homily 3-21-2021

 

Jeremiah: “I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts.”

Ps. 51 – “A clean heart create for me, O God.”

Hebrews: “He learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Jesus (Jn. 12): “Father, glorify thy name!” (Lord, may You be glorified by my life. May every part of my life – my words, my actions, my thoughts, my plans, my choices, my dreams and goals, my relationships, my free time, my work, my play – may all of it give glory to you.)

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

1431 Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart).24

1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: "Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!" God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God's love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:

Let us fix our eyes on Christ's blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.

Jesus says everything from the Cross and from the tabernacle. He still speaks to you, personally. Do you hear Him? You must sit in the classroom of silence.

Father glorify your name!

Ask God what He wants to do for your heart this Holy Week. Ask Him every day this week.

He wants to create a clean heart, to write His law there, so you can say “glorify your name.”