+The heart and God:
In the beginning of the mass, the priest prays facing the congregation saying : The lord be with you all, then he asks them saying : Lift up your hearts, the congregation then replies : We have them with the Lord. After that the priest calls for thanking God. Here, it comes to our mind a verse from 2 Chronicles reminding us of a spiritual base that is of an extreme importance to know and live by, this verse says:
It shows my beloved, how important it is to have all your heart towards God. Didn’t God say:
We must realize that the heart should be submitted fully towards God, not with a fractioned heart, not to appear holy and within our hearts we are far from within, never, this is not tolerated by God who looks to the heart,
And since God has given us everything in his Son , it is rightful that we give him with all love, everything. This is how Love is met by Love, and total giving with total giving. God asks us to Love him from all our hearts, hasn’t he loved us from all his heart, not only by words but by acts and truth ? ! ” 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ( John 3:16)
Not only has he offered his Son, but he also poured his Holy Spirit upon us, working in Church with the Holy Sacraments and the word of God, to give us from his abundance. Saint paul faces any doubt concerning God’s Love : ” 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ( Romans 8:32)
Our Hearts also relate to our inner life, starting with our thoughts, the first tool for satan, the world and the flesh to try to bind us away from God. In this battle we have to strictly follow the words of the Holy Bible, to fortify our thoughts and raising them to the Lord :
“4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 4,5 )
Living with a mind that through God is lifted to God , for we have nothing but the word of God. Let us fill our thoughts with his Word, repeating it day and night, reading continuously from the Holy Book with prayers, so that he enlighten us through his Holy Spirit, and give us understanding to his life-giving Words. Using his Words as an everyday guide in our way, work and home. Teaching and holding our hands in our journey with God and men. Being our defeating sword :
“17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ( Ephesians 6:17 )
If we persevered on training our thoughts under the dominion of God’s Word, we will eventually have a pure mind, and the purity of mind will lead to the purity of our soul leading in the end to a purity for the body. “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. ( Matthew 23:26 ). “3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ( John 15:3 ). Bare in mind my brethren that the more we allow the Word to be in control of our thoughts controlling our behavior and daily life, the straighter our path will be. Experiencing the power of the verse that says: “13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” ( Philippians 2:13 )
When we submit our hearts to the Lord, we raise our hearts to him , for he is over everything, “heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool” ( Matthew 5:34,35 ). This is when we will proceed amongst the world enlightening it with God’s light, becoming the good salt to the earth.
Amen,