness, his jubilation, his attentiveness, his childlikeness. He is simple, here and now, in the moment. His only delight is in the Father, waiting upon his Father.

“Jesus, I want to stand with you. I choose to stand in the Father’s delight.”

Let the story expand from the few verses that are recounted in Scripture to what that would have been like for Jesus or Mary, what they would have experienced or needed or felt, how they lived these events interiorly, how they expressed themselves. With your senses immerse yourself into the event. Is there any way you can be of help to them. If so, imagine yourself entering the story through these actions. Look around for a particular moment that seems to be of greater importance to you, to catch your attention.

Jesus stands in the Jordan River, the gentle waves pushing against his body as the sun shines down. Again his sense of joy, gratitude, quivering with joy, filling all things. His gratitude to the Father. There is no hurry to “get on” with the baptism. Remain with him here.

Ask for the grace “to know Jesus intimately, to love him more intensely, and so to follow him more closely.”

Entering into the Mystery

This deeper contemplation of Jesus in the Gospels is an apprenticeship of our feelings and senses in which we are formed in such a way that we feel with Jesus, that our feelings becomes those of Jesus, and our spontaneous reactions of personal promotion and self-protection are gradually curbed and re-invented so that we spontaneously react as Jesus does.

Entering into the mystery of what we contemplate, we humbly allow Jesus to be our Master, to educate our senses and feelings according to the pattern of his own life and teachings. It is a matter of becoming saturated with Jesus’ own way of being and feeling. It is learning how to resonate with everything Jesus resonates with, as we gain this felt understanding through our contemplation, and of rejecting whatever Jesus rejects.

John the Baptist approaches his cousin Jesus. Witness the moment when John, standing waist deep in the water, realizes that the Lord of All stands before him.

Two men: the Bridegroom, the Word made Flesh, and the Friend of the Bridegroom, the Best Man, the greatest of all the prophets. Two men whose every moment of life was stretched and shaped by utter fidelity to the Architect of love and our salvation. Two men who were eager to “run the race.” Two men who did as they were bidden by God and wasted no breath on what would or could lead them to deviate or dawdle along the way. Two men who sought nothing less than All.

Jesus, shape anew, bring order to the disorder in my will.

Entering still deeper into the mystery of Christ, allow your heart to taste, to smell, to touch the infinite gentleness and sweetness of Jesus. Allow your spirit to soak up what has been felt and known in this contemplative prayer.

As you do this your mind’s activity will fade into the background, and the mystery you are intuitively contemplating will begin to take over and engulf you, planting within your spirit an inner knowledge of the Lord.

You will at some point begin to intuitively sense the difference between the way Jesus spontaneously feels, speaks, and acts in a situation and the way you yourself feel, speak, and act in similar situations in your own life.

John recognized Jesus in awe. I sense Jesus feeling awe and gratitude that John had given all to prepare the Savior’s way: he did, knew, wanted nothing else.

The wise and foolish virgins: Stay away for you know not the hour when the Bridegroom will arrive.

The Father’s voice: “Behold my Son, listen to him.”

The humiliation of the Father that only a few in the history of the world would listen to his Christ. The love and humility that leaves people free.

Father, may I delight you.

Rest in that awareness as Jesus helps you to resonate with what he resonates with. As you enter into his feelings and the way he uses his senses, you will gradually lose interest in your own spontaneous reactions, defenses, and self-promotions. Jesus will bring you to his way by attraction, sweetness, and beauty. He will make you feel safety, belonging, and hope.

Colloquy

Allow an image or object that encapsulates all these experiences to form in your mind. Take some time to speak with God about the meaning or significance of this object.

As I prayed with Jesus at the Jordan, with how Jesus and John the Baptist were like horses, quivering to run the race, to return love for Love, to delight the Father who delighted in them, I held up my own life next to theirs and talked to them about those ways in which I was not ready to “run the race.” Not ready for Jesus to transform the myth under which I had lived my life so far.

I heard Jesus call out, “Who will join me? Who will live as I live, struggle as I struggle, give as I give, love as I love, suffer as I suffer, and triumph as I triumph?”

Ask Jesus to show you one specific gift he wishes to give you. Receive it and remain in stillness and quietly relaxed presence under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Reviewing the Graces of Prayer

When you finish praying, write down the main gifts and discoveries from this time of intimate contemplation. What is one concrete thing you can do to solidify these gifts in your life.

Featured image: ilragazzoconmoltafede-Apostolada de la Palabra from Cathopic