Let Your Heart Fly!
Do not let your hearts be weighed down! (Lk. 21:34)
Perhaps you too have gone through times when you have felt heavy-hearted, weighed down by sadness, pain or disappointment, or else tossed about by worry, fatigue or the lack of profound relationships that give meaning and a future to life. When one’s heart is weighed down, it hurts! If we are heavy-hearted, then we are tempted to flee reality, everyday life, concrete relationships and problems, and go in search of “alternative” paths and spaces. And yet the heart is meant to fly: to dream, to love.
So what are we waiting for? It’s time to save our heart–to lead it along the paths of Truth! These are the most sincere best wishes offered us by the First Sunday of Advent: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Do not let your hearts be weighed down!” (Lk. 21:34) There is a mysterious bond between the Word of God and the heart. In the wonderful and surprising world of the Bible, the Hebrew word “heart” (lev) is very short but, according to the teachers of Israel, it is destined for great things. In fact, the two consonants in the word correspond to the first and last letters of the Pentateuch, or better, the Torah (which means guide, teaching, light), as if to say that the heart is made for Sacred Scripture and Sacred Scripture for the heart.
Here is the secret of the pilgrim of God: my heart is able to contain the divine Word, the source of true joy and hope for everyone, and that Word reveals the mystery of my identity, of my vocation, because “your law is within my heart” (cf. Ps. 40:8). In this dynamic give-and-take relationship, a spark of meaning is ignited: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk. 24:32)
Take delight in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will act.
(Psalm 37:4-5)
