Joel 2:12-18
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
Just this past Sunday was Valentine’s Day. The ubiquitous symbol of this day is the heart. We usually find it in red everywhere. The element of heart that was symbolized on this day was love, love in its relational and affective, feeling mode.
Today, the heart is back. For what we are all about in Lent is the heart. If we need a greeting card to open this season, the prophet Joel leads with the word heart. He is echoing God’s words: “Return to me with your whole heart…rend your hearts and not your garments and return to me, your Lord and God.” Now the heart translates as something more than amorous feelings, the glow of being in love, as we say. To come back to someone carrying your heart, to stand before God with a heart that is broken and torn speaks of wanting to renew a relationship that has moved away from self-giving, sacrifice and looking out for the other. The call the prophet speaks is a call to look closely at our motivations for acting and speaking. The call is about checking out our attitudes and assumptions. The heart for this season of Lent is the heart that lies behind everything we say our do. “Return to me with your whole heart.” For it is the heart that governs all our relationships and all our plans.
The implication in the prophetic call to return and in St. Paul’s strong command to be reconciled is that something is not well in this human heart of ours. Say what we like, all is not right in depths of the human spirit. If it were, then we would not have this season that commands us to return with the whole heart. It seems that we have been acting with less than the whole. We have perhaps been acting in a manner that is less than fully human. It would seem that we have become careless and hard, otherwise there would be no need to ask us to soften it. No doubt what is meant is that our heart has ceased being other centered, it is no longer focused toward and on someone. It has become turned in on itself. In biblical terms, it has become hard and stubborn. It is no longer committed to the original relationship that binds us to God and through God to each other. A human heart at its core is other centered. In this way, it reflects the heart of God that is always other centered. God’s heart, he says today, is gracious and merciful, slow to anger; its richness, its wholeness lies in kindness.
So this is the season for acknowledging our hearts. It is the season for a deep recognition of the state of our real selves. It is the time to recognize the primary relationships that are found and are interwoven in the heart: the relationship to God, to fellow human beings and finally to ourselves and the environment we live in, to creation. But the heart is not something we see. It is invisible. It is of the spirit. How do we know something is happening there? How do we know that changes are taking place there? We have no choice but to look at what is coming forth from the heart. We have no choice but to look on the outside.
Certain things we do and say are able to show what is happening in the heart. If we fast, we let go of control and keeping for ourselves what is necessary for life. If we pray, we acknowledge our humanity and our solidarity with others in the human family. If we give alms, we are sharing our material goods or wealth. These are external signs that speak about what is happening inside, in the heart. If we bow our heads to receive ashes, we are at least admitting that we have something to grieve for, that something within us needs healing. When we accept the ashes, we accept death.; we acknowledge that we are limited. We need these external signs. By doing them the heart should be activated.
In the end, the restoration of the relationships is not a matter of fixing up things on the outside. It is a matter of something deeply personal, deeply spiritual. It is something which affects our whole attitude in life. It is not a matter of impressing anybody. It is as Jesus says, a matter of being before your Father in secret. This is the gospel way of saying it is being with your heart before God. What matters is that you and I are walking in the way the Father asks us to. Really, Lenten activity is get us to admit that God alone gives us honor, dignity and recognition. The Lenten work, whether it is fasting, prayer or almsgiving, doesn’t make anything happen on God’s part. But it can very well make us more aware of where our heart should be and consequently where our interests should lie….There is real physical hunger on this earth. Some brothers and sisters don’t get their share of daily bread. Fasting makes us ponder the mystery of why? Some people have deep longings that they think can be satisfied with more of the goods of this world. Fasting reminds us that human hearts are only satisfied by God alone. Many people are overwhelmed by suffering but have forgotten how to cry. Praying reminds us that before God all words are possible and can be heard. Tears and groans don’t fall on deaf ears but are gathered up till they stir compassion in the heart of God. We look around us and we see the inequality of this world’s goods, between north and south, rich and poor. Divesting ourselves of something concrete and material is a way of reminding ourselves that to have and to possess means holding all things in trust and for sharing. The earth is not ours to own. It is ours to care for; it is a precious gift.
The symbol for Lent is the human heart. It once again becomes a heart in process, a heart in the making, a heart in transformation. It is a heart being softened, a heart being awakened, a heart being torn. It is a heart, which began as less than whole, but in these days is becoming whole once again. It is a heart that had broken its commitment but in these days is breaking faithlessness and moving again toward fidelity and new love. It is becoming a heart shaped by our master and Lord who showed us how to rend it so that love pours out.
In a few moments, we will willingly receive ashes. They look useless; they look as though they should be thrown out. But like the dust and earth they symbolize, out of them will come new life, out of them will come a new light and fire that will burn and glow and never go out or grow cold.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB