Toña Monzón rscj
Set Me As a Seal Upon Your Heart
(Song of Songs 8: 6)
Each biblical tradition is characterized by a constellation of terms that expresses its theology and its understanding of the relation with God. Each one has a different emphasis when talking about the human heart, but each always sees the heart as the seat of the fundamental attitudes of the believer:
In Deuteronomy it is the organ of the search for God and of the remembrance of his actions in favor of Israel:
From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).
You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead (Deuteronomy 11: 18).
For the Prophets the heart is the place of the knowledge of the Lord that is acquired by nearness to him both affectively and effectively. It consists in a relation of "affinity" and intimate familiarity:
I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord (Hosea 2: 20).
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hosea 6: 6).
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest... (Jeremiah 31: 33-34).
The Wisdom books think of the heart as the seat of "fear of the Lord," which is the decision to adhere to him, to live in harmonious relation with him: in fact, to love him. It is an attitude which has nothing to do with fear but that is always related to life and happiness:
Lively is the courage of those who fear the Lord,
for they put their hope in their savior;
He who fears the Lord is never alarmed,
never afraid; for the Lord is his hope.
Happy the soul that fears the Lord!
In whom does he trust, and who is his support?
(Sirach 34: 13-15).
Therefore it is vitally important to "take care of the heart" as the center of the person. In it, conscience and memory, intuition and energy reside. In it impressions and ideas turn into projects and decisions:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (Proverbs 4: 23).
In the New Testament, the knowledge of God's glory shines in the heart (2 Corinthians 4: 6); it is the dwelling place of the Spirit (Galatians 4: 5; 2 Corinthians 1: 22); the decision of faith that leads to obedience is born in it (Romans 6: 17; 16: 26); "the eyes of the heart" need to be enlightened in order to open to the hope of his call (Ephesians 1: 18).
For Madeleine Sophie, the heart is the seat of what she calls "interior life," of which she even says that it is "the virtue that engenders all others," that it is "powerful" and that on it, together with prayer, the spirit of the Society is "essentially founded." The duster of terms she uses to speak of the heart is found in the letter to the Ephesians:
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3: 16-19).
In her conferences as in her letters, she returns over and over to that "interior spirit" She explains it; she calls it by a thousand different names. She looks for examples and images. She uses the strategy of one who has found a treasure unknown to others and who wants them to discover its value; she offers them a draft full of secret signs, that they may have access to it Some of the ways she offers as easy and attractive:
It is the intimate union of our souls with God.
Interior persons are the most joyful; they have most engaging manners.
Interior spirit compels the soul not to breathe, live or move but in God. Life, breath, action, that's the whole person; but let our living, breathing and doing be only in God, through Jesus Christ.
An interior person is like a sunflower, always turning towards the Sun of Justice to receive its radiance.
It is the refined, delicate tact that makes us aware of God's action in order to abandon ourselves to it.
But she never hides the "narrow door" that leads to that life: When the Holy Spirit takes hold of a heart his first move is to despoil her....
The interior spirit is the entire sacrifice of ourselves through mortification of our senses and our passions.
An interior person fears even the shadow of an infidelity.
I acknowledge that at first it is hard, but the peace and consolation which afterwards fill the soul, and the dominion obtained over oneself, compensates the effort.
It is not something reserved for certain occasions or times. It is lived as breathing, "always and in all circumstances" (C242). Both the motive to start the way and the goal to be achieved are related:
An interior person, concentrated in him whom she loves, makes of God her life, her good, her all.
It is the ceaseless remembrance of him for whom we act.
Interior life is the first need of our heart and only God's glory and the zeal for souls should distract us from it; even in the midst of external work, we should be attracted to union with him. Thus whatever we do will be sealed by his grace and we will be able to communicate to others the Spirit of God that we possess.
We pride ourselves on bearing the image of the Heart of Christ on our chest, but,beware that image! That image cannot only be for us something exterior, it has to be engraved in our hearts and we ought to be so united with his that only he may live in US.
These last two texts might be a commentary on the Song of Solomon that she loved so much and in which she read:
Set me as a seal upon your heart,as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death... (8: 6).
Praying with Madeleine Sophie
Try to penetrate the deep meaning of the text of the Song of Solomon and renew your faith that both your being and your doing (the meaning of heart and arm) are already sealed by that love "stronger than death" which is the presence of the Spirit poured on you. Imagine that you have forgotten all the words of your vocabulary and can only communicate by signs and gestures that rise from an interior marked by the Spirit.
Place yourself near Madeleine Sophie and listen as she says directly to you: "My daughter, take care of your heart since in it are the wellsprings of life" Dialogue with her about how you are to take care of it in order to render it as compassionate, vulnerable, accessible, and magnanimous as Jesus' heart that she knows as an "open book..." Remember what she said of Aloysia Jouve: ''It is thus that I dreamt they all would be. "
If you are in a group, you might place before you the shield of the Society. Read Ephesians 3, 16-21, and after a moment of silence share what those images evoke in you: “to be rooted and built on love" how to water those roots, how to uphold that building End by repeating the text as a prayer:
Father, according to the riches of your glory, strengthen our inner beings with your power. May Christ your Son dwell in our hearts through faith, so that, rooted and grounded in love, we come to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of your love, that surpasses all knowledge, and be filled with the fullness of God. We ask this for the whole Society through the intercession of St. Madeleine Sophie.
From In the Shadow of the Word
Dolores Aleixandre rscj
Province of Spain South
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