Tear Your Hearts

My prayer life has been inundated by meditations on the open heart of Christ.  Meditating on the Sacred Heart becomes even more poignant on Divine Mercy Sunday, which brings to mind the image of Divine Mercy as revealed to Saint Faustina.  The image is characterized by red and white rays coming forth from Christ’s heart, the only feature to set this image apart from most other representations of Christ.  These rays, so central to the devotion of Divine Mercy, symbolize the blood and water that flowed from the pierced side of Christ after His death.  The blood and water in turn symbolize the sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism, sources of life, grace, and mercy.  It is into this pierced side, the entryway into his heart and the source of grace and mercy, that Christ invites Thomas to put his hand in the gospel for Divine Mercy Sunday.

How beautiful is this open heart that gives freely and “immediately”!  It is a fountain flowing continuously, broken open so that the graces can flow liberally over the whole world.  An open heart cannot stop its flow.  Through pain and anguish he allows divine mercy to spring forth from his heart.  It is through this wounded heart that we receive the blood and water that brings us to life.

An open heart does not only indicate a fountain of sacrificial love, but also availability.  Christ has created a pathway through his side into his heart, allowing us to be one with him as adopted sons of God and as members of his body through the channels of baptism and the Eucharist.  He invites us to come drink in the depths of his divinity through the very flesh of his beating yet broken heart, for the wounds of our Resurrected Lord still remain.  His side is not closed off, and neither is his heart!

But Christ’s should not be the only open heart.

“Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning; and tear your hearts, not your garments.  Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy, and repents of evil.” (Joel 2:12-13)

Divine Mercy and ripping open of hearts are once more closely intertwined in these verses, but this time, the hearts to be opened are our own.  God tells his people through the prophet Joel not only to be sincere in their repentance, but also to trust in his mercy!  God invites them to return to himself with their whole hearts, and then goes further and tells them to tear their hearts open.  This rending of hearts is often considered a symbol of sorrow for sin, for it is given as an alternative to the outward sign of tearing clothes.  But an open heart is also a necessary disposition to receive the Lord and his mercy.  Only if we follow Christ’s example and rend our own hearts in trust and in love can we fully receive his lifeblood and thus life itself.  To be life-giving, blood must enter inside the person through the love and free choice of his own heart.

By letting our hearts be pierced to receive mercy, we become conduits for divine mercy as well.  Our hearts, once opened, become hearts of sacrificial love, for open hearts bleed.  Those who are brought to life in Christ cannot help but give of themselves to others with mercy for the sake of Christ.  To share in divine mercy this way is painful, but blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy!  May all our hearts be united with the merciful and torn heart of Christ, and may they be as open as his to give mercy.

“O blood and water, which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in you!”

 

Sarah

Why Silence?

“Into Great Silence” is a gorgeous documentary on the lives of the Carthusian monks living at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in France.  To achieve a more accurate depiction of monastery life, there is no narrator, no background music, and only one interview throughout the entire two-and-a-half-hour-long movie.  The viewer sees the monks at prayer and at work in silence, while occasionally a bible verse will be presented as a rhythmic meditation on the call to silence.  The monks live and breathe the presence of God, and their lifestyle exudes an air of holiness.  It is a beautiful documentary of the contemplative life that is held to critical acclaim.  So what did I do when I watched it?

I dozed off.

There is something very irking about silence in my 21st century world, one in which I can listen to music anywhere and anytime, where entertainment is usually loud and on a screen, and I can talk to anyone I want instantly on my phone.  Even in the world of prayer, it’s hard to really be quiet.  Silence seems like such an absence.  How can we learn anything from silence if you can’t hear anything in silence?  It feels like being deaf.  Sometimes the way silence is valued is so mysterious and unfathomable.  It is a particularly troublesome concept for me, for my theology-of-the-body-inundated background recoils at the apparent lack of actions of love of neighbor.  I know in my head that silence must have powerful effects and is a holy way to pray, but it is one of those things that my heart finds difficult to accept.

chartreux.org

I mentioned to a friend that I had watched “Into Great Silence” and my difficulties with paying attention and understanding its concepts.  She is much wiser than I, and said something that put everything right back into perspective.  She pointed me back to the paradox of it all, that silence really is for relationship, a much deeper relationship than what is built on simple, human words.  Silence doesn’t make sense to the world, but it does on a supernatural level.  When we are quiet, that is when relationship deepens the most, because we allow ourselves to simply BE in His presence.  The Carthusian statutes say this on silence:

Our supreme quest and goal is to find God in solitude and silence.  There, indeed, as man with his friend, do the Lord and his servant often speak together; there is the faithful soul frequently united with the Word of God; there is the bride made one with her Spouse; there is earth joined to heaven, the divine to the human.  (Book 2, Chapter 12)

Silence is indeed beautiful because it is a level of supernatural communion.  But because it is supernatural, it is also very difficult, and may seem pointless or dry.  From what I can tell, only those who practice the way of silence really understand its power.  The Carthusian statutes also admit this:

God has led his servant into solitude to speak to his heart; but he alone who listens in silence hears the whisper of the gentle breeze that reveals the presence of the Lord.  In the early stages of our Carthusian life, we may find silence a toilsome burden; however, if we are faithful, there will gradually be born within us of our silence something that will draw us on to still greater silence.  (Book 2, Chapter 14)

Spending time in silence might very well be like making ourselves deaf, but I think it’s important to remember that it is the deaf that Christ makes to hear.  It is He Who will transform our silence into intimacy.  We need not worry that we are not enough.

In the silence of the heart, You speak

And it is there that I will know You

And You will know me.

About “Head and Heart”

Studying theology today seems to demand from the student a loyalty of either one or the other camps.  These camps have true and worthy goals, but they also have firm fences built between them.  One camp is the world of academia.  It is the center of masterful texts of philosophical and theological wisdom, and it is here that intricacies are discovered and explained, heresies refuted, and the wonders of the Logos extolled.  The other camp is the world of “popular theologians.”  They teach and inspire others to love God and their neighbor, always keeping their work focused on the salvation of souls and so bring orthodoxy to a more basic level of understanding.  This is the dichotomy drawn between “popular theologians” and the world of academia.  On the one hand, academia seems to believe that the works of popular theologians are of less worth.  On the other hand, the world of missionaries and popular theologians criticize the world of academia for its apparent lack of passion and lack of emphasis on what is ultimately important.  As I attempt to find myself in this world as a recent theology graduate, I am presented with these two camps as distinct and separate.  I have been told that if I try to have some of both, then I will not truly have either.

Why does this have to be the case?  Why can’t I study and then shout to the world the wonders of St. Augustine, of Josef Pieper, of the Greek New Testament, of Psuedo-Dionysius?

From commons.wikimedia.org

One aspect of Catholicism that has fascinated me is what some people have called “the Catholic And.”  This is the principle that Catholicism does not take to extremes but rather includes in a perfect balance.  Thus, we have the principles of faith and reason, body and soul, tradition and scripture, etc.  Most importantly, we have the Word made Flesh, the incarnation, the “catholic and” of God and man brought together in the God-man, Jesus Christ.  I think that the very Word of God preaching to the crowds on a mountaintop gives me some reason to believe that I can have “popular academia.”

This blog is also at least partly inspired by the Dominican way of life, that is, “To contemplate, and give to others the fruit of our contemplation.”  I love the part-active, part-contemplative Dominican spirituality that proves that you can have fullness in a road that chooses both.  In my theology classes, I kept finding fascinating nuggets of wisdom that made me instantly wonder how I could best teach it to another.  I want to be able to share all of this wisdom to the world, which is starving for the depths of the gospel.

Hopefully, then, this blog will not just be another one of those “let me tell you what I’ve been thinking about lately” blogs. (Though it will have personal reflections because I believe in the Catholic And!)  It will integrate what I’ve been learning in my research and personal reading with my recommendations for where you can learn more about what strikes your fancy.  I hope to make this somewhat of a database for the wells of awesome Catholic thought that I dig up whilst perusing the Catholic world of academia.

Like St. Therese said, “I choose all.”  A Catholic life is full of many things, so why not delight in everything?

Sarah

(This post will stay permanently in the “about this blog” tab for easy access for new readers)