Daily Reflection Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest

I have developed a bit of a hobby of late – collecting ‘heart insights’ from posters, calendars, and various greeting cards and writings.  Here are some entries from my collection:



“With these hands, I give you my heart and crown it with my love.” (Claddaugh ring inscription)
Living life with a ‘thinking heart’ (spiritual writer Etty Hillesum)
“It is the heart that gives; the fingers just let go.” (Nigerian saying)
“Listening to the heart – living from the inside, out” (Thomas Merton)
“The soul of the teacher is teaching from the heart.” (Gloria Durka, religious educator)
“Not from the ego’s lunging and lusting, but from the heart’s breaking do we grow.” (Laura Kelly Fanucci)
“I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)

The crown jewel in my collection has always been that last one – today’s first reading, the beautiful passage from Jeremiah where God is promising a new relationship with God’s people, based not on obligation nor fear but in the intimacy and closeness that can only be captured in the image of a beating heart pulsing through the Universe with love for us – the heart synonymous with life itself. 

And once we believe that promise (“believe’’ in both Greek and Latin: “to give one’s heart to, to belove”) and take it to heart, then our prayer response can only be that of the Psalmist today: “Create in me a clean heart, O God” – a heart cleansed of any hardened blockage of arrogance, pettiness, selfishness, greed; a breaking-open, fleshy heart marinated in tenderness and compassion for all now included in this new, unshatterable Covenant.

This prophecy promised to Jeremiah finds its complete and fullest expression in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, broken open for us anew each time we share in his Body and Blood at the Eucharistic Table. Let’s put on our heart light today, a heart breaking open for others and taking heart in hope.