Pyrex Heart

Feb 18

Lent begins with an invitation from the Prophet Joel (2:12), “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart.”

Returning items is not my expertise.

Here is my confession: every time someone brings a Pyrex dish to my house, I sound a warning, “If you leave it here, you may never get it back again.”

It is not intentional. I just do not have a mental inventory of my baking dishes. I cannot distinguish between yours and mine. With many Oblates living in the house, I cannot track where it is, who cleaned it, or where it was stored. “Warning!”

When the Lord proclaims, “Return to Me with your whole heart,” I feel as though I am looking for one of those dishes. I don’t know where it is. It has been passed around, stored away, and I lost track of it.

But there was one Pyrex dish I could return without hesitation. My friend etched her name on the bottom of it. Her name marked the dish.

When St. Francis de Sales urges us to “Live Jesus!” he is inviting us to let the name of Jesus be engraved, etched, into our hearts. It is a call to allow Christ to dwell at the very core of our being, to become the center from which all our thoughts, desires, and actions flow.

This is the initial invitation of Lent - open the cupboard. The Lord does not look blindly for your heart.

I know which heart is yours, says the Lord, I have etched my name on it. That’s the one I want, with the chips, cracks, wounds, and hardness. See there it is, Live Jesus!