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March 24, 2022"If today you hear God's voice, harden not your heart." (Psalm 95:8, today's Psalm response)
Has a friend ever said to you "It's time for a heart-to-heart talk?" Heart talking to heart -- an invitation to a no-defenses, going deeper kind of conversation with shared vulnerabilities, laden with the risk of receiving information that might be difficult to hear but a place where, at the growing edges of a friendship, we might learn to reclaim our better selves.
Our Lenten readings today are filled with heart-to-heart messages. The prophet Jeremiah speaks God's critique of a people who have blocked the message of a call to wholeness and blessing, who have preferred to walk in the ways of disobedience with a 'hardness of their evil hearts." In our Gospel from Luke, Jesus is accused of being in league with demonic forces even as he casts out demons... evidence of a hardness of heart that blocks all logic and 'facts on the ground' at minimum, let alone a heart open to the miraculous healing the accusers have witnessed and the fullness of the Kingdom it foreshadows.
Lent is a time of our own self-imposed heart-to-heart conversation, a spiritual EKG, where we dare to look at all the same incrustations of resentments, pettiness, selfishness, and indifference that blocked the awe and wonder of our Hebrew ancestors centuries ago. In these difficult days of international strife and unspeakable cruelty beyond our power to imagine, let us make a commitment to do the work that will soften our hearts of stone, to 'open our arteries' to some of the world's sorrows and deep longings, carving new pathways in our widening hearts of connection and compassion. And we 'take heart' in the small and large acts of courage, kindness, sacrifice, and generosity we see that take our breath away.
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Two other heart markers for our prayer and pondering today:
* On this day in 1980 Saint Oscar Romero, Archbishop and Martyr of San Salvador, was struck by an assassin's rifle shot to his heart while saying Mass. We keep in our hearts all who, at the risk of their very lives, commit their best selves to the work for justice and peace.
* Tomorrow, Pope Francis, heeding a request from the Ukrainian bishops, will consecrate Russia and the Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mary's heart, pierced by a sword, unites with our sorrowful hearts in these difficult days.
