The grace we are asking of God: a growing ability to recognize the weeds and the wheat in my own life, that is, the ways in which I am drawn through grace toward living in the Kingdom of Christ and the ways in which I am deceived by the Enemy in the decisions I make. I also ask for the grace to know Jesus deeply, so that I may immerse myself wholly in his standard: his values, his preferences, his loves, his desires, his self-offering, his compassion and mercy.

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.

I started praying with the Two Standards Meditation and realized I would be here quite a while. In a sense, this lens on the way Christ is at work in us is life-changing, and I have recently discovered anew how much change needed to be brought about within me so that my hidden disordered tendencies might be brought into alignment with the values of the Kingdom of Christ.

The traditional image of the Two Standards exercise arose out of the medieval experience of war and it certainly didn’t resonate with me. In fact, it left me striving to “prove” I was good enough for the Kingdom of the good leader: Christ. The meditation is rooted in the method of war during the time of Ignatius: the image of two warring factions of knights in full arms being led onto the battlefield, each clearly serving a different leader and fighting under a large flag or standard. Once the hand-to-hand combat began, however, the two armies would become indistinguishable as the knights were mixed together in mass confusion. It became impossible to tell who was fighting for who as the battle progressed.

The two leaders are Christ and Lucifer. Each of them called to themselves people who were willing to serve in their respective armies under the values of their very different Kingdoms, fighting under their opposing standards: hence the name, Two Standards Meditation.

As I prayed with this, Jesus drew me to the parable of the weeds and the wheat. As I’m entering into this second week of the Exercises, “unfinished business” and inner wounds are surfacing and hitting the fan once again. Jesus reminded me while I was praying that the weeds and the wheat (like the armies of the two kings) will be there until my last breath, and the two sometimes are hard to distinguish. What may be convinced is a virtue might actually be something I’m doing for less than noble reasons. What appears to be a vice might be the best I can do at the moment, even a virtuous struggle as I’m calling out to Jesus to help me be as faithful as I can at this moment to his “standard” or Kingdom.

Jesus brought to my mind the apostles crying out in terror as they bailed water out of their boat capsizing in the winds and rains of an unexpected storm on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus, a number of feet away from them, stood on the water, also wet from the rain with his clothes whipped by the winds, calm and reassuring with his presence.

“It’s okay to cry out,” Jesus helped me see. “That’s all you can do sometimes. These burly fishermen, professionals at what they did, were as terrified as toddlers that day as the storm unexpectedly whipped up the Sea of Galilee. And I loved them in all their vulnerability that lay exposed to me at that moment. They were my Father’s children, my brothers, the ones for whom I would give my life…. As their wounds became evident I showed them immediately that I still delighted in them. Even in the continuous need you have for healing and freedom I want you to look at my face now. I am calling you into my Kingdom: so that the way you are and the way you live and what you choose to do will become part of the Kingdom.”

Jesus wants us to know that every time we expose to him our wounds and believe, nevertheless, that God has made something special when he made us and that Jesus delights in us right then, we also join him as those who are willing to live and serve under his standard, as ambassadors of his Kingdom of Love. He calls those willing to be humble, poor, vulnerable, those willing to surrender in obedience and love while serving beside him as he brings to fulfillment the reign of the Kingdom of heaven in the world today.

Here you are entering into the Mystery

In a moment of quiet and prayer, can you believe these words as you say them to yourself: “God made something wonderful when God made me!”

Notice any confusion or resistance or fear or shame. These feelings indicate the presence of wounds, unfinished business waiting for the healing touch of Jesus as he calls us to enter and to serve the Kingdom of Love. Up to now in the Spiritual Exercises, we have been praying through the lens of personal healing, repentance and conversion, and spiritual transformation. In this short meditation we are taking a step back to consolidate our trust in the love of Jesus for us, even in our wounds, as he invites us to become a part of his saving mission in the world.

Pray again: “You, Lord, made something wonderful when you made me! I believe this. My feelings may not resonate with my faith. I may have old tapes of what others have told me about myself that say differently. The voices of shame may try to smother this trust. The Enemy may be sowing weeds of self-hate, but no matter. Regardless of what I feel, you have made something wonderful when you made me, Lord, because you can only make perfectly wonderful things.”

Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a memory or a symbol of a wound that he is ready to heal.

Pray quietly: “Lord, when I expose to you my most vulnerable places, you will still delight in what you have made. Your kindness is bottomless. Your love is endless. Your delight in me reminds me that I am your child.”

Abide in the silence. Feel the attraction of the Kingdom. Offer gratitude.

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.