Even now -it is your God who speaks -- return to me with your whole heart, fasting, weeping, mourning.

Rend your hearts, not your garments.
Return to your God, who is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, rich in steadfast love, and ready to forgive. -Joel 2

In the Biblical tradition the heart is the center that holds all our faculties: our senses, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences. It is the deep dwelling place of all that I am. Our Lenten invitation is to open that deep place, not just the surface places, not just our image, but our essence. That opening of the heart is a ritual homecoming to the God revealed in the flesh of Jesus, a gracious, merciful, patient, unconditionally loving, forgiving God.

Perhaps we could begin Lent by begging for the grace to remember, know and re-experience who God really is, so that we can be moved to entrust our hearts to God as Jesus did.

-- Rita Woehlcke SSJ

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