Today, for the second time in 51 years, I overslept on a Sunday morning and missed the mass I was scheduled for! The first time, the folks in church were there waiting for me to show up (which, eventually, I did). This morning, however, a brother priest was in the church and subbed in for me at the last minute. Thus, I have neither a video nor an audio of my homily - just the text which follows below.
Such beautiful words in Jeremiah this
morning:
“I will place my law within them,
I will write it upon their hearts, says the Lord.”
That’s definitely one of my
Top 10 Favorite Verses from scripture
And there’s no doubting
it prompts some personal questions
For each of us to ask ourselves.
Questions like:
Who gets to write on my heart?
Who HAS written on my heart
– maybe when I wasn’t looking?
Who has scratched some graffiti on my
heart,
Words I find hard to erase or forget?
What’s been written on my heart
That now seems to have faded away?
What’s been indelibly penned on my
heart?
What has the LORD written on my heart?
At the very moment I was conceived,
My parents began writing on my heart
- in the language of their DNA.
My mother was writing her love for me on my heart
- and I on hers - in the intimacy of her womb,
before I knew a single word.
When I was a child my parents, my family,
my friends, my teachers
all had opportunity to write upon my heart
- sometimes before I had a choice
to accept or reject what they
wrote.
What some folks wrote was loving,
helpful and life giving.
What others wrote was wounding, hurtful and damaging.
Some wrote the truth on my heart
- and others wrote LIES.
Some of what was written was fuzzy, illegible – not clear -
And to this day,
I’m still trying to figure out what
the message was
And how has it shaped my life…
As we grow up and grow older
We become more protective of our
hearts,
we begin to shield them,
Doing our best to allow only a select
few
To write on such a tender slate.
Still, there may be times when we’re so desperate
to have someone write something there
that we open our hearts foolishly and indiscriminately.
Certainly, there’s nothing sweeter, no
message kinder,
no memory more satisfying, no intimacy more lasting.
Than what’s written on our hearts
With tenderness and love
By those we trust and welcome into our
souls.
Perhaps just the words i’ve spoken here
Have led you to that place in your
heart
Have been found loving and helpful
And others painful and hurtful.
It’s in just that place - in
your heart and in mine -
it’s in just that place
That the Lord writes his word to each
of us:
the WORD, the LAW, the PROMISE of his love.
It’s in the depths of our hearts,
In our heart of hearts that the Lord
wants to write
the word he has for each one of us.
Perhaps – this morning –
Perhaps what the Lord desires to write
on my heart, on yours,
is a word of healing,
Or a word of forgiveness,
or a word of challenge.
or a word of comfort.
It might be a word of great tenderness - to console me,
or a word of strength meant - to give me courage
or a word of pardon - to give me
peace.
Each of us, without exception, can be sure of this:
The lord waits, pen in hand, to write on our hearts.
And whatever the Lord wants to
write
on my heart or yours
that word, that message is precisely the one
I most need to read there.
You know, i’ll bet that we all check
our mailbox every day.
And if you have email
you check that at least a couple of
times a day.
and if you text,
then you’re checking your phone
and replying to texts all day long.
We’re always checking in
To see what word others in our lives
are sending us.
But I wonder, how often
Do we check to see
what word the LORD has written to us?
How often this LENT, have we checked
To see what word, what text, what
message
The Lord has been writing on our
hearts in this holy season.
He writes every day:
Have we been looking for,
Have we been trying to read what he’s
written?
There are two weeks left before
Easter.
What if we spent that time asking the
lord to help us read
what he’s been writing on our hearts?
What words of love and promise and
healing,
what words of mercy and comfort and
challenge
- has he been writing on our hearts?
And remember:
Whatever the Lord wants to write on my
heart
And whatever word from him we’re
searching for,
Hungering for, hoping to find
that word, that message is precisely the one
I most need and want to read there.
Jesus invited his father to write on
his heart
and so there were inscribed on the heart of Jesus
all the sins of humankind, including
yours and mine.
They were written on his heart
So that he might carry them for us on
the cross
and redeem us, save us from the harm they do
-- to others and to ourselves.
In the sacrament of this altar
The Lord gains access to our hearts
when we open our- selves
To receive his Body and Blood in the
Eucharist.
He enters our hearts to heal what’s
wounded
and to write upon them
the law and the promise of his love.
May our hearts be laid bare
That the Lord might write upon them
there
The words each of us of most needs to
find and read.
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