Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church

A New Heart

There is something about that first reading today that I find very comforting. Listen to all the things God says: “I will gather you. I will sprinkle clean water upon you. I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart. I will put my spirit within you.” Pause. Notice who is doing all the work. God says, “I will.” And sometimes we need to hear that.

Because we can spend so much of our lives thinking about everything we have to do. I have to fix this. I have to solve that. I have to change this about myself. I have to figure out what comes next. And then God comes along in Ezekiel and says, “Let me do something in you. I will give you a new heart.” There is a certain peace in that.

It doesn’t mean that we have no responsibility. The Gospel makes that clear. God prepares the wedding feast. Everything is ready. The invitation goes out. But people still have to respond. Some refuse the invitation. Others are too busy with their farms and their businesses. And then there is the man who comes to the feast but isn’t prepared to enter fully into what he has been invited to. So God does not force himself upon us.

But the wonderful thing about these two readings together is that God isn’t simply standing at a distance saying, “Change yourself, and then come to me.” He is saying, “Come to me, and let me change you.” Pause.

Maybe there is something in our life right now that we have been trying very hard to fix on our own. Maybe there is something in ourselves that we wish were different. Maybe we have been struggling with the same weakness, the same worry, the same resentment, the same fear.

Today God says, “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you.” That is good news. Our job is to accept the invitation, to come to the feast, to open the door, and then to let God do in us what we cannot always do for ourselves. “I will give you a new heart.” Maybe that’s the promise we need to take with us today.