Category: Horizons of the Heart

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.

Begin by relaxing your body, your mind, letting go of anxieties and ambitions and expectations and plans… Lay all that you notice and all that you are bare and exposed before the Father who welcomes you with a gaze that is gently loving. Settle into the silence that runs deeper than emotional turbulence… Move beyond imagination where you wait upon the stirring of the soul and the movement of the heart. Return to Jesus to find the Rest he offers…to welcome the gift…to become a child held in safe arms….

Entering into the Mystery

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

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1).

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 enter with your senses into the environment in which the story takes place.

Here in the desert Jesus was seen by no one. He wasn’t planning what he would do when he left the desert to begin his mystery. He wasn’t imagining what it would be like to be an itinerant preacher. He wasn’t thinking about the people he might ask to join him. He wasn’t strategizing. He wasn’t identified with work and ministry and role…

In the desert one learns that we are completely dependent on God. Walk with Jesus, wander around, hungry, tired…. Help him prepare a place to sleep for the night. Watch as he prays to his Father….

Sinking still deeper into the mystery of Christ, allow your heart to taste, to smell, to touch the infinite gentleness and sweetness of Jesus.

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…. Take as much time with this as you are able….

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

Where have been the deserts in your life? What have these treks through the wilderness been like for you?

Notice how Jesus abandons himself into his Father’s hands, as a child held in safe and loving arms… Taste the sweetness and the trust in this relationship between the Father and Jesus…

Another desert experience is recounted in Deuteronomy 8:2-4. God says he led the Israelites into the desert “to humble and test you… to know what is in your heart… to see if you will keep my commands…. I caused you to hunger and then fed you with manna to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” God tested the people to demonstrate to them that they were absolutely dependent upon him for their survival…. that they would see that God is their God, not just the God of their ancestors.

We cannot become holy by sheer effort, nor can we do good things for God solely by applying ourselves to the task…

What would it be like to rely upon God to give direction and meaning to your life?

We are, in truth, radically unable to determine what we will become. What could a life of radical dependence on God look like for you today?

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….

Allow your spirit to soak up what has been felt and known in this contemplative prayer.

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.

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.

Image: Moretto da Brescia, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

Begin by relaxing your body, your mind, letting go of anxieties and ambitions and expectations and plans… Lay all that you notice and all that you are bare and exposed before the Father who welcomes you with a gaze that is gently loving. Settle into the silence that runs deeper than emotional turbulence… Move beyond imagination where you wait upon the stirring of the soul and the movement of the heart. Return to Jesus to find the Rest he offers…to welcome the gift…to become a child held in safe arms….

Making Space for the Word

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

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1).

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.…

The Judean desert was a rocky and barren place… In the Bible, the desert is an image of loss of control, of separation from the safety offered by villages and family, and of our utter dependence on God since without resources in these wastelands one would certainly die… Feel the heat on your face… Notice your thirst… Experience hunger… Bear the loneliness, no one as far as the eye can see… “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). 

Read the passage of Scripture again.

Let the story expand from the few verses that are recounted in Scripture to what these forty days in the desert would have been like for Jesus, what he would have experienced or needed or felt, how he lived these events interiorly, how he expressed himself….

With your senses of sight, of hearing, of touch immerse yourself in the event. Is there any way you can be of help to Jesus. 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.

The desert is for Jesus a place of love. Here he has eyes and heart only for the Father. As the days of his forty day retreat go on, Jesus becomes more and more ready to live and die on the terms of love…. He hands himself over to the Father, confident in his love, willing to live and die for love of me.

Psalm 63:1:

You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.

Jesus asks: Who will join me? Who will love like me? Who will trust my Father this completely?

Adore Jesus in the desert… In your inspired imagination show him reverence… Speak to him about these questions he asks, have an honest conversation.

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.

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

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.

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.

Image: Briton Riviere: Temptation in the Wilderness, public domain, Wikimedia Commons

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.

In the Kingdom Meditation found in the Spiritual Exercises at the beginning of the second week, we encounter Ignatius’ transformation, that is, we enter into the way the personal “this-world” myth of his life was transformed and purified and exalted by Jesus.

What do we mean by one’s personal myth? We each have a personal myth created by energies that give direction, potency and meaning to our lives. They are created from stories we listened to as children, role models who influenced us in powerful ways, songs we sang, images from movies, games we played, stories we read, historical events we lived through. All these coalesce in our psyches and imaginations into powerful imagery and archetypes that express the desires and dreams we have for our lives. The images and stories that express these dreams we can call a “myth.” So there are personal myths, but from this description we can easily see that there are also national myths, myths for the community we associate with, religious myths.

Ignatius of Loyola was born into a Spain on the verge of being united under one king. The nation was galvanized by the dream of finally experiencing itself under one flag, one king under God. The dream that the whole world would be Christian gave energy to explorers who would venture to new lands to claim them for Spain and for Christ. Ignatius of Loyola’s personal “this-world” myth was created from these experiences, stories, and images that galvanized him as a soldier. He embodied the culture of chivalry and fought with his liege lord to conquer lands for his king and God.

In the Kingdom Meditation, as it is presented in the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius presents us with a soldier’s story or dream of “myth,” because that was what was an understandable way of envisioning one’s life at that time. It would be an outrage for a soldier to refuse to join a temporal king, to fight alongside him, eat what he eats, suffer what he suffers, and share in his triumph, for the sake of the country and of God. This was the myth that at the moment of Ignatius’ conversion was transformed and gave him energy to devote himself now to Jesus as the Eternal King whose dream was to conquer the world with love. This dream of Jesus conquered his heart and soul, so that no longer was he mesmerized by dreams of chivalry and military success, but was taken up by dreams and desires of doing great deeds for the Lord Jesus Christ in service of the Divine Majesty.

We each have a personal myth that Jesus desires to transform so that we too are drawn into his dream and desires for the loving salvation of the world. Myths are usually unconscious, yet they express a set of values, energies, dreams, meanings, insights that give energy and focus to our lives.

Ignatius’ myth rooted in the imagery of a soldier—or analogously a hero, or a queen, or a lover—may not speak to you and I, but it is a profound example of the powerful things that can happen in our life when we allow our own personal myth to be transformed by Jesus. The life and writings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola have influenced and led to the transformation of hundreds of thousands of lives. The meditation on the Baptism of Jesus can be that space in which we discover for ourselves how Jesus reveals God’s dream for the world and where we fit into that dream: “Behold my Son in whom I delight. Listen to him.” In other words, meditating on the Baptism of the Lord can help us raise to consciousness our own myth so that it can be transformed by Jesus. In the Baptism of Jesus we see Jesus revealing to us God’s dream for the world.

Exploring One’s Deepest Dreams

In this meditation we are going to take some prayerful time to explore our deepest dreams and hopes about ourselves in the form of an image or a story or an insight. You might begin by praying with these questions:

• What images give me life? Are the images that have given me life up to this point in some way no longer sufficient or meaningful as I look at the future of my life as it is unfolding now?
• When I think of what I want to be remembered for in life, what is the image or story that encapsulates this?
• What dreams for myself capture what I wish I could be in the next decade of my life?
• If I could take my deepest desire and vision for the world and draw a picture of it or express it in a quote or insight, what would it be?
• When I look out at the world today what to me would be an absolutely wonderful change I’d like to see?

Personal Myths May Be Transformed Over Time

In times of transition in our life, such as a change of career, mid-life changes such as children leaving home or retirement, moving to a new location, or a shift in our personal values as we enter a new stage of life, our personal myth may undergo a transformation. So myths are flexible, open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and of grace. We could consider, for example, how the dreams of Mary and Joseph for the birth and early childhood years of Jesus had to be refashioned by the political situation in which they lived. Or how the image Jesus had of his life at Nazareth where it was just his mother and himself may have shifted at age thirty with his Baptism and the beginning of his public ministry. Jesus himself didn’t pivot to something new, but as he entered a new stage of his life and ministry as Savior and Redeemer, the images, dreams, and values shifted in a certain sense, giving him the impetus to enter into public ministry with all that this would entail. In what way has your sense of meaning, your dreams or myth shifted through the different eras of your life? Do you feel the Spirit prompting you to something new or to deepening something old?

Some examples: As I look out on the world today I have been inspired by this quote from Scripture: “”The banquet is ready. Go and tell everything that ALL IS READY” (see Mt. 22) Of course, this speaks to the ministry of a Daughter of St Paul, however while in my earlier years I lived my mission through the stance of teaching, now I live it through love. I stand, in an image given to me by our Founder, along the highways and byways of the world pointing out the way to heaven, where the banquet is ready, and the Eucharist, where the banquet can be tasted even now, while blocking the way to perdition with my whole being: through a contemplative way of life immersed in God, in dipping into the heart of Jesus the Savior the “pen” with which I write, living the urgency of love in my mission on my knees.

Others I know have found their myth embodied in the image of a sunflower which turns so that it constantly faces the sun, an image in the spiritual life of dependence on God and obedience to his will. Early on in religious life the focus could be on the virtue and vow of obedience. Later the emphasis may be on living prophetically and contemplatively God’s dream for the salvation of all.

Take some time to attend to your own personal myth.

Who Will Join Me?

Your myth, the image or story that will give energy and desire to your choices in life are a call to join Jesus, to be his companion for the sake of the world. At his Baptism in the Jordan, Jesus made holy the waters of all the baptismal fonts in every church till the end of time. He began at that moment in a particular way to reclaim us as the Father’s children, as his brothers and sisters and co-heirs. He began his journey that would culminate with his giving himself to us at the Last Supper in the Eucharist, his passion and death, and his resurrection and ascension. We too in Baptism would die and rise with him, would live in him and he in us.

Jesus stands at the Jordan, we could say, looking at each of us and asking, “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?”

Allow yourself to enter into the mystery of Jesus’ Baptism. What of the reflections in this article have touched you most deeply?

Jesus’ invitation is about helping you become more aware of the need for a great and generous spirit as he brings us into a mission that is greater than ourselves. Jesus is willing to sacrifice everything for the good of the people he loves and has come to save. He reaches out for others who will be willing to be with him in this mission. Jesus doesn’t ask if you are smart, if you are prepared, if you are holy. He simply asks: “Will you join me?”

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.

To stand with Jesus and to respond to his invitation to join him in will place a person squarely in the midst of the battle for the Kingdom of God against the forces of evil present in the history of the world. Suffering and struggle and hard labor will precede the fullness of God’s glory and Jesus’ triumph over all his enemies.

To follow Jesus is to take seriously his teaching, his example, and the powerful gift of his life and grace in us. Joining Jesus is a commitment to his plan for our own lives but also for the salvation of the world.

Talk with Jesus about this invitation and what you realize it will demand of you. Talk to him about what you are feeling, fearing, desiring.

Ignatius proposes an even deeper expression of commitment for those who feel a greater sense of identification with Jesus and wish to commit themselves even more in joining him. These are his words:

“Those who wish to give greater proof of their love, and to distinguish themselves in whatever concerns the service of the eternal King and Lord of all, will not only offer themselves entirely for the work, but will act against their sensuality and carnal and worldly love, and make offerings of greater value and of more importance in words such as these:

“Eternal Lord of all things, in the presence of your infinite goodness, and of your glorious mother, and of all the saints of your heavenly court, this is the offering which I make with your favor and help. I protest that it is my earnest desire and my deliberate choice, provided only that it is for your greater service and praise, to imitate you in bearing all wrongs and all abuse and all poverty, both actual and spiritual, should your most holy majesty deign to choose and admit me to such a state and way of life” (L.J. Puhl, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), Sections 97-98).

As you kneel before Jesus what is the commitment you wish to make to him at this time.

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

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.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John (Matthew 3:13).

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 your to enter into the contemplation more deeply yourself.

When praying with this passage from the Gospel of Matthew I imagined what it must have been like in the house of Nazareth as Jesus prepared to leave his mother and enter his public ministry. I had a sense of Mary looking out the window, remembering each part of the incredible life that had been hers since the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the Flight into Egypt, the days when Jesus was lost in Jerusalem, the death of Joseph, the beautiful years Jesus and she had spent together in their home at Nazareth.

How did she feel knowing that this was all about to change?

The previous years had had a rootedness about them, and now as Jesus gathered his belongings and prepared to leave her, she was uncertain about how the future would unfold…uncertain, knowing she would be alone, but also trusting.

I watched as Jesus gave Mary his special attention in these last few days they had together in Nazareth, the last few moments. With such kindness he must have listened to her reflect on her memories. With such love and compassion he helped her to see that he truly did need to be about his Father’s business.

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.

The “particular moment” that attracted my attention was Jesus sitting under a tree eating the lunch prepared for him by his mother. He was on his way to the Jordan. He had remained in Nazareth and he had left Nazareth at the bidding of his Father. There was no guilt for having stayed hidden in the village of Nazareth for thirty years and there was no guilt now as he left.

There was only Freedom.

Flourishing under the Father’s providential care.

Fire in his heart for the mission he was embracing. The intention and the purpose of Jesus going to the Jordan.

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.

I asked Jesus, “How are you living this moment, Jesus?” He responded to me, “Like a child.” I sensed to the very depths of my being what Jesus is experiencing in this mystery of his life.

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.

As I sat beside Jesus I felt his “childlike spirit”: there was a happiness about him. He enjoyed the moment, not needing to look ahead in fear, totally trusting the Father, without agenda or plan. His eyes were on the Father, waiting, receiving everything, following his direction. There was no negativity, curiosity, ugliness, inner pollution. As Child he is completely at God’s disposition.

I compare the way I often feel with the way I sense Jesus feeling in that simple act of eating his lunch before making his way to the Jordan. So far from being a child at heart, my heart can be led by fear down other paths. Yet as I sit beside Jesus, as he welcomes me to his humble repast, I sense him urging me to a willingness to lose all this…the “self” that is not completely at God’s disposition.

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 allowed the experiences of this meditation to soak into me, washing away my own spontaneous reactions with the attractive childlikeness of the heart of Jesus, the image that encapsulated them all was that of hands, friendship, freedom, the comfort of being held close in the hands of Jesus. The beauty of him wanting for me all that the Father has desired for me.

I spoke with Jesus about the meaning of this image given to me in prayer. What would be different if I took on the childlike joy of the way Jesus went about his Father’s will? If I realized that I was journeying through life hand in hand with Jesus, that as he was free and at peace so could I breathe in this freedom and peace.

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.

The grace we are asking of God: a deeply felt awareness of how God in all of history and most powerfully in the Word made flesh draws us into the unfolding of the mystery of his love which always is extravagant and which is ever seeking to save us. We desire that in doing this we enter into a process of healing and conversion that we might love Jesus and follow him more intentionally, completely, and 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.

Entering into Prayer

Offer your prayer to God, desiring that in every way it will give him glory. 

Enter into one of the moments where the Gospels record Jesus praying to his Father. For instance, Jesus retiring to the mountains and spending the night in prayer. Draw near Jesus, perhaps kissing the ground upon which he is kneeling.

Imitate as nearly as you can the spiritual sensitivity of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, in his all-night vigil before the Father… his posture… his grateful amazement… his return gift to his Father of complete surrender to him.

Assume the same posture, the same way of being, with all the way it spills over into your spiritual senses. “Taste” the sweetness of this gaze between Jesus and the Father. “Delight” in the divine communication of love that never ends between Father and Son….

End with gratitude, the gratitude Jesus shows his Father.

Entering the Story

Recall or determine what passage of the Gospel you will be using for your meditation. Take a few moments to center all your senses on the way one person or group is personally experiencing a single moment of this Gospel passage. Do you personally resonate with this experience in some situation or aspect of your life?

Ask for what you desire.

Read the passage from the Gospel. Focus on the moment of the engagement with Jesus. What is the person (or group) experiencing.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going (John 6: 16-21).

Enter more deeply into the experience of the disciples as you feel inspired. Here is a possible thread you could follow:

The apostles were terrified. They were accomplished fishermen, but the Sea of Galilee was known for storms that arose without warning, putting small boats in danger of capsizing. These storms resulted from differences in temperatures as well as the differences in height between the seacoast and the mountains beyond. This resulted in strong winds that would drop to the sea, funneling through the hills creating violent results. Because the Sea of Galilee was shallow the waters could be “whipped up” more rapidly than deeper water, creating violent waves that put even larger boats at risk.

Yes. The apostles were terrified. Look, listen, taste, touch, smell that terror. What do you see? Grown men crying out, rushing around, depending on themselves to do something to save themselves. What do you hear? The disciples crying out in fear, their cries lost on the wind, as they faced death and loss. You taste the terror of men losing control of the situation, tossed about by the winds of nature.

Immersing yourself in Jesus

Re-read the passage from the Gospel, noticing how Jesus experienced that moment, how he sensed it with all his bodily as well as emotional, mental, intuitive, and spiritual senses.

How is Jesus experiencing this moment? Don’t come up with an intellectual answer. Abide, instead, with the Word. Remain within Jesus and his experience. Allow him to reveal to you how he is most deeply experiencing his relationship with the disciples in this moment.

This may take you in any number of directions. In this passage Jesus is showing me he had this stance toward his disciples: no matter how hard they try, they cannot save themselves.

Revisit the narrative, using “the five senses of the imagination.”

Antonio Guillén helps us deepen this in this way:

Now it is no longer a matter merely of seeing and listening to the scene with the imaginative senses of sight and hearing. At this stage, all the other bodily senses come into play in one’s imagination: ‘to smell and taste with the senses of smell and taste the infinite gentleness and sweetness’, so that one touches with the sense of touch, ‘embracing and kissing the place where these persons tread and sit’ (Exx 124–125). This prayer becomes more a matter of the senses and feelings, and thereby emotionally more constant. (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises, The Way, Jan/April 2008).

In this passage, I was given to “taste” Jesus’ stability and power. I found myself bowing before him as my clothes and hair were whipped by the waves and rain. There I kissed his feet. Here there was a strange quietness, even in the midst of turbulence and danger. I “touched” clearly, how Jesus was more powerful than any storm. I felt immersed in his stability, as firm as a rock, in the midst of everything happening on the Sea of Galilee at that moment: the storms, the cries of fear on the part of the disciples, their terror at losing everything, even life itself. Jesus’ words: “It is I, do not be afraid,” were like incense, a sweet-smelling fragrance.

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.

Antonio Guillén continues:

Thus as we pray, we allow the mystery of the life of Christ, which has become connatural with us and present…, to take over and engulf us. No one would deny that this exercise—something at the intuitive and not cognitive level—impregnates the soul and establishes firmly that ‘inner knowledge of the Lord.’ For now the senses and feelings have taken on the same orientation as the reason and the affective will, ‘a more intimate assimilation of what has been contemplated, a sort of impregnation, the spirit’s soaking up what has already been felt’—‘that I might the better love and follow him’ (Exx 104).

Growing in Perfect Understanding

Explore the two ways of experiencing this one situation: the way of the disciples and the way of Jesus. We are also in the same type of stormy situations and have a choice about the way we will live through them: as the disciples or as Jesus.

The disciples in this story experienced terror. They did not experience Jesus’ presence. They felt alone. They had no trust or confidence. They were without hope.

Their experience is a window into what Ignatius called “spiritual desolation.” St. Ignatius describes desolation as, “darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, moving to a lack of confidence, without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord.” Spiritual desolation is fundamentally a movement away from feeling the reality of the presence of God.

Now enter into your experience of Jesus in this same situation. In my case, it was an experience of stability and power, the firmness of the rock that is attributed to God alone, and that nothing in this world can move. There was a sense of God’s nearness, an increase in faith.

This experience is a window into what Ignatius called “spiritual consolation.” t. Ignatius said consolation is when, “Some interior movement in the soul causes the soul to come inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord,” it is when the soul strives to love no created thing more than the Creator of all. Saint Ignatius also calls consolation, “Every increase of hope, faith, and charity, and all interior joy that calls and attracts the soul to heavenly things and to salvation.”

Take a few moments to reflect upon how right now you can find yourself in such “storms” in your life: in relationships, reversals of fortune, accusations and misunderstanding, losses, illness. Our first reaction may be to cry out in terror, and that is perfectly understandable. If we remain here, however, we are experiencing only our fear with no real means of dealing with it, just like the disciples. When we move from terror into the stability and power of Jesus who is in the storm but not affected by the storm, greater than the storm, walking on the waves created by the storm, we discover how he reveals his presence to us, “It is I, do not be afraid.” The decisions we make from this space are truly wise, inspired, and blessed.

This prayer changes the way we perceive and experience reality. We learn how to be in Jesus and to imitate him in the way he experienced every aspect of human need and desire…

We reach more perfect understanding when we take quality time to feel with Jesus, as he reveals himself, looking and hearing, touching and tasting, in the Gospel Word. Contemplating Jesus becomes the path to imitating Jesus.

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.

“To educate our senses and feelings, to become imbued with his way of being and feeling, of resonating with everything that made him resonate, of abhorring everything that he abhorred, of reacting to things and to people as he sed to react, to spontaneously (the goal) feel with Jesus—to be more like him [than ourselves]…” (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).

A gift to take with you

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.

Ask Mary, Joseph and Jesus to show you one specific gift they wish 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.

Image credit: Yousef from Unsplash