Please lend me your heart...

We all do it all of the time: borrow something we need. We do it to Jesus all of the time: borrow His grace, His mercy, His love to get us through a difficult moment.

I do it in Confession -somehow I feel like in that Sacrament (with the right priest) I'm literally laying my head on the heart of Jesus like a John...


We are supposed to reciprocate the gift back to Jesus -and we are supposed to do it to each other.

What does it mean to lend someone your heart?

Please lend me your heart...
I used to annoy people by asking them, 'How is your heart?' instead of the normal, 'How are you?' -The latter always seemed too superficial. When I ask someone how they are, I actually want to know how they are doing... and so I changed the question (which took some people aback, but it made for some awesome, profound conversations with people as well.) It was like opening a little window into another person's soul and saying, 'You are actually important to me. How are you? Can I know something of your heart?' The catechism describes the heart of a person as the deepest part of who they are. It says, "... Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant."

In light of this, when I ask, 'How is your heart?' I'm seriously asking, 'How is that hidden place where you hide pain, where you meet with people deeply and meet with God?' Its a personal question, but it is a question that says, 'I seriously care about your 'person'.'
I don't ask this very often, but if I do ask it I am not blowing you off... it means, "I will give you time to share your life with me if you so desire or need... if you would take a breath to know me too."

Layers of the Heart…

Sometimes I feel like my heart is like an ice cream sunday. And no, I don’t mean that this is simply because I keep feeling like the world ‘eats me up’ all the time. Seriously, the more one brings one’s heart to Jesus’ Heart in the Eucharist, the more one comes to know him/herself. Someone asked me recently if I thought I was a candle (source) or a mirror of light. I answered both, it depended on the situation. On the one hand, I’m called to be authentic (like the real candle is authentic light), but on the other hand I am called to reflect God’s light as a mirror does, as well as reflect other people back to their real selves. By being a mirror (holding God’s light and allowing it to reflect people back to their true selves), I help others become authentic as well. Jesus’ Heart is authentic light (like a candle), and yet when I lift my weary heart up to Him in the Eucharist, He not only reflects a shade of His Own light within me, His light also brings forth the reality of who God made me to be. Its like when a painter finishes an icon and holds it up to the light at the end to inspect it –suddenly shades and colors he didn’t even realize were there come into view. That is how our soul is with God.

Sometimes I feel like my heart held up to the light of Jesus is an ice cream sunday. Yes, I do hope that I’m refreshing to the hot and weary souls brought to me and I do hope that I am always sweet, but what I mean lies deeper than even this. There are layers to my heart that I don’t even know about –but Jesus shows me them with His Own light.

Personality:

They say that my personality is the rarest of them all –an INFJ on the Meyer-Briggs scale and I actually relate well to this personality test. Their description is theory (although is pretty right on about me):

INFJs are gentle, caring, complex and highly intuitive individuals. Artistic and creative, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities. Only one percent of the population has an INFJ Personality Type, making it the most rare of all the types, but they nonetheless leave their mark on the world. As Diplomats, they have an inborn sense of idealism and morality, but what sets them apart is the accompanying Judging (J) trait – INFJs are not idle dreamers, but people capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact.

INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.

INFJs indeed share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and mysticism are very attractive ideas to INFJs, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.

But my own take on my heart is more childlike –I’m like an ice cream Sunday –the vanilla ice cream base is my Polish Catholic upbringing, the chocolate layer is the African side of me, the chunks are the solid reality of my practical life, the Carmel is the life of prayer, the marshmellow is the Slavic missions (Russian), the sprinkles are the joy of extra gifts (like music, art, gardening, and the gift of conversation)… no nuts on my sunday (I’m allergic, although I guess I have suffering in my heart and nuts would be analogist to that) - I could go on and on…

The bruised Heart of Jesus...

Sometimes my heart is bruised too... bruises hurt more than open wounds a lot of the time, because instead of bleeding out and cleaning up the wounded area, everything is held inside and bulges into a bruise. Do you ever have a bruised heart? I do ... and I know our good Lord's Heart was so bruised and battered that His Father mercifully allowed a soldier to pierce it open to drain His blood and water from His side after He died on the Cross. Sometimes I need to borrow Jesus' bruised Heart to inspire and give strength to my own hardened heart. And sometimes the bruises on my own are so heavy that I literally throw my heart at Him and scream, 'Take this back and do something with it, Lord.' Either way, when a heart is bruised, you have to be more careful with it than when it is healthy. Those are the most precious moments with the Lord -when we trust and love Him enough to entrust our wounded, bruised hearts to Him. And when we are loving enough to receive His Own battered Heart into our embrace of Love.

"Lend me Your Heart" in a confessional...

Enough of the analogies though, (maybe I got your attention)… so now, what to do when someone needs for me to ‘Lend them my heart.’ What is this question? How often I have screamed in a confessional, ‘Will you please lend me your heart? Mine is empty –flat out of virtue, grace, wisdom, strength…’ That’s me this morning. I’m going to Confession. Its not because I’ve done something terrible that makes me go back after only a few days. No, once in a while (in a really long while) I go to Confession simply because I’m dying of thirst for deep grace –that ‘word’ (or that particular silence) that God has for me only through the instrument of the priest (especially when a particular priest knows me well.) Yes, I’m thirsty this morning (my heart is dying of thirst) and so I’m going to say ‘Give me a drink’ to Jesus in a Sacrament. And the awesome thing is that His well never runs dry. I’ll walk right in that confessional door and whisper to my dear friend, ‘Please, lend me your heart for a minute or two. Does the echo of my life sound different to you than to me?’ See a priest is a master musician of the heart –he hears notes that I don’t always perceive –and as I lay my life out before him, he hears what Jesus would say to me –pointing out mistakes or missed notes, offering advice, encouragement –simply the ministry of presence some of the time. Yes, at times the only gift that I am given is the rest of another heart’s pillow for my weary soul for a moment. It’s the grace of knowing that another person besides me is looking at a Crucifix trying to measure up my soul to be an image of God’s love. Where do we stand in relation to Him?

Layers of the Heart...

Yes, that’s what I’m thinking about at 3am as I sit awake in my hermitage. I rested well tonight, but like an invisible alarm clock I was awoken and told to write. I was told to write to you, my friends who I do not really know. I was told to tell you about the layers of my heart, and the layers of God’s heart and ask you to lend me yours so that I have strength to lend you mine when you are tired and need a friend sometime. We can do this for each other because God is big and He gives us His Own strength. The Heart of God is like the earth which geologists tell us has many layers to it…. The layers of virtue, with the stream of mercy running through it –yes, that’s how I see the Heart of my Jesus. I peel back one side to peek inside and as I peer in the window of His Heart I see so many colors of love that I’m left overwhelmed and inspired. To think that I thought I knew Him suddenly seems like a joke, because my Jesus’ Heart is always new, always has a new color, flavor of love to share with me. One moment its His Divine Power, the next moment its His gentle, docile touch; its always a form of love, though… nothing in the Heart of God can exist without being a form of Love. And that is my goal for life too… that all is woven together by love. Scripture says that too… ‘Faith hope and love remain, and the greatest of these is love.’ Someday everything we know will pass away in the blink of an eye –everything that is except for the love we have gifted to others and to God. This is what I think of the layers of a human heart. So often we don’t see what truly transpires deep within a person, but it is no less profound than this –even if a particular person is being superficial at a given moment –all they need is for someone to hold up the light of God’s love and it calls forth a deeper perspective on life. A simple walk in the park is suddenly made into a lesson on Divine Creation; or a simple conversation can become cosmic in proportion to grace, when His Love is inserted by our holding up His Heart to others.

And we do this in faith. We do this in hope. We do this in love.

Next time someone asks you to ‘lend them your heart’ don’t be afraid and please, don’t recoil at the sound of the request. It means that your neighbor is tired and needs a revival of sorts –and just as you can’t touch fire without being burned, so too you can’t be an instrument of God’s Love without being transformed yourself. Yes, our heart’s deep layers are touched and formed and changed into conformity with God’s Heart when we allow Him to use us to touch other’s…

The Sacred Heart's Invitation...

And so next time you look at a Sacred Heart picture with Jesus holding His Heart out to you, reflect on it differently. It might be Jesus saying, “Here, do you need to borrow My Heart of Love?” or it might be Him saying, “My Heart is suffering and on fire (in the hearts of your neighbors) –will you lend Me your heart to rest upon for a while?” Yes, even God needs to rest His weary Head on our hearts from time to time. “Oh Sacred Head Surrounded… may I always be a pillow of rest to you” –whether it be in a baby sleeping on my chest or an old man resting in the presence of my silent prayer –help me always to say, ‘Yes, Lord, You can take and rest on my heart.’ Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable before the Lord. He might have to peel back a layer or two to find a comfortable place to rest, but its worth the encounter. Its worth such a meeting of love… such moments are places for an exchange of hearts…

A heart wedded and embedded by His Love:

St. Clare of Montefalco loved Jesus (and exchanged hearts with Him) so fully, that when she died the instruments of the passion were found imprinted on her heart! That's the kind of love I want -to have His most powerful love that embedded in my soul!

This is only possible when we respond, 'Yes! Fiat!' to Jesus' invitation of Love. His arms stretched open on the Cross leaves His chest wide open with a wound bloodily pouring forth His Love in an endless torrent of grace. Its His invitation -especially present in every Sacrament, at every Mass, begging, "Will you touch My Heart? Will you drink of My Wounds? Will you entrust your heart to Me as well?" He is knocking at the door of your heart this morning. How will you answer Him? Will you lend Him your heart?

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! +