Your Heart Today

One of the joys and challenges of serving as spiritual director at a Jesuit retreat house is guiding others through spiritual discernment, a process that leads to God-centered decision-making using the mind and, especially, the heart. In the almost ten years that I have had the honor of walking this journey with directees, the constant need to seek purification of my own heart has become glaringly clear to me. A few years ago, I spent the entire six weeks of Lent praying daily with these poignant words from Psalm 51, "Create a clean heart in me, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me."

St. Ignatius encouraged repetition in prayer and I heeded his advice; I allowed myself to go deeper into this humble and sincere plea. I pondered my own choices, praying that my heart be open and receptive to the movement of God's spirit within me. I prayed that my own discernment, and that of those I was entrusted to guide, would lead us closer to the very heart of Jesus.

One evening that Lent, as I was working late at my desk in the retreat house, I came across a file labeled "Prayers of Jesuits," tucked away in the very back of a drawer. I found there a poem entitled "Your Heart Today" by Fr. Manoling Francisco, SJ, which spoke volumes to me then and continues to challenge and inspire my approach to discernment.

My prayer today echoes a line from that poem: "that I may be your heart today." May I be the clean heart, the pure heart of Christ for those who come to tell their sacred stories. Only with a share in the heart of Christ am I able to assist in discerning the prompting of the spirit in their lives.

Adapted from Mary McKeon, Your Heart Today

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