Consecration to the Heart of Jesus Through the Hearts of Mary and Joseph
INTRODUCTION
In the blur of activity, the noise of excessive media, the repeated bifurcation
of our attention through communication technology, our hearts are quickly
cluttered with the good, the bad and the ugly. The world is so much with us. Without losing the good, we set out for the first few days of our consecration to clean up the clutter, to order, transform and purge the bad and the ugly. The reflections and prayers during these days could be fruitfully combined with the asceticism of reducing technology use, regularly recollecting our hearts throughout each day, examining our hearts more thoroughly once or twice a day, and simply opening our hearts to God for Him to help us. In the days’ reflections, we consider the clutter caused by sin, the distractions of our inattentiveness, the importance of meditation, the grace of childlikeness, and the simplicity of heart that opens us to divine wisdom. Let us take these initial days as a time of transition as we slow things down and make room in our hearts for more of God.
Day 1: Emptying Our Hearts of the Noise of the World and Duplicity
READING 1
Genesis 3:7-10
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
READING 2
From the encyclical Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by Pope Francis
The symbol of the heart has often been used to express the love of Jesus Christ. Some have questioned whether this symbol is still meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart. This interior reality of each person is frequently concealed behind a great deal of “foliage”, which makes it difficult for us not only to understand ourselves, but even more to know others: “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse, who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). We can understand, then, the advice of the Book of Proverbs: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life; put away from you crooked speech” (Jer 4:23-24). Mere appearances, dishonesty and deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are. It is the basis for any sound life project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken apart from the heart. False appearances and untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed.1
REFLECTION
Adam and Eve used fig leaves to hide themselves from God and from each other. They were ashamed because they were naked. Pope Francis observed that we continue to hide our interior lives, our hearts, behind a great deal of “foliage.” This “foliage” is composed of our psychological defenses, patterns of avoidance, distraction, compulsion. Our superficiality and freneticism are part of our efforts to protect ourselves, to reduce interior pain and to function in a world made harsh by sin. These are often unconscious and sometimes objectively sinful in themselves. Although we do well to look inside ourselves and to seek to understand ourselves, we often cannot truly see and understand why we do what we do. Part of the process of emptying our hearts is simply surrendering the mystery of what is inside of us to the Lord, asking Him to help us sort out our hidden motives and to heal us in His mercy. What is the foliage that keeps your heart noisy and crowded?
Prayer of Surrender of St. Ignatius
Litany of Penance by St. John Henry Newman
- Dilexit Nos x 2, 6 ↩︎
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