359. Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)

Meditations no. 602 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Good and evil always come from the heart.

THE external purifications of the Israelites-of the hands, vessels, jars, etc.-so frequent, were due to religious motives. They were an outward manifestation of the cleanliness of the soul. The prophets had recalled that true purity comes from the heart, assuring us that this righteousness is an indispensable condition for approaching God, participating in his worship and contemplating his face. Lord, who can dwell in your Tent? Who can dwell on your holy mountain? The one who walks with integrity, the one who practices justice, the one who speaks with a sincere heart.

The Lord also emphasized this interior purity: blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. The Pharisees, on the other hand, remained in the purely external. For this reason, as the Gospel of today’s Mass reminds us, on one occasion they asked the Lord about their behavior. The Pharisees and some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered with him and saw some of his disciples eating the bread with unclean hands, that is, unwashed. … And the Pharisees and scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not behave according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unclean hands?”

The Master re-emphasizes the need to have an upright heart. Listen to me, all of you, and understand it well: there is nothing outside of man that, when it enters into him, can make him unclean; the things that come out of man, these are what make man unclean. And he adds: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

Looking at Jesus Christ, true God and Man, we discover that having a heart - keeping one’s affections in order - is always necessary. Thank you, my Jesus, because you wanted to make you perfect Man, with a loving and most loving Heart, who loves to the point of death and suffers; who is filled with joy and sorrow; who is enthusiastic about the ways of men, and shows us the one who leads to Heaven; who heroically submits to duty, and conducts himself by mercy; who watches over the poor and the rich; who cares for sinners and the just… .

It is a good time to address to the Lord that prayer of our Father: Jesus, may my poor heart be filled with the ocean of your Love, with such waves that they will cleanse and expel from me all my misery. … Pour the purest and ardent waters of your Heart into mine, until, my longing to love you satisfied, not being able to repress any more affections from divine fire, breaks - die of Love -, and that Love of yours jumps, in life-giving and irresistible and most fruitful cataracts, to other hearts that vibrate, at the contact of such waters, with vibrations of Faith and Charity.

To love with the heart, but not only with the heart.

CHRIST is the most important thing in the life of the Christian; for this reason we seek him especially in Holy Mass and in the frequent reading of the Gospel, so that this contact may constitute a personal encounter with him. Union with God frees man from the prison of self and makes him taste true love: to love and to feel loved by the God of immense majesty. “Neither knowledge without love is worth anything before God, nor understanding of mysteries, nor faith nor prophecy: everything is empty and useless without charity. To attain love, on the other hand, makes man perfect. And he who loves God is perfect in this world and in the future. By loving God, we do not perish, but the more we contemplate him, the more we will love him.”

We must love God, our Father tells us; the heart is made to love. Therefore, if we do not put our heart in God, in the Virgin, our Mother, in all souls, … , the heart takes its revenge and becomes a worm. I have had to wipe away many tears from people who have been lost because they did not speak in time. Fifteen days later they are disgusted, they come crying, repentant. I don’t know anyone who is happy.

That is why I tell you to love one another, with sincere and noble affection; without idiocy, but without fear. And then, open your heart. Never have a secret; always say first those that are most difficult for you and, if you are tempted not to speak, go immediately to the Confidence. If you do so, I assure you of fidelity, happiness on earth and in heaven.

Sincere love for God enriches us because it enlarges the heart, giving it a greater capacity for generosity, for refinement of soul, which translates into a love that is also cleaner for those who deal with us. If no one with a moderate sense of respect for sacred things would allow themselves to mistreat objects of worship, why not use the same or greater respect for the body, the heart, the affections? We are much more than an altar or a sacred vessel! We are living temples of the Lord, children of God, and we are nourished by his precious Body and Blood!

God has traced out for man a path of love. His head, his sensitivity, his emotions, must be directed towards him. The human heart carries within it an immense capacity for tenderness and affection, a fire that only God can quench. “You made us, Lord, for yourself,” St. Augustine confesses, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” If God did not satisfy this capacity, thus quenching its thirst, the heart would try to fill this void by seeking its satisfaction elsewhere, and it would end up being a dumping ground.

The heart should be in all our actions. Otherwise, we would not be human. But it is not fitting that it should command: it must govern the head, with the light of grace and the help of reason. That is why our Father always repeated that we must treat God and men not only with the heart, but always with the heart.

Do not be afraid to love each other nobly, holily. Love each other very much: do not be ashamed to have a heart. It is not enough for us to tolerate each other. That is little. Official, cold charity is not enough. Affection, human and supernatural. We must make the affection of Christ inflamed with love for men, for his Mother, for the Apostles, for Lazarus.

Ask the Lord to purify our hearts.

THE Christian’s heart needs to be filled with love for God, and this is not possible without a constant work of purification. If this were not the case, the soul would be caught up in those things which attract the senses and stain the interior of man. Purification begins with the heart, because evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetous desires, wickedness come from it. … Hence the necessity of pleading with the Lord with the Psalmist: create in me, my God, a pure heart, and renew within me a firm spirit.

We make our own the prayer that our Father addressed to God many years ago, asking Him to purify their hearts and the hearts of His children, those of that time and those who would come to the Work in the course of the centuries, filling them with the love that flows from the Most Sacred and Merciful Heart of Our Lord.

Jesus: to see you, to speak to you, to love you and to feel loved by you! To forget the bonds of this world, to free ourselves from its yoke and to leave you the full possession of our hearts, open to you and to you alone! You know, Lord, that I love you. Yes - I confess this to you as Peter (cf. Jn 21:17) - you know that, in spite of my misery, I love you, and that in the midst of my follies I will not cease to love you. For multiply, with your power and your piety, this love until it has no limit or measure. Wound the heart of this poor man and those of all my children, those of all your children, and apply your cautery to them so that they will never again desire to taste worldly things. Envelop us in the flames of your love, and may they consume us and heal us and purify us. My God, may we already be yours, yours alone, and not be attracted by the joys and affections of here below (…).

I have imagined for our houses a coat of arms, so that artists from here below can do it, on which on a gold background will be shown a heart crowned by a small, discreet cross, which is barely visible. Within this heart there will be many, many hearts that will fill it; and the legend will be: E pluribus unum, out of many, only one. This is our desire: unity. Unity in Christ, unity founded on the charity of Christ, unity for the love of Him and unity of all, guarded by Him, fighting against the world, against its attractions and seductions. Your cautery, our Jesus, on our hearts, so that it may aspire to You alone, so that it may despise the miserable amusements of here below!

I want to see myself now, my God, next to the wound in your breast; and to think of all my children, of all those who are now living members of this living Body of your Work. Naming them, I will consider their qualities, their virtues, their defects, and then I will beg you, pushing them towards you, one by one: “Inside!” I will bring them into your Heart. This is what I want to do with each one and with all those who will come later, for centuries, until the end of the world, to be part of this supernatural family. All of us, all united in the Heart of Christ, all made one out of love for Him and all detached from the things of the earth by the power of this love accompanied by mortification. We want to be like the first Christians; let us revive their spirit in the world. Let us begin, then, by making real within the Work that affirmation: congregavit nos in unum Christi amor (Hymn Ubi Caritas).

Put your cautery, our Jesus, on us, however painful it may be! For you know. Lord, that our hearts are of flesh, opened by many breaches to the assault of the enemy. Ah, if I could keep within mine the hearts of all my children! It is not because they do not fit in it, that You, Lord, have enlarged it; but why keep them, if my heart is so weak, if the walls that defend it have so many fissures? But I can ask You, my God, that You keep them; that, possessed of Your love, they may be strong against the seduction of sensual things. Let us place this love for You far above the deceptive pleasures of the earth.

My Mother, I trust in you, I hope in you: intercede for me so that - by your prayers - the Lord may grant me what I beg of him.