There's a hole in my heart, dear Liza, dear Liza...

What is a literal heart-ache? 

Jesus' thirsting love for us on the Cross. And He shares this with us, so that our hearts ache is for His Presence and Love.

And so the perfect sized remedy for a literal heartache is Jesus' Heart in the Eucharist...

So, how does one get a hole in their heart? Sometimes it is from people hurting us or dying or some other tragedy/loss in one's life. But Jesus got a hole in His Heart from a soldier piercing His side after He died on the Cross. His hole was created to be an open fountain of God's mercy for those thirsting for His Love in the world. 

Sometimes God drills a hole through us too (like when St. Teresa of Avila experienced the transverberation of the heart). God can do this to strip away some unhealthy attachment, and He also can do this simply to make room to stuff more gifts within us. After He does the latter, He expects for us to become fountains of His grace and love (especially for those who seem to hurt us the most.) That's what it means to be a hero of the Cross -to live heroic love (which should be all of our goals) -it means to stand at the cross-roads of life and death, of persecution and being a gift -and to love, love, love. Its a sweet wound that pierces the heart sometimes.

Regardless of what causes the hole in one's heart (whether it be from the emptying of a negative trait or simply God's way of making room for new gifts), such a hole can only be filled by Jesus' Eucharistic Heart coming to live within us. There is nothing (no wound, no loss, no pain) that cannot be healed, filled and formed by Jesus' radical fiery love coming to rest within our own beings. There's a song in Polish that says at the Cross 'His Heart meets our heart and His Wound meets our wounds' to heal us and make us whole. Sometimes God has to allow us to feel our incompleteness without the fullness of what He desires to give to us because as our thirst increases, we are willing to accept more of His Gifts.

So, yes, there's often a hole in my heart -a burning thirst for Jesus' Eucharistic Life -and that hole is left vacant until I go to drink of the stream of grace Jesus offers us from His holy Heart on Calvary. Its such a mystery, this real 'heartache of the soul'... sometimes its Jesus simply sharing His Heart's ache for us, who He loves... longs for... waits for...so that after experiencing His thirst, we can be satisfied by His Love. In the Eucharist Jesus changes His 'I thirst' into a 'we thirst' together and eventually satisfies the deepest parts of our souls simply by embracing and filling our heart's need and pains by His Love. Oh Sweet Heart of Jesus, make my heart like Thine... Just as Your Mother allowed Her Heart to live a perfect union with you.