Give us hearts of flesh, O God, that we may serve you.

This morning I was drawn to a passage in the book of Ezekiel that has captivated me for many years:

A new heart I will give you,

And a new spirit I will put within you;

And I will take out of your body the heart of stone

And give you a heart of flesh.  (Ezekiel 36:26)

 I was again reminded that it is God, the Divine Mystery, who fashions the heart and has the power to heal and transform it from stone into flesh. As I look at myself and my world today, I sense in a new and deeper way how much we all need soft hearts of flesh to live well in our current circumstances.

A family friend offered this simple yet very demanding suggestion to help navigate today’s waters:

Listen and Care.

I believe that a heart of flesh fully listens to the other and cares. I want to ponder that a bit and ask for the grace to carry that out day by day. Listening and caring may offer a way to live in the fullness of life under any circumstance. A soft heart of flesh keeps us human and capable of seeing the humanity in all others.

To go a bit deeper, here is a reflection to consider:

“Transformation through immersion and consciousness depends on our capacity to be penetrated by the Mystery of Christ. Our being, our substance, must be porous in order for the Mystery to enter, to penetrate. That is the crux of the matter. It is not enough simply to be immersed in…life. We must let ourselves be plowed so that the furrows of our person become deeper and deeper, so that our earth becomes softer and softer. This is something our being craves, but this plowing is kenosis (emptying, the death which must precede new life, rebirth) and kenosis is not easy. In the measure that our being becomes porous and open, grace can penetrate us. Depth is possible. Transformation is possible. Thus, an ever-deepening penetration by the Mystery can fill us with spiritual being.”   Jean-Marie Howe, “Cistercian Monastic Life/Vows” A Vision

I see these words speaking to how the Divine Mystery transforms our hard hearts of stone into soft hearts of flesh. We are plowed by life’s events, by deep pain, and invited to surrender our prideful ways and allow God to make us porous so grace can penetrate us and make us soft. Painful, but oh so beautiful in the end.

I am reminded of times in my life when I have experienced what I call a deep cut – when I have been deeply hurt and wounded. Though painful to walk through, they ended up being times of great awareness and spiritual growth. My tears softened me and Divine grace entered into my being, changing me. Each time, I have been left with a sense of how little I am and how much I deeply need my Maker. Best of all, I receive the grace of a deeper knowing of how much God loves me.

When I’m softened from the hardness of anger, resentment, and fear, I am truly free to love well – God’s way. I receive the grace of a heart of flesh. A recovery friend of mine often poses the question, “How free do you want to be? Are you willing to go to any length for that freedom?”  Those questions are powerful motivators for me to allow myself to be plowed by the Divine.

Today’s morning prayer time was followed by Sunday mass. The Old Testament reading from 1 Kings related the story of Solomon asking the Lord for an understanding heart so that he would know what was right. The Lord granted this request and gave him a heart so wise and understanding.  Hard hearts keep us stuck but a soft heart is able to receive God’s wisdom and understanding. May we follow Solomon’s example and ask God to fashion in us a wise and understanding heart.

I encourage you to take a few moments now. Breathe deeply for a few breaths. Reread the Scripture and reflection passages here. Sit with them. Let them penetrate you. As you finish, ask for the grace to live with a heart of flesh that cares.

At mass this morning, I joined in declaring the words of a lovely old hymn:

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, if with his love he befriends you.

2020, with its coronavirus, has offered me the time and the material on which to reflect, to pray, and to ponder. My hope is that God will sort this all out and show us the way. However, I have my moments when I long for all this to be over. To move on to the next thing. To close this chapter and put it behind us. Yet today, I find myself drawn to these words: ponder anew.  What does that mean for me now?   Could it be an invitation from God for me to stay put in this present discomfort and to take me deeper in some area? To continue to go to him and to ponder, perhaps in a new way?

I sometimes lament: “Am I at this place again?”  This old hurt or fear or resentment. Maybe God is calling me to go higher, inviting me to learn to love beyond my present capacity. Perhaps God is perfecting me. Bringing me to something that I have not been able to do up until now.

So, I have a decision to make. I can resist or I can receive—staying open to what God has for me in this moment. To receive means to let it be done unto me. To let go of my natural desire to control and let God lead me. Be not afraid. Trust in God’s tender care for me and all His creation. Constantly claim God’s strength—His sovereignty. So, what does that look like in my day-to-day?

I can start by pondering anew. One way I do this is by reviewing my journals and my notes to self, reflecting on how they might apply to my present moment. In my review, here are a few notes I plan to ponder anew this month:

• We’re not here to make an impression. We’re here to make a difference.
• We make a greater difference by the love that we give rather than the positions that we take.
• You can either play God or you can reflect Him.
• Criticism is a detriment to the soul whether I’m criticizing another or myself.
• We can meet as equals and help one another.
• When I pray, I am saying that I’m willing to be helped.
• What is the best and most loving thing I can do in this situation?  What would be most loving to myself and to others?
• Seek the good, the common good, in all things.
• What is God up to and how can I cooperate?

Each of these statements challenge me to think more deeply about areas where God is still at work in me.  In a time of division, fear, and uncertainty, I sense that God is not done yet. Though I might want to be done, I believe God has more to say, more to do, more to give. God has more. He’s not done with the world, and he’s not done with me.

I recently ran across this prayer in my journal that I think applies not only to one’s family but to our world and our common good:

Lord, pour the balm of your mercy on the wounds of my family—the wounds I have suffered and those I have inflicted.

I’ll close with a piece that speaks to me personally and globally and gives me hope that there is purpose to this time.

 PATIENT TRUST

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability—

And that it may take a very long time.

And so, I think it is with you:

Your ideas mature gradually—let them grow.

Let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

                                                                             Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

 

 

Last fall I joined a small group, Retreat in Daily Living, for a 32-week prayer practice using the Ignatian exercises. I feel as if I have spent much time of late with St. Ignatius and the Jesuits, and I have thoroughly enjoyed their company. I’ve had the privilege of feasting on a rich buffet of high-quality spiritual cuisine. Midway through these exercises, the pandemic came upon us. In a sense, I have experienced a retreat inside of a retreat. And like all good retreats, it has been a time apart from the normal and a season of less. Retreatants normally describe their time of separation as a blessing—a time of healing, a pruning process. Many wise folks recommend periodic house cleanings and heart cleanings. These past few months have allowed time for both. This Ignatian prayer retreat has come to an end just as we are coming to an end of sorts to our mostly at home season.

I find myself drawn to stepping back a bit and reflecting on life in recent times—what has it held and what have I learned? How do I carry on from here?  I have a sense that I have been given something valuable, and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to forget what has come my way during this time. Ignatius believed in the value of paying attention to God, to oneself, and to others, and to receiving the gifts that each brings to us. We are invited to see and experience how all creation is ongoing—a process unfolding. We see it in the spring flowers blooming, the trees budding, and the earth greening. In my own ongoing creation, I can look to nature as a guide showing me how to surrender to the Creator and His sovereignty. I have been learning to: Stay little. Pay attention. Receive. Resist not. Let God take me deeper.  I allow God to lead me.  I stay fully present to each moment and movement of God. I experience His slow and gentle work in my life and in the lives of those around me.

I am struck by how God has protected, pursued, and corrected me during this time. I hope and pray that my vision has been sharpened by the exercises.  There have been times that feel like a new depth of reality. I would describe it as vibrant— as if life just shimmers.

Each week as we met in group to describe our prayer experiences, we were invited to share the one thing that came to mind to describe the week’s experience. Reflecting on this season of retreat, I felt led to ask God to show me the one thing I have received from Him during this time and to let Him take me deeper into that truth.  I’d like to share my ponderings on that question.

The retreat facilitators often encouraged us to go deeper with a feeling or an awareness. In the beginning, I found myself recalling heart hurts from long ago. At first, I felt that I must be doing this wrong. I thought this was about going deeper in my faith walk.  I now see that God needed to clear away some old ruins in my heart—to do some heart cleaning—to make room for me to experience more of Him in my life.  I recently heard this heart cleaning described as God putting His finger on a wound and how that hurts.  Yet, we trust that God’s hands are healing hands; His touch loving. As we think of God Incarnate, Jesus, we can imagine Him bringing us into His own wounds. We can lay on His pierced side to find healing. As the retreat continued, I was drawn more to simply rest and relax in God’s presence, trusting Him to do the work that needed to be done—slowly and gently.  I needed only to rest upon the side of Jesus in my smallness and weakness. Before beginning to write this piece, I began my day by participating in an online mass. These words from the homily reached out to me…

When we descend into the depth of what troubles us the most and frightens us the most, we will find Christ there.

These words feel like truth to me—a truth I desire to experience, a truth that comforts me, calms my fears, and gives me courage to go forward. I can learn to be with suffering—in others and within myself. To suffer with Christ. To sit with my own woundedness. I know that I have a resistance to sadness. I prefer to stay in my head rather than in my heart.  I now see that when I’m thinking, “I’m not doing it right,” I need to go to God and ask what He would have me do, remembering that God always does it right. An Ignatian retreat focuses on the life of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels. I have spent much time reading and reflecting on how Jesus lived and loved here on earth. I am continually struck by how often people in Jesus’ life got it wrong. How often we humans can be wrong—how often I am wrong. I also saw how Jesus always had a better way.  I am coming to believe that only God truly knows me and wants to show me the best way to go. I can pass from former ways into newness of life.

These awarenesses over the past few months have led me to focus more on the Divine and less on human frailties—mine and others. I am coming to sense Jesus as a dear, faithful friend. He wants the very best for me, and always treats me with respect, patience, and lovingkindness. He wants me to do likewise. To love well whomever He puts across the table from me. He is an advocate who fights for me. I am also beginning to see the role and power of silence in God’s plan. To be still and know.

As the retreat came to a close, we were asked to reflect on this question: How have I grown in faith, hope, and love, and where does such life-giving growth lead me now? I pray that I may continue to ask and answer these questions in the days ahead. For now, I ask God:

• for the grace to be a faithful and faith-filled presence in another’s life and
• to give me a listening heart that I may hear the hearts of others and accept our differences.

I want to stay very connected to God and slow to react. To wait and let God aim me. To first pay attention to what is going on in the well of my heart. Then look for God’s loving presence in myself and in all.  I can then relax, and wait to see what happens next.  I remain in God’s love. That may be the one thing God is saying in this unprecedented time of pandemic:

Remain in my love.

 Oh, please Lord, let me not forget.