Even More Beautiful!

 When the Japanese repair a broken object, they embellish it with gold, believing that once something is damaged,

it has a history that makes it even more beautiful.

 

"The time is coming," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers

when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,

though I was a husband to them."

 

"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,"

declares the Lord.

"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor,

or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'

because they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest"  (Jer. 31:33-34).

*******************

 

It has been said that our choice is to live either by the law or by the Spirit. The law, written on tablets of stone, is unremitting (blind, according to our image of "Lady Justice" with the scales in her hand.)  But, as I wrote yesterday about the murderer who became a monk, the Spirit can lead even the worst sinner into a life of glory -- something the law can never do!

 

(Apologies for the bold font -- I just cannot get it out for some reason)

 

Our hearts are broken by sin -- our own, or that of others -- but God's repair work can make them even more beautiful than they were at birth.  According to Semetic or Biblical expression, the "heart" is the dwelling place of our person, the place where we live, the place to which we withdraw.  The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others, and no one can fathom the human heart and know it fully (including ourselves).  Only the Spirit of God knows the treasures lying at the core of our being.  Only He can draw them out of us, if we are willing to surrender to His action in our lives.

 

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 the image of God, we live in relationship.  The heart is the place of covenant.

 

The grace of God, given to us in Christ Jesus is "...the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity...with the whole human spirit" (Catechism of the Catholic Church).  Prayer, for us, is entering into communion with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit, entering into the dynamic of their loving relationship with one another, of standing in the Presence of One Who is eternally active on our behalf, Who is even at this moment "writing His law" on our hearts so that we may enter even more fully into His joy and do even more the work on earth for which He has ordained us.