Cardiac Care

What a great gospel reading for �Fat Tuesday,� the day before Lent begins!  Jesus labors to open the Pharisees� eyes, to move them from their insistence on external observance to a focus on �the heart.�  Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of the season often associated with �doing something more,� or �giving up something.�  Most �veterans� of the season know the pitfalls of focussing more on our doing than God�s doing in this season of grace.  We welcome Jesus� call.  

Jesus� quotation of Isaiah sets the tone:  �This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me.�  Jesus tries to focus them on the question:  �Where is your heart?  What do you truly love?�  The heart�s nearness to God, the question of who or what we love, is always the Lenten question, no matter what we �do� or �give up.�   We�ll be with those whom we love, we�ll do things we love, we�ll give up things that get in the way of our loves.  But who/what do we truly love? 

In other words, Lent is less a matter of �furniture moving� or �apple polishing� than it is a call to �heart surgery.�  The truth is that we all love many things, people and circumstances more than the living God.  That needs to be healed if we�re going to really live.

Let the Lenten cry begin, even in the midst of Mardi Gras:  �Create in me a clean heart, O God.�