In the Pope’s recent encyclical titled Dilexit Nos, On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, here are the titles of Chapter one: “The Importance of the Heart.” “What Do We Mean by ‘the Heart’”? “Returning to the Heart.” “The Heart Unites the Fragments.” “Fire.” “The World Can Change, Beginning with the Heart.” We are told by Merton more or less in these words that we monastics leave the world only to discover that we carry the world within us. And Pope Francis tells us that the ‘world can change beginning with the heart’. And he adds: “It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters…. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle” (#28). ‘Our hearts united with the heart of Christ’: Is this not the essence of our vocation and what our lives are to communicate, individually and as a community?
Beginning from the heart is where we hear what God wants. Pope Francis titles chapter 2 “Actions and Words of Love”. Actions and words of love come from the heart; the heart is the living spring that brings forth the Divine word of life, of mercy and compassion. We had at Vespers last week this reading from 1 Peter 4:8-11, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ”. ‘Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God’. This is how close God is to us; we are to speak as one speaking the very words of God. How do we do this? Our heart united to the heart of Christ; it is this unity of hearts, this heart-to-heart encounter, my heart connected to Christ’s heart, this is where we are supported and sustained, where our heart is converted and becomes more Christ like in its actions and words.
We go to Jesus’ heart through our heart and Jesus comes to us from his heart. This commingling of Divine life with human life happens through the heart. Pope Francis wrote in this same encyclical: “Let us turn…to the heart of Christ, that core of his being, which is a blazing furnace of divine and human love and the most sublime fulfillment to which humanity can aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn how to love” (#24). We have our own issues as a community, issues that can divide us as a community if we are not aware of what is going on within our heart. We need self-knowledge to help our conversion into a Christ like manner of seeing and being. We are to pray for our heart to be connected to Christ’s heart so that our blindness or negativity or narrowness or jealousy can be converted into the larger horizon of Christ’s life and love. I end by repeating these words of Pope Francis: “It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters…”.
Sr. Kathy DeVico, Abbess
Chapter Talk – 32nd Sunday of the Year – November 10, 2024, cycle-B
