Open Our Hearts
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O God, create a clean heart in me, put into me a new and steadfast spirit
Psalm 51:10
In A Bigger Table, John Pavlovitz writes, “Guilt is a hell of a drug to try and come off of.” Childhood memories return as Lent begins—forty days of giving up a favorite something. I don’t recall the word “repent” being described as metanoia, a change of mind, heart, and attitude; I remember being taught about guilt, something many of us still carry like a mantle.
It can be easier to give up something rather than to change our hearts or attitudes. It takes courage to remain steadfast when fear tempts us toward anger, bitterness, cynicism, and self-centeredness, rather than toward goodness, honesty, transparency, trust, and compassion.
Lent invites us to metanoia—a change of mind and attitude. It invites us to Be Attentive and to seek inner transformation. May we continue to be Transformed Through Hope by being attentive to all that separates us from God and one another.
Let Us Pray
Wisdom, Wisdom, open our hearts, guide us to be attentive as we are transformed through hope. Lead us to be steadfast in our commitment to gospel peace, justice, and love. Give us the courage to face this fractured world, knowing that in God all things are possible.
Reflection Questions / Practices
- How do you cultivate a steadfast spirit?
- What do you most need now for inner transformation?
- Focus on what you can manage and control, not on what you can’t or what you wish was different. Stay open to learning while letting go of old beliefs and practices.
Call Out Quote
“Conversion is not a giving away of something that we can well afford to lose. It goes much deeper than that. It is a putting away of something that we are: our old self with its all-too human, all-too-worldly prejudices, convictions, attitudes, values, ways of thinking and acting, habits that have become so much a part of us that it is agony even to think of parting with them, and yet which are precisely what prevents us from rightly interpreting the signs of the times, from seeing life steadily and seeing it whole.”
~ Servant of God, Pedro Arrupe, SJ.
Learn More: “Witnessing to Justice in the World,” Pedro Arrupe (1972)