Heart Speaks to Heart
"Heart Speaks to Heart" was the name of the retreat that I went on a couple weekends ago. I got to spend a lot of time in silent prayer, which I was not at all use to.
It was a beautiful experience, and I learned so much from the time I spent on that retreat.
After, and even during the retreat though, I was accompanied by suffering. Not hearing the voice of God clearly, feeling very isolated and even rejected by Him, and I kept being reminded of how lonely I felt.
I think the greatest amount of suffering I experienced was due to me not fully understanding how I could come to relate to God. I've never been to clear in my life on how to approach God, whether in prayer, simple mediation, in Scripture, etc.
For example, while on the retreat, I had a conversation with some girls about how they approach, or how they best see or relate to God.
One of the women leading the retreat said that she saw Christ as the Bridegroom, and best related to Him on a spousal level. One girl chimed in and said she found solace in seeing God as Father. I know other people who love seeing Christ as Redeemer, and still others as Friend.
Christ is all of these things, and I think I've found it so difficult to go to Him because I haven't taken much time to pray about how I best relate to God.
I'm not sure how our hearts speak to each other.
(This is a picture from Eucharistic Adoration out on the water at the retreat. How beautiful is that?)
One of the talks that we listened to was about how God approaches us. We studied a few excerpts from Swiss theologian and Catholic priest Hans Urs von Balthasar's book Heart of the World, where he talks about the fact that God created a human Heart for Himself, and "placed it at the center of the world."
He comes to us so humbly, in a way that puzzled those living in His own time, and I imagine puzzles many of us in our own time.
I've never really taken the time to ponder this great act of love.
What has God done...
"But God housed in a heart! How easy he now was to reach! How swiftly he could be hurt!... But what a target the heart is! What an enticement! The gun points almost unconsciously in that direction. How exposed God has made himself! What folly he committed! He had himself betrayed the weak spot of his love...
"Nor will his unprotected Heart protect him. For a heart has no understanding: it does not know why it is beating. His Heart will not stand by him. It will (every heart is faithless) betray him. For, indeed, it never stands still: it always goes on, it runs. And because love always runs over, his Heart will also run over --- over to the enemy as a deserter." (Balthasar, Heart of the World)
How many times have I been at the cross and deserted Him? How many times have I run away? And he knew I would run. He knew I would desert Him, and He gave this gift to me anyway.
His heart stays open, exposed and vulnerable, waiting for our hearts to speak back to Him.
It can be very scary to imagine, and even scarier and harder to do, but this is what we were made for: we were made to be loved by God, and to return that love to Him to the best of our ability.
This is the desire of our hearts. We will seek and find misery as long as we ignore that truth.
I think that I need to relate to God by the reality that God is here.
A convert friend of mine said that as a Protestant, he grew up with the knowledge that Christ is risen, but now as a Catholic, has treasures the knowledge that Christ is present. He dwelt among us, and He is with us.
So often I find myself asking where God is, where He's hidden Himself, and why. But He isn't hiding from me at all. He created a human Heart for Himself so that He could draw all the nearer to me, and so that I would not be afraid to come closer to Him.
Heart speaks to heart where there is no fear, we're I am not afraid to love and to be loved by He who created me for Himself.
He made Himself so weak for me, coming to me with this vulnerable human heart, as an infant, as a poor man, and now as bread and wine to feed and nourish me.
I don't want to be the deserter anymore. I want to be the beloved, with a heart that knows my Lover is here.
"I slept, but my heart was awake.
Hark! my beloved is knocking."
Song of Songs 5:2