A Perennial Perspective on Love:
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THE HEART OF CHRIST
Dear Friends of the Heart of Christ,
In the year 1673, when she was only twenty-six years old, St. Margaret Mary was shown the burning heart of the Lord for the first time. It was the feast of St. John the Evangelist (December 27th), the beloved disciple, and just as St. John rested his head close to the heart of his teacher and master, so too would Margaret Mary lean on Christ’s breast. It was there that He revealed to her the mysterious secrets of His Sacred Heart, telling her how passionately fond He was of the human race and how He would use her to reveal this “pent-up” love to the world. In the history of spirituality this was a unique occurrence because Christ’s love was again revealed in a remarkable way to the human race showing us that love is not just an emotion or feeling but a grace which flows from the very heart of God. Love is perennially present in the fabric of our soul’s life and we are surrounded by the “possibilities of love” through the ebb and flow of time and of eternity.
St. Francis de Sales tells us that “the soul cannot live without love.” Throughout history we find evidence of some of the greatest witnesses to the power of love – souls who have reached out for the pinnacle of love and loving, saints like Therese of Lisieux who made the simple yet soul-shaking discovery that her place and destiny in the Church consisted of love. For her to be the supreme practitioner of love was enough.
But what about us who would place ourselves on quite a different level than Therese or any of the saints for that matter? How does love permeate, animate, invigorate our lives? As with Therese the impact of the moments of love, eternal love, come sometimes unexpectedly, without warning… yet they do come. Consider a contemporary account of just such a happening:
I was on a vacation in the mountains. Two friends and I had hiked most of the morning and we were very tired. I laid down by a tree stump and slept. When I awoke it was late afternoon and everything had become quite. The crickets and cicadas had silenced their chirping, even the breeze stopped. All I can say is that moment was an eternity, and it was the moment of my birth. I was forty-five years old, but in those few minutes I was born. I had no thought at the time – everything was just there. I had no reaction except for a deep quiet and peace. This is hard for me to say, but at some point I remember thinking “There is a God, there is a God.” And my life hasn’t been the same since then. I still practice law and I keep the same friends. I still worry about money and politics. I still snap at my wife when I have a hard day, but I am different. Somewhere deep down something has changed. Now I look for God – I seek the wonder of life, and while I appreciate being here on the face of this earth more than ever before, I also fear death less. I sit alone, and now and then enter that moment again.
(from the book Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology by Gerald May, MD)
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To taste the eternal presence of God who is love is a remarkable event, and is evinced by this man’s story. It can leave a profound impression on the soul, as it has done in the lives of many good people. I think of so many of our dear ones who have gone before us and who epitomize this dedication to God. The thought of God was never far off for them, and though they were immersed in the dilemmas of family or work, they ultimately returned to center themselves in God’s presence, keeping the flame of faith burning brightly. As Christmas approaches it is this profound gift of God’s enduring love that comes to us in our busy world, hoping for a response from our hearts as well. It is this gift of “loving presence” that allows us to be attentive to Christ’s Sacred Heart, born of the Virgin Mary, becoming like us in human form and wishing to share in the experiences we all must face. He is calling out to us to awaken to the reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst, even as we are “bombarded” by so many distractions, pulling our minds and hearts in so many directions and desensitizing them in the process. However, we are cautioned by Benedict, our Pope Emeritus, to guard against the hardening of hearts in our society, and pointing to the supreme importance of faith, he says, “it (faith) must not be watered down.” “The healing of this ‘hardness of heart’ can only come through faith.”
However despite all the world’s coldness and indifference, we cannot escape divine love. It is there in the very air we breathe for it has a permanence and a durability that not even the most cataclysmic events can destroy. This has been attested to by those who have endured the most base and inhumane of circumstances. “Love triumphs,” St. Margaret Mary tells us, regardless of personal cost or suffering, it cannot and will not be exterminated. The philosopher (and saint) Edith Stein, a convert to the Catholic faith who perished in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942, once noted: “Life is love: love overflowing, that has no limits and that gives itself freely; it is love that yields mercifully to every need; love that heals the sick and rouses to life what was dead; love that protects, defends, nourishes, teaches and forms; love that is afflicted with the afflicted and glad with those in joy; that is ready at the service of each one in order to fulfill the plan willed by the Father, in a word: the love of the divine Heart.” And again we hear from the writings of the contemporary mystic Teilhard de Chardin, “Christ’s heart is the source of all the love in the universe…” it is “all around us, physically active to control all things. From the ultimate vibration of the atom to the loftiest mystical contemplation; from the lightest breeze that ruffles the air to the broadest currents of life and thought… the heart of Christ ceaselessly animates, without disturbing, all the earth’s processes.”
Yet with all this love surrounding us, it seems amazing that we can so frequently be oblivious to it. To remain effective and to have meaning, love must penetrate our minds and hearts. Human hearts must give love a home, a place to reside and a fertile area to vegetate, as it were, like any good soil. The message of the Gospel repeats this advice in various ways, always reminding us that God’s love can’t be all God’s doing; we must have our share in its cultivation as well. So how do we prepare our hearts for divine love? A favorite prayer of St. Margaret Mary tells us that she humbly asked God for the grace to grow in love, in a “determined” love which would be a constant impetus to seek God’s presence… “O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I give and consecrate to Thee my actions and pains, my sufferings and my life, in order that my entire being may be devoted to honor, love and glorify Thy Sacred Heart”: this is the essential prayer that she shares with us to offer as well.
As with all human endeavors, the persistence of our actions will be of great benefit. Those who are able to faithfully carry out the “responsibilities of love”, will win the crown in the end; though it is not a matter of “flawless” love that is most important, as much as it is a willingness to begin anew each day to look upon the face and heart of the Lord for the strength to continue in the journey of love. As a recent homilist expressed it: “we must have the ability to ‘plow through’ each day’s obstacles.”
In my monastic life, I know from experience that doing the same thing day after day is often tedious. One elderly sister put it this way (making an observation upon those who came to try the life). Some, she said who come have a very strong desire to stay at first. Everything is new and the prospects of receiving the habit are so appealing to most, but as time goes on one gets tired of the daily routine and that becomes a great obstacle in the life. There are many reasons for the choice to stay in the monastic vocation, but perhaps the most significant explanation is that the power of divine love is at work in the hidden depths of the heart. This applies in equal measure to all vocations. God’s blessings fall on those who surrender themselves most completely to His loving designs. Though we may not fully reach the heights of a perfect self-surrender in this life, the will to love will itself be a purifying fire forming us as God’s intimate friends, and allowing us to put God and God’s priorities first in our lives.
On the feast day of our founder St. Francis de Sales we use an antiphon in our Liturgy which is set to enchanting music and memorable words: “Those who love God can never stop thinking about Him, longing for Him, aspiring to Him, and speaking about Him.” It is spiritual insight which reminds us that our relationship with God will flourish when we continue with determination on our journey to the heart of God… thinking, longing, aspiring, and speaking of what is about Him.
Drawing us on through our daily needs, through dark nights, restlessness, loneliness, fatigue, indifference, what have you, the Heart of Christ is truly a consuming fire that won’t give up on us. God knows of what we are made and has the power to fan into flame the tiniest bits of love offered to Him. So do not stop invoking His presence or hoping in His help or witnessing to His truth and goodness or offering Him your poor love. He is here in the midst of our parched and lifeless souls, ready to respond to our sighs, our pleas, our cries of distress. Let us ask in love and faith to taste the sureness and sweetness of His presence and to have great confidence in His providential care. +
This talk was given by one of the Sisters at the Monastery of the Visitation in Tyringham, Massachusetts on December 7th, 2014.