St Bernardine of Siena
Day 11: My Heart Sets Me Apart; I Am My Heart
READING 1
Proverbs 4:20-23
My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to him who finds them, and healing to all his flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.
READING 2
From the encyclical Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by Pope Francis
13. All our actions need to be put under the “political rule” of the heart. In this way, our aggressiveness and obsessive desires will find rest in the greater good that the heart proposes and in the power of the heart to resist evil. The mind and the will are put at the service of the greater good by sensing and savouring truths, rather than seeking to master them as the sciences tend to do. The will desires the greater good that the heart recognizes, while the imagination and emotions are themselves guided by the beating of the heart.
14. It could be said, then, that I am my heart, for my heart is what sets me apart, shapes my spiritual identity and puts me in communion with other people. The algorithms operating in the digital world show that our thoughts and will are much more “uniform” than we had previously thought. They are easily predictable and thus capable of being manipulated. That is not the case with the heart.
15. The word “heart” evokes the inmost core of our person, and thus it enables us to understand ourselves in our integrity and not merely under one isolated aspect.
16. This unique power of the heart also helps us to understand why, when we grasp a reality with our heart, we know it better and more fully. This inevitably leads us to the love of which the heart is capable, for “the inmost core of reality is love.”
REFLECTION
Blaise Paschal said famously in his Pensées, “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” When we learn to encounter reality from the heart, we see more clearly, respond to things as they are, and our responses are more grounded. We bring the core of our person to bear and act out of our true identity. This is different than heady abstractions or merely emotional reactions. Do you remain in touch with your heart as you encounter the world around you? Do you listen to the reasons of the heart as you try to decide what to say or do next? Do you see with the eyes of heart when you are interacting with other human beings? Are you able to see that the inmost core of reality is love?
Litany of the Fearful Heart
Radiating Christ
Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey
How to Catch Souls
Day 10: Contemplative Prayer Takes Place in the Heart
READING 1
John 7:37-39
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
READING 2
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Contemplative Prayer
2710 The choice of the time and duration of the prayer arises from a determined will, revealing the secrets of the heart. One does not undertake contemplative prayer only when one has the time: one makes time for the Lord, with the firm determination not to give up, no matter what trials and dryness one may encounter. One cannot always meditate, but one can always enter into inner prayer, independently of the conditions of health, work, or emotional state. The heart is the place of this quest and encounter, in poverty and in faith.
2711 Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we “gather up” the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed.
2712 Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who wants to respond to it by loving even more. But he knows that the love he is returning is poured out by the Spirit in his heart, for everything is grace from God. Contemplative prayer is the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son.
REFLECTION
The grace of contemplative prayer is a grace of pure receptivity. It requires opening the heart and exposing the poverty of a spiritual womb that God has placed there. Jesus said literally, “Out of his koilia [womb] shall flow rivers of living water.” A woman’s womb is an organ that cannot fill itself and serves essentially no purpose until it is filled from the outside and serves the most amazing purpose when it becomes the cradle of new life and brings to birth the infinite good of a human being made in God’s image and likeness. There is an analogous place in every human heart with that same kind of poverty that cannot fill itself and feels useless until it is filled with God and serves the most amazing purpose. That spiritual womb in the heart is the place of contemplative prayer. It is a secret place that we can only expose to God through poor and humble surrender.
What secrets lie hidden in your heart? What is it like to encounter Jesus in your heart in poverty and faith? How often do you gather up your heart under the prompting of the Holy Spirit and abide in that inner dwelling where Jesus always awaits you? Do you allow God to pour His love into your heart through the Holy Spirit?
Litany of the Fearful Heart
Radiating Christ
Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey
Seventh Week of Easter . Sing to the Lord
All People . HYMN
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make.
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.
Oh, enter, then, His gates with praise,
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His name always.
For it is seemly so to do.
For why? The Lord, our God, is good;
His mercy is forever sure.
His truth at all times firmly stood
And shall from age to age endure.
To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
To God whom heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.
Day 9: Learn to Pray from the Heart
READING 1
Psalm 19:13-15
But who can detect their own errors? From hidden faults acquit me. From presumption restrain your servant; may it not rule me. Then shall I be blameless, clean from grave sin. May the spoken words of my mouth, the thoughts of my heart, win favor in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer!
READING 2
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Heart and Prayer
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.
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.
REFLECTION
In order to return to the heart and connect with God from the heart, we have to get in touch with deeper realities in our lives. Praying for superficial things will leave our relationship with God at a superficial level. Learning to ask deep questions and prayer for God’s light with deeper things, will also deepen our relationship with God. Pope Francis offers several questions that can help us go more deeply into our hearts:
“Instead of running after superficial satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit of others, we would do better to think about the really important questions in life. Who am I, really? What am I looking for? What direction do I want to give to my life, my decisions and my actions? Why and for what purpose am I in this world? How do I want to look back on my life once it ends? What meaning do I want to give to all my experiences? Who do I want to be for others? Who am I for God? All these questions lead us back to the heart.”1
Litany of the Closed Heart
Radiating Christ
- Pope Francis, Dilexit Nos x 8. ↩︎
Consecration to the Heart of Jesus Through the Hearts of Mary and Joseph
Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey
Day 8: A Spirituality of the Heart
READING 1
Luke 12: 49-50
Jesus said: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!”
READING 2
From Behold the Pierced One by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
In the terms of the encyclical [Haurietis Aquas of Pope Pius XI], however, spirituality of the senses is essentially a spirituality of the heart, since the sense and spirit meet, interpenetrate and unite. Spirituality of the senses is spirituality in the sense of Cardinal Newman’s motto: Cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart), which sums up, in perhaps the most beautiful way, what spirituality of the heart is, a spirituality focused on the Heart of Jesus.
The encyclical adds another important set of motifs to these reflections on the tradition of devotion to the Sacred Heart. For the heart is an expression for the human nadry (passions)—i.e.; not only man’s passions but also the “passion” of being human. Over against the Stoic ideal apatheia, over against the Aristotelian God, who is Thought thinking itself, the heart is the epitome of the passions, without which there could have been no Passion on the part of the Son. The encyclical cites Justin, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, John Damascene, exhibiting different variations of the same theme, which it sees as common ground in patristic Christology: … passionum nostrarum particeps factus est (he has come to share in our “passions”)….
The topic of the suffering God has become almost fashionable today, not without reason, as a result of the abandonment of a theology which was one-sidedly rationalist and as a result of the rejection of a portrait of Jesus and a concept of God which had been emasculated, where the love of God had degenerated into the cheap platitude of a God who was merely kind, and hence “harmless.” Against such a backdrop Christianity is diminished to the level of philanthropic world improvement, and Eucharist becomes a brotherly meal. The theme of the suffering God can only stay sound if it is anchored in love for God and in prayerful attention to his love. The encyclical Haurietis Aquas sees the passions of Jesus, which are summed up and set forth in the Heart, as the basis, as the reason why, the human heart, i.e., the capacity for feeling, the emotional side of love, must be drawn into man’s relationship with God. Incarnational spirituality must be a spirituality of the passions, a spirituality of “heart to heart”; in that way, precisely, it is an Easter spirituality, for the mystery of Easter, the mystery of suffering, is of its very nature a mystery of the heart.
REFLECTION
The Heart of Jesus integrates human passions into divine love as He expresses His divine love through a human heart. “His human emotions became the sacrament of that infinite and endless love.”1 Our Christian spirituality is a spirituality of the heart, in which we begin by pondering and, indeed, receiving the passionate love that God has for each one of us. “Behold the Heart that loved the world so much!” Jesus told St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. In gazing upon the passion of love in His Heart, a love we did not and could not earn, then challenges us to let a response of love well up in our own hearts. Will we allow Jesus to draw us into a “heart to heart” with Him?
Litany of the Closed Heart
Radiating Christ
- Pope Francis, Dilexit Nos x 60. ↩︎
Consecration to the Heart of Jesus Through the Hearts of Mary and Joseph
Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey
Julian of Norwich
Day 7: The Ascent of the Heart to God
READING 1
Psalm 86:11-13
Teach me, O Lord, your way, so that I may walk in your truth, single-hearted to fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your name forever. Your mercy to me has been great; you have saved me from the depths of Sheol.
Reading 2
From The Journey of the Mind to God by St. Bonaventure
Blessed is the man whose help is from you; in his heart he has prepared to ascend by steps in the valley of tears, in the place which he has set. Since happiness is nothing other than the enjoyment of the highest good and since the highest good is above, no one can be made happy unless he rise above himself, not by an ascent of the body, but of the heart. But we cannot rise above ourselves unless a higher power lift us up. No matter how much our interior progress is ordered, nothing will come of it unless accompanied by divine aid. Divine aid is available to those who seek it from their hearts, humbly and devoutly; and this means to sigh for it in this valley of tears, through fervent prayer. Prayer, then, is the mother and source of the ascent. Dionysius, therefore, in his book Mystical Theology, wishing to instruct us in mystical ecstasy, places a prayer at the outset. Let us pray, therefore, and say to the Lord our God: Lead me, Lord, in your path, and I will enter in your truth. Let my heart rejoice that it may fear your name.
REFLECTION
St. Bonaventure encourages us to seek the greatest happiness which comes from arriving at the highest good. This requires us to rise above ourselves which is only possible if One above us lifts us up. The desire to reach the highest good is already welling up from the depths of our hearts. It can only arrive at its destiny with the help of God. Sometimes we struggle with ambivalence when we feel this desire. It puts us in a place of dependency, because we cannot realize our desire on our own. That ambivalence may lead us to shut down our desire. Sometimes this is why we numb ourselves with distractions. In other cases we try to fulfill that desire on our own, which leads to other forms of self-indulgence and sin. To feel the desire is also to feel our powerlessness to fulfill it. It is truly to sigh, as St. Bonaventure said, crying out to God, asking His help and waiting for His timing. This stretches our hearts. Let us ask ourselves, “Am I in touch with my deepest desire? Do I allow myself to cry out for God from that deep desire? Do I let myself feel my helplessness in this vale of tears? Lead me, Lord, in your path, and I will enter in your truth. Let my heart rejoice that it may fear your name.”
Litany of the Wounded Heart
Radiating Christ
Consecration to the Heart of Jesus Through the Hearts of Mary and Joseph
Copyright © 2026 by St. Vincent Archabbey
the Lord ascends to Heaven
They were looking up at the sky
“When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven’” ( Acts 1:1-11 )
“Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.”
Saint Augustine
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St. Therese of Lisieux says “Our Lord does not come down from heaven every day to lie in a golden ciborium. He comes to find another heaven which is infinitely dearer to him—the heaven of our souls, created in his image, the living temples of the adorable Trinity.”
St. Thomas More: “Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”
St. Jean Vianney says “O my dear parishioners, let us endeavor to get to heaven ! There we shall see God. How happy we shall feel! If the parish is converted we shall go there in procession with the parish priest at the head We must get to heaven ! ”