Feeding a hungry heart
Opinion
During the Synod on Synodality in Rome, Pope Francis issued the encyclical letter Dilexit Nos (He Loved Us).
It’s about the divine love of God expressed and poured out for us precisely through the human heart of Christ broken on the cross and then the invitation to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Firstly, he reflected on our hearts, much more than our feelings which come and go, but as our ‘inner principle’ and ‘spiritual identity’ and as ‘the centre of the body, soul and spirit’. He acknowledged that ‘the heart can be devious’ in seeking an unhealthy individualism and can be left unanchored as it were in this ‘liquid’ world of ours.
Yet the heart as the centre of our being will always yearn and long for fulfilment, lasting love and happiness.
There’s truth in the words of the song by Bruce Springsteen that ‘everybody’s got a hungry heart’.
Pope Francis explicitly directed us to Christ acknowledging him ‘as the heart of the world’ and spoke of the ‘Sacred Heart as the unifying principle of all reality’.
Keeping in mind that this encyclical was issued precisely at the time of the Synod when the focus was on renewal and change in the Church and mission to the world, it seems to me that Pope Francis was clearly reminding us that change in the Church and in the world cannot be disconnected from the change within the heart of each of us. The two go together because they both need to be centred on Christ.
‘The world can change beginning from the heart,’ he wrote.
Earlier this year Pope Francis released a message for World Day of Prayer for Vocations which is celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 11, with the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope: The Gift of Life’.
It’s not surprising that in the message he connected the call of a vocation to our hearts, as well as our need for hope.
‘A vocation is a precious gift that God sows in our heart, a call to leave ourselves behind and embark on a journey of love and service,’ Pope Francis wrote.
After speaking of ‘a profound identity crisis, a crisis of meaning and values’ that engulfs young people today, he said: ‘Yet the Lord, who knows the human heart, does not abandon us in our
uncertainty’.
In the message he then connected the love God has for us with hope: ‘He wants us to know that we are loved, called and sent as pilgrims of hope…every vocation, once perceived in the depths of the heart, gives rise to an impulse to love and service.’
Pope Francis added that vocation and hope go together in God’s plan for the ‘happiness of each man and woman’.
As we celebrate World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I endorse the words of the late Pope Francis as he urged that ‘every effort be made to foster vocations in the various spheres of human life and activity, and to help individuals to be spiritually open to the Lord’s voice’.
I’m convinced there is an awakening in our society to the fact that, in the words of Jackson Browne, it is ‘running on empty’ in terms of values and lasting principles by which to live.
My life, my choice and my truth are too superficial for their hungry hearts. Our young people are searching for much more. We need to have much more confidence in God’s call to them and support them in discerning that call.
A new prayer card with our ongoing Prayer for Vocations, a Discernment Prayer card for our young people and a poster have been distributed to parishes.
Please pray confidently for vocations, especially to the priesthood, diaconate and religious life. And may we all be renewed in our commitment to the unique call to the heart the Lord has for each of us.
Dean Marin is Vicar General of the Adelaide Archdiocese and director of Vocations.
Jump to next article
