Connected hearts
We live in a culture where immediacy, superficiality and making this reversible prevail; where we try things, change, move from one thing to another and, without realising it, this way of living also seeps into our relationship with God. We are afraid of commitment, and instead we seek experiences that excite us and make us feel something. Yet today the Lord insistently repeats the verb “remain”: “Remain in me.” To remain is not to connect from time to time; to remain is to stay there, in the Heart of Jesus, and from there to live life with Him. This abiding is born from a life of prayer (not merely from moments of prayer), and it also requires an initial effort to avoid distractions and useless thoughts that draw us away from God, efforts to shift the focus away from ourselves and fix our gaze upon the Lord, efforts to keep our minds and affections in His Heart. But little by little, as our soul grows in this union with God, the heart becomes magnetised by the Lord, and a day comes when what is difficult is not thinking of Him and with Him. Then we will be able to say with Saint Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Martha: While working in the flower shop this morning, I was asked to prepare several small bouquets for children making their First Communion… I spent the whole morning making them because there were so many, and as I prepared them, I was praying for each of those children, for those souls who were going to receive the Lord for the first time, asking for the purity of their hearts… then for their parents… I spent the morning in prayer, choosing the loveliest flowers with Our Lady, doing everything “immersed” in her Heart, and together we prepared it all with care and affection…
Adrian: Well… my day was not quite as flowery as yours… rather, the Lord was pruning my pride through a colleague who constantly humiliates me and subtly ridicules me in front of the boss… but interiorly I united myself to the Lord and remembered so many humiliations that He endured… Later, at the Eucharist, I offered this pain they caused me for the salvation of this colleague and for so many souls…
Martha: I give thanks to God for this life of prayer that is drawing us ever closer to Him. How evident His grace is!
Adrian: Absolutely… I also think that committing ourselves to this journey of faith has been a key step for our souls, hasn’t it?
Martha: Yes, completely. Having a concrete path within the Church where we can deepen our prayer life, the sacraments, and our vocation… has helped us not to live a faith only occasionally, but to strive to remain connected at all times to the Heart of Jesus and Mary…
Adrian: I believe that too, Martha. We used to pick here and there according to whatever appealed to us, but we needed to commit ourselves and remain in something concrete within the Church.
Mother,
You who were always united to Jesus, teach us to keep our hearts always connected. Blessed and praised be the Lord who draws us to Himself!