Billye Brim says, “There’s an ‘ear’ in the middle of your heart.” Though the eyes read these words, the heart moved within! The word ‘heart’ if we notice intently has indeed an ear in the middle, H (ear) T of it. Practically, if we join both our ears, the end result or what comes out is the shape of the ‘heart’. It’s amazing!. It is not a coincidence but I see a finger of God in the creation of our faculties and the word related to it! Beyond belief, God speaks through everything. The Word is constantly expressing itself through creation and through history. The Word can be heard in human events and through human voices. Every event carries a deeper meaning if we can tune our ears to hear. The word hear, too has an ear in it. I remember Saint Benedict who says: “Listen, my son, to the Master’s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” So the words hear, heard, hearing, heart, hearty, heartfelt tells us that the ear and the heart is connected and it speaks volumes…
Heart is a symbol of divine love, for from it gushed forth immense immeasurable love, which bled until its last drop as a fount of mercy in the form of water and blood, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The second Friday after Pentecost, the Church celebrates, the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is the most popular devotion in every family where we find the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary enthroned as it is one of the promises given to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in her apparitions by Jesus.
In a given state of affairs of the pandemic, perhaps if world leaders and others in authority stopped talking in slogans, not politicizing and began to listen to the fearful cries of those suffering, the anguish of the poor and the hungry, the migrants, to the desperation of those seeking refuge, or the sick, those suffering would experience the love of Christ that flowed from His Most Sacred Heart and would turn out to be a balm to the soar; would heal their wounds and find solace. Rather what we observe is the stubbornness and disbelief, (even after so much destruction of lives and danger to life) which St. Paul speaks in Acts 19: 9… stubborn and disbelieved speaking evil of the Way… which in the end leads to heart diseases!!
Yes, the sun that melts the ice hardens the clay. So is the Word of God it either humbles or hardens the human heart. To those who hear it positively, there is growth in grace. To those who reject it or are indifferent to it, calluses are added to their souls and calcium to their hearts. The eye becomes dimmer and dimmer, the ear heavier and heavier, and the mystery of the kingdom more and more obscure. It’s no joke! I have observed and experienced this truth in people’s lives! He who has ears or the heart, hear this…
So, let us try to, Listen with the ear of our heart… cries of those in need especially in this most grim circumstance. Let love and mercy flow from our hearts through our lives in different forms by forsaking greed, selfishness, power, position and the like and be blessed by the promises of Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart, the graces necessary for our state of life. Be it peace in the families, troubles, and abundant blessings in all undertakings.