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It Is Like Dialysis

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Mt. 11:28

When we recently celebrated the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I was reflecting on what this means in my life, and I realized that to place your heart in Jesus’ Sacred Heart and to just rest there in Him is a bit like dialysis.  What His Heart is filled with is what we want to be filled with, and what He longs to fill us with, even if it means dying on the cross for us, which He has.

But how does this happen?  How is it that what is in His Heart can fill our poor, broken, isolated or hungry hearts?  It is like dialysis, where what is in His heart is able to get across the membrane that surrounds our heart, fitting in through the tiniest of holes, where we are open to His grace.  The more we open our hearts in love, trust and gratitude, the more those graces can flow.

Not only do the good things from the Lord come into our hearts, but things from our heart can go to His Heart as well.  Our praise and our love, spoken from our heart to His, must bring Him joy.  All the things that had been filling our hearts up till now, things that we sometimes don’t really want, can also come out through those little holes, into His Heart.  Jesus then takes them upon Himself for us.  Yet, though He carries these burdens for us, He never resents us for it.  Instead, Jesus rejoices when we allow Him to love us as we are and to heal us in those ways, for He loves us and wants us to be free.

Jesus also invites us at times to take the hurts of others into our hearts and to give them over to Him as we pray in a special way for someone who is hurting, take the first step to reach out in forgiveness, or serve the people around us in the myriad of ways, both seen and unseen, in which the Lord is calling us to make His merciful love visible… all through the transforming love of His Sacred Heart.

- Sister M. Lucy, FSGM

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