"A New Season"
"A New Heart for Love"
Because "God is love" and He desires
me to experience the profundity of His love, there is an essential, sacred work
that needs to take place within me. In particular this is true for one called
to be a contemplative intercessor. This work is "a profound spiritual
transformation which God works within [me] by means of " the breath of his
Spirit" (Pope John Paul II; General Audience, August 10, 1988).
This "work" is what God speaks of through the
Prophet, Ezekiel: "I will give you a new heart" (Ezek. 36:26). This new
heart is God's gift to me. It is "a new life which is life in the spirit and in
truth, a life worthy of "true adorers of the Father" (John 4:23)" (JP II;
General Audience, 8-10-88). In our English language the root of the word,
adore, means "to pray". True adorers of the Father are true "pray"-ers. Deep love and deep prayer go hand in hand.
I need a new heart capable of being filled completely with the "genuine
aromatic nard" of God's love (see John 12:3).This is a heart of authentic
interiority: A heart capable of living and praying from the depths of New
Covenant love; a heart that lives always in perpetual remembrance and awareness
of the truth that God is always present to me; a heart capable of picking up
the "heart thoughts" of God. The charism of intercessory prayer can only be
lived effectively through a newly created heart--a heart that can hold the
promises of God, can pray for them in persevering faith, and can experience
their fulfillment.
Rev. 21:5, says, "Behold, I make all things
new." Since God is love, it makes sense, then, that love makes all things
new: "He will...renew you in his love" (Zeph. 3:17). God delights in making
me new. He desires to give me a heart capable of holding the love of God and
the love of humanity in a single embrace (for, this heart is to be the place of
a sacred encounter between God and humanity); a heart that can both identify
and empathize with humanity, and therefore intercede effectively for others.
Indeed, God wants to plant a new
"vineyard" deep within me that is truly His dwelling place; a "garden
heart" of 'fragrance, flower and fruitfulness' where love, beauty, truth and
mystery are found, and where the "flowers of renewal" bud forth and blossom; an
inner space of everlasting attachment to Jesus, the "vine" who produces; a
place of "Eucharistic intimacy", bearing abundant fruit through
intercession.
Questions:
1) What
aspects of a new heart can I identify as being present within me already?
2) Where
does my heart still need growth?
Scriptures:
Any scripture from the text; Acts 13:22; Phil.1:7; 1 Pet.
3:15
