234. Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

Meditations no. 574 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The heart, according to the Bible, is the most intimate part of the person. It is to this interior center that the Lord’s teachings are directed.

Today’s Gospel recounts several of Jesus’ sayings that warn us of the dangers of blindness and hardness of heart. No one knows our own condition more deeply than the Son of God made man. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, Christ “fully reveals man to himself and reveals to him the sublimity of his vocation”.

Jesus, when he speaks, addresses that center of the person that in the Bible is called “heart”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that “the heart is the dwelling place where I am, or where I dwell (according to the Semitic or biblical expression: where I ‘go inside’). It is our hidden, elusive centre, neither for our reason nor for anyone else’s; only the Spirit of God can fathom it and know it. It is the place of decision, in the depths of our psychic tendencies. It is the place of truth, where we choose between life and death. It is the place of encounter, since, in the image of God, we live in relationship: it is the place of the Covenant”.

This intimate core of the person is profoundly affected by original sin. The grace of Baptism erases everything that has the reason for sin in our soul, but we also know that the consequences remain, the inclination to relapse into evil. Hence the permanent need for spiritual combat to achieve the purification of the heart, to come to identify with the Heart of Christ.

In the Gospel, Jesus addresses the disciples and those who follow him, exhorting them: the disciple is not above the teacher (…). Why do you notice the speck in your brother’s eye? These words - teacher, disciple, brother - already indicate a new life begun around the Lord, but still incipient, full of imperfections and dangers. When Jesus speaks of the blind man who leads another blind man, or of the one who sees the speck in his brother’s eye and does not notice the beam in his own, he is not referring to a merely physiological seeing or not seeing, but to a spiritual sight or lack of vision; he is pointing to a “blindness of heart”, or a distorted intention that prevents the clear perception of the divine reality, that of one’s own soul and that of others. Commenting on this passage, St. Cyril of Alexandria explains: “With these words he persuades us … so that we may abstain from judging others and rather examine our hearts, striving to cast out from it the passions that entangle it, imploring God’s help. It is He who heals those with a contrite heart, and delivers the soul from its evils.”

We must pray to the Lord to fill our hearts with clarity, so that we may be able to perceive the reality of our limitations and the greatness of his goodness. A light that will enable us to discover the goodness of creatures as well, without allowing ourselves to be dominated by the habit of thinking ill of the intentions of others. Ask Jesus, our Father suggests, to grant you a Love as a bonfire of purification, where your poor flesh - your poor heart - will be consumed, cleansing itself from all earthly miseries. … And, empty of yourself, be filled with Him. Ask Him to grant you a radical aversion to worldliness: that only Love sustains you.

It is necessary to purify the heart so as not to fall into self-centeredness or the harshness of internal judgments.

THE LORD, to that heart that has not yet been fully converted, contrasts the heart of the good man. The good man brings out the good treasure of his heart. And in another passage he adds: if your eye is simple, your whole body will be enlightened.

Our Father confronted goodness with kindness, to make us understand that there are human reactions or actions that have the appearance of goodness, but that, in reality, lack the integrity or strength necessary for true virtue to occur; and he used the expression kindness to indicate a behavior that is not fully virtuous. On the other hand, being good, having a good heart, is really desirable and we must try to do so.

According to the teachings of Jesus, what changes a person and brings him closer to God is not external practices - which are always necessary - but directing the heart to God, giving channel to divine grace, so that it affects the stable dispositions of the will, the right use of intelligence, the order of affections. We must be vigilant over ourselves, asking the Holy Spirit for light. Perhaps the examination of conscience requires a more penetrating look into our interior, especially on days of retreat or in seasons of greater tranquility or spiritual tranquility. And, as the years go by, that more inquisitive look also becomes more necessary.

Hodie, si vocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra; if today you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, the Lord tells us. And our Father echoes him in a meditation. You are listening to your Father, the Founder of Opus Dei, he said years ago, and even though this is a lot (…), it is not only I who speak to you. … God himself, in the depths of your heart, is asking you to open the doors wide to him, to enter with his grace to the last corner of your soul, and thus to heal, purify, and illuminate. You and I cannot have a hard heart, like impermeable earth that lets drops of water slide. No: let us ask the Lord to enter us like fruitful rain, capable of filling the ground on which it falls with fruit.

In this way, when necessary, we will be able to notice the twisted tendencies: an inclination to pessimism, to judge others negatively, to give free rein to lamentations, protests or complaints, which may end in a more or less habitual attitude of ill-temper. This danger must be averted, because the process of spiritual maturation leads to inner simplification and, with it, to understanding, to increase the capacity to love, to ask for forgiveness and to forgive. In this way we will know how to serve with a heart similar to that of Jesus Christ.

Ask the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and your Mother, to make You know Yourself and to weep over that pile of filthy things that have passed through You, leaving - alas! - so much residue … -And at the same time, without wanting to depart from that consideration, say to Him: give me, Jesus, a Love like a bonfire of purification, where my poor flesh, my poor heart, my poor soul, my poor body will be consumed, cleansing itself from all earthly miseries. … And now that I have emptied all my self, fill it with You: may I not be attached to anything here below; may Love always sustain me.

The deep sense of spiritual fatherhood, the need to thank God and to thank others for their details of attention and affection, often accompany this broadening of the heart.

Gratitude to God and to others is a necessary condition for having a good heart, like that of Jesus Christ.

THANK YOU, Lord, because without true love there would be no reason for self-giving. May we always live with our souls full of Christ, and in this way our hearts will know how to welcome, purified, all the things of the earth. Thus, from this heart, which will reflect yours most beloved and merciful, light will come out, salt will come out, flames will come out that burn everything.

The first manifestation of true goodness of heart is the perception that all the good in us is a gift from God and, in many cases, a gift from God through other creatures. A popular saying relates thankfulness to a person’s good condition: it is well-born to be grateful. Therefore, one of the good things that spring from a good heart is gratitude to God and to others. By knowing what God has given us, “we will find many things for which to give thanks continually.”

The Responsorial Psalm invites us to thanksgiving. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing psalms to your name, O Most High! to proclaim your mercy in the morning, and your faithfulness by night. … The righteous will blossom like a palm tree, he will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.

Our model is the Heart of Jesus. “The Heart of our Saviour in a certain way reflects the image of the divine Person of the Word, and is also the image of his two natures, the human and the divine; and thus we can consider in him not only the symbol, but also, in a certain way, the synthesis of the whole mystery of our Redemption”. Our Lord made his life on earth a continual thanksgiving, a Eucharist, culminating in the Cross. I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to the little ones.

The Blessed Virgin also bursts forth in thanksgiving for the wonders that God has wrought in her life. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior: because he has set his eyes on the humility of his handmaid; for this reason from now on all generations will call me blessed. Because the Almighty, whose name is holy, has done great things in me. Our prayer, St. Josemaría comments, can accompany and imitate Mary’s prayer. Like her, we will feel the desire to sing, to proclaim the wonders of God, so that all humanity and all beings may share in our happiness.

This is how our Father also lived. The Lord granted him a good and grateful heart, a heart like his own. And he advised us to encourage thanksgiving. Ut in gratiarum semper actione maneamus! May we always be in a continual thanksgiving to God, for everything: for what seems good and for what seems bad, for what seems good and for what seems bad, for what is sweet and for what is bitter, for what is white and for what is black, for what is small and for what is great, for what is temporal and for what has eternal significance.