Where does
prayer come from?
many
are asking today.
Better
than knowing by heart the thousand-plus Scriptural references to
“heart,”
St. Francis and St. Clare, with Scriptural wisdom and
simplicity, LIVED by the heart.
They
knew that
The
heart is our hidden center,
beyond the grasp of our reason and of others.
This
is what made them so sensitive to others in their joys and sorrows and
struggles,
as they recognized that
only
the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully.
Catechism #2563
Uppermost
on the Assisian saints’ spiritual agenda was
to pray to God always with a pure heart.
They saw so clearly that
the
heart is the place of decision,
deeper than our psychic drives.
They
also realized that it takes daily deciding to respond to the call to
set
one’s heart on the things that are above, where Christ is.
Their whole-hearted living of the Gospel had its share of
trials and sufferings.
Francis
knew the bitterness of disappointment; Clare, the burden of a long and
lingering illness.
Yet, they
knew where peace and strength are to be found, in
the
heart (which) is the place of encounter, the place of the covenant.
Catechism #2563
In
the depths of their hearts, they encountered Christ; in the stillness of
their hearts, they continually communed with the God of the covenant. And so they could truly sing:
The
God of my HEART is my portion forever.
Psalm 73