My Mosaic Heart re-formed and healed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus

JMJT! Praise be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever!

What a glorious Feast Day today is as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! It calls to mind the tenderness and love that emanates from Jesus' Heart and the blood and water that flows forth in a torrent of Divine Love that invites us to receive, to say 'yes' to His overtures, and to bathe in those purifying waters.  

I know that Jesus is constantly drawing me ever close to Himself and beckoning me into increasing intimacy with Him. Nonetheless, I find that at times I recoil from His palpitations of love by responding in the spirit of St. Peter, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful woman."  Recently, I experienced my complete brokenness and sheer inability to love as I ought or desire to.  I found myself face to face with my limitations and poverty opining that, "I do what I do not want to do." It seemed that my feminine genius was completely shattered and the tiny pieces that once comprised my identity as mother, daughter, sister and bride were obliterated in a span of a short weekend into a disordered heap upon the floor. 

There was no quick fix nor self-actualized solution to be had. After the initial shock of seeing what had transpired in my family and my own role in it, there was nothing left to do but bring all of these jagged pieces to the feet of Jesus for Him to recover what was lost and make more beautiful that which was now disfigured and scattered. Just as broken glass can be heated at high temperatures in order to become malleable and enable one to reshape and remold it, so my heart required a reconfiguring of sorts. I asked Jesus to pick up these broken pieces and to heat them in the furnace of His Sacred Heart where the impurities in my own heart could be removed and my identity could be renewed and reclaimed to reflect His designs upon my heart. 

I was also aware that Jesus was lovingly asking me once again for ever-increasing degrees of surrender and letting go of my need to control.  He was inviting me into HIs Sacred Side where His Sacred Heart was pierced and blood and water gushed forth as a shelter and bath where I can repose and let Him decide what my feminine genius looks like and how the mosaic montage of my heart is formed, the colors it is comprised of, and the patterns that it makes.  It was an opportunity for me to hand over all of the little and big pieces of my heart and allow the Divine Artist and Healer to make it new and beautiful in His perfect time and way.  In the dismantling that was allowed to happen, God had bigger plans to restore, renew, and reclaim me for Himself.  This is an ongoing process which I entrust to Him.

This reordering of my heart reminds me that Jesus desires to infill all of our wounded hearts with Himself.  Instead of trying to hide my weaknesses in a variety of inauthentic ways, Our Beloved Savior wants me to allow Him into these vulnerable spaces and places within to fill these crevices with His Mercy, Love, and kindness.  In a sense, by embracing my incapacities in humility and trust and giving Jesus access to my flawed and pocked heart, I have been strengthened and become more fully authentically myself. My false masks and disordered expectations of myself and others are being removed as I am able to exercise more fully and genuinely my true identity and feminine genius. 

In closing, I offer this poem that I wrote to encapsulate this ongoing process of forging my own mosaic heart in the furnace of the One who loves each of us infinitely and eternally. I pray that it may be a source of meditation for exploring the beauty of your own mosaic heart that is being beautifully rendered by the Lord.

My Mosaic Heart

Shattered shards of glass

Scattered and strewn along the dusty dirt road of life.

Sharp edges sink into the earth,

while other jagged pieces poke out 

to cut and wound.

Splash of tinted colors

Obscured by mud, awaiting the rub of hope,

Leading to translucence.

Jade specks muted;

Rose-colored fragments crying out in desperation;

Blue bottle necks gasping for 

mouth to mouth resuscitation 

in adoratio.

The dark resin of sunflower-dolloped slivers

lying amongst emptied perfume bottles once filled with

the fragrance of prayer,

the sweetness of the aromas of incense

rising up to God no more.

Lachrymatories spilling tears

Splashed into the gaping earth,

watering the arid desert, 

Soaking into the moaning cosmos.

Divine Gatherer collecting assorted puzzle pieces 

of my story into Paternal Palm,

Bathing and cleansing in Living waters

Drying with fire breath of the Spirit

in the Divine Furnace of His Emblazoned Heart.

Bending and molding

Reassembling fragile shimmering pixels of light

Into mesmerizing mosaic.

Flowing with variance of dancing colors,

Integrated yet diverse.

Cohesive honey balm of Merciful Love

Infilling the potholes of my heart

Into beauty resplendent.

My mosaic heart of glass

Once shattered,

Now glistening in the sun.