Reflections from the Heart – February 19, 2023

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  The Word of God is so profound that you can actually see it.  It has become visible in Christ.  He is the Word of God made flesh and visible that has been seen and heard.  God’s Word has the power to create out of nothing, give light that is pure, radiant and magnificent.  God’s Word can scatter all darkness and bring forth life, even when it dies.  God’s Word is heard best in the silence and finds a home in a receptive soul.  God’s Word seeks an abode where noise and distraction cannot scare it away or displace it in any way, but desires rather to receive it, welcome it, cherish it, ponder it and ask him to stay. When you let God plant his Word in your heart, it grows and your heart expands from all the good fruit it bears. When you permit God to write his Word upon your heart, he never fades or goes away, but remains, deepening the experience, healing the soul, restoring the grace and renewing the friendship in your heart with encouraging, fulfilling and inspiring words. How profound is that? How about your words?  If your words could become visible, what would they look like?  If what you actually thought and said was able to take form and shape, what would your word create?  Would it be a person that was beautiful, good, holy and true like Jesus or would it be a person formed from an image that was distorted, distasteful, not holy, not true like the evil one? If we allow the Word of God to be truly on our hearts, minds, and lips, then our words can become life changing and life giving like Jesus.  If it is only our words, or perhaps only the words of another on our hearts, minds and lips how can that: help us, inform us, inspire us, instruct us on the way, the truth and the life God desires for us. and in fact offers us, in Jesus? The Word of God says you should pray for those who persecute you.  That is life giving, for your heart will be united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, praying from the Cross to the Father, saying with Jesus, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” The Word of God says to you to love your enemies.  Now that is simply radical, and life changing, for you would visibly be God’s word in the world.