June 10 Sat
Christ was asked one day: “Which commandment is the first of all?” He answered with words from the Old Testament. His reply can be fully understood in the light of God's appeal: “My son, give me your heart.”
God has the right to ask us for our heart, our love and affection, because he created us, he keeps us in being, he has redeemed us from sin at the cost of his Son's blood, and he watches over us constantly. He has called us by our name, and “he loves each one of us more than all the mothers in the world can love their children.” Because of all this, he wants us to give him our body with all its senses; our soul, with all its faculties; he asks us for our very intimacy, our heart.
We must surrender our heart so as to live in universal fraternal charity, without distinctions. The total surrender of our heart actually helps us in our fraternal charity, because it eliminates the danger of self-seeking and prevents our love for one another from being based simply on human reasons.
If our heart is set on God alone, and on all souls for his sake, we will readily be able to follow St Augustine's advice: “Love, and do what you like. If you keep quiet, keep quiet out of love ...; if you correct, correct out of love; if you forgive, forgive out of love. Make sure this root of charity is there in your soul, for nothing but good can come of it.”
The love of God will lead us to love everyone equally, in spite of whatever differences there may be in character, tastes, and temperaments. St Josemaría warns us “against being inclined to like people because of similarity of character, being related to them, coming from the same place, having been friends for long, studying the same subject, and so on, which is normally the way these possible errors start.”
Let us make the resolution to detach our heart from any disordered affection so as to have it set only on God our Lord, in what really leads us to God. “His Love ... is well worth any love!” Let us ask our blessed Mother in heaven to purify your heart, and she will obtain this grace for us from our Father God.