Hajja Salesjana

need time to sleep and rest in the arms of its heavenly spouse to restore the strength and vigour of its spiritual powers that become exhausted and tired. Therefore, I will allot a certain time each day for this sacred sleep so that my soul, in imitation of the beloved disciple [John 13:23-24], will repose with complete confidence on the lovable breast, actually in the loving heart, of the Loving Saviour.” 4 It is through this ‘reposing’ in the heart of Jesus that we learn to “listen to the heartbeat of God” 5 and discover that Christ is already praying within us. Our call is to tune into this ceaseless prayer of Christ already flowing within us due to the Spirit of Love who has been poured into our hearts. Before we can adopt this practice of ‘reposing’ in the heart of Jesus, then, it is incumbent on us to understand first what we mean by the human heart. The Human Heart St Francis defines the person in terms of ‘heart’ which underscores our relational nature with others and the Other . 6 The desires of the human heart revolve around love and even the experience of dissatisfaction reveals the infinite desires of the human heart for love. We are created with a capacity to love the infinite and this is why, as St Augustine noted, nothing else other than God will satisfy the deepest hungers of the human heart. Accordingly, the heart is at rest when it rejoices in the good, but is restless when the good is absent precisely, because as St Francis de Sales re-iterates, it desires the good. 7 If we had all that was good for us, we would be without desire and without movement, but not being in possession of all our good, we search for it: “Our heart is anxious”; Francis de Sales starts from this anxiety. 8 In sum, “God having created the human person in his image desires that like in Him everything in us be ordained by love and for love.” 9 This Salesian archaeological and teleological understanding of the human person, as a being originating from and destined towards love, has strong affinities with the spirituality of St Catherine of Genoa. For her, “the goal of the spiritual journey is defined by its beginning. We have been formed by love, in love and for love. The truest ‘port’ of the human heart is the Pure Love in which it was first created.” 10 God who made our “heart even before it was made in the world seeing it only in his divine plan” 11 that it “would be forever united to His, for whom it was created.” 12 The human heart is good because it is created by God who is good. This explains the Salesian insistence that at the core, or heart, of every person is goodness. Although we have been Photo by Ben White - www.unsplash.com 11 Jannar-Marzu 2022 hajja