Opening your heart to another

Heart speaks to heart is learning to listen to Jesus speaking to you and you in turn speaking to Jesus. Because you are reading this post suggests that you are more than interested in heart-to-heart communication. Future posts will show you how to build a relationship with a friend who becomes your lover. Then building on this human relationship, you will learn how Jesus can be your lover as well.

The heart in sacred Christian scripture is the center or the ground of one’s being. It is also the focus of love in our culture. Valentine’s Day, for example, is the celebration of desired union or oneness with another person. True heart to heart communication takes time and patience. In other words, you need to make a commitment to love which goes beyond the emotional. The process of finding true love and becoming a lover is fundamental in heart-to-heart communication.

Mystics are persons who devote their life to penance, contemplation, and solitude with the desire to become one with Jesus/God. Their focus is to listen to Jesus speak to them (in the heart) and to learn to speak with love to Jesus in his heart. In a true sense they are ordinary people like you and me who desire oneness (unity) with the divine. This takes time and can be achieved by everyone who truly desires to become a lover.

We have much to learn from mystics. Saint Rose of Lima (real first name is Isabel) was born in 1586 and died August 24, 1617. At an early age, she felt a strong attraction to devote her life to Christ. She built a tiny hut in her parents’ garden in which she lived in solitude devoting herself to penance and prayer/contemplation. As she grew in love with Jesus, she reached out to the homeless, the elderly and the sick caring for them in a room of her parents’ home. (Her father and mother were wealthy, had a large home and lots of land – all of which made her charity possible).

Being a mystic has its challenges. They do much more than just sit around all day praying and doing penance. Life is hard for the mystic just as it is for you. Nonetheless, as they grow in their heart-to-heart communication with Jesus, they learn to embrace trials, afflictions, and tribulations as well as the joys of life. Among her joys were the private revelations from Jesus which she wrote down to be shared with us. Read one such revelation. What do you learn?

Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation. Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase. Let men take care not to stray and be deceived. This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.”