Reforming Our Divided Hearts

He does not wish our heart to be shared between him and creatures, because he desires our whole heart.

One would say that he is satisfied with the heart.  It is true that, besides the heart, we must give him all our strength and all our will, because he himself has said so: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind (Mt 22:37).  But with the exception of the heart, he seems to admit delays in all things else, and to bear himself indulgently.  Should there be failings in our exterior life, should we have certain faults of character, should we not give him the full fruits of our garden — no matter.  Our Lord waits.  He bears with our weaknesses.  But what he will not compound with is our heart; he desires it in its entirety.

And he desires it completely because he loves us, because love is like that: the desire for complete possession is its essential characteristic.

For this reason, our Lord battles unremittingly and at times cruelly — at least, so it appears to us — against the inordinate affections of our heart.  He is even capable of allowing us to fall into sin in order to cure us of some hidden affection in our heart.

How many times, for instance, in the case of proud souls who are enamored of themselves and consequently deny him the pledged homage of their love, he lets them fall into sin — yes, and even into mortal sin — when there is no other way whereby to arouse them to a holy humility!

What awe-inspiring mystery! To think that our Lord would tolerate such a catastrophe to save that poor soul, so that, after having sunk into the mire, it would rise and understand its misery, and then cast away the little idol that it was cherishing in its heart, and at length give itself to him without reserve!