This coming Feast of the Intercost of the 50th day, the last fruit of all that we have lived with the Church since Sunday Sepulchresima, Going through Lent, celebrating the Holy Night of Easter, entering on Easter Sunday, into that the exaltation of the Lord. All that fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. That is the reason why we can consider this feast also in some way as the solemn conclusion of that process that we have tried to follow in some of its phases and which we called the education of the heart.

[01:02]

This topic has followed us during these last weeks, months even, the education of the heart, and we have first tried to understand what is the heart, what is meant by that in Holy Scripture, and you will remember it is the navel. center of the human person where this human person becomes really and truly a self but in such a way it also at the same time transcends itself that this deepest self the heart of the human person is found in its loving dialogue with thee, thou of God. That is the great mystery of the human heart, of its depth.

[02:07]

And this depth consists exactly in this, that the greatest interiority or the inmost interiority or depth of the human heart is is in contact with the Thou, eternal, personal Thou of God. So those two things are most closely linked to one another. or the greatness of the human heart consists in this that it is the capacity of the infinite but in this personal sense not in any kind of metaphysical sense in a personal sense and this greatness of the human heart is, of course, also then at the same time its, how shall we call it, its danger, its tragedy.

[03:17]

Because if this heart is then broken loose or cut off from this, its living relation to the inner person of government Then this human heart becomes, as Jeremiah the prophet puts it, deceitful beyond all measure. This abyss of glory and goodness which in the Psalms is called glory. When, for example, the words of the Psalm address us and say, arise, my glory. Arise, my glory. For that glory, that is the heart. But it is the God-bound heart.

[04:21]

But this heart, which being bound to God, is glory, is infinite death, a source of life. That heart, when it is cut off from God, it turns into an abyss, into an abyss of evil. It becomes the possession of the devil. which later then becomes the source of evil. Beyond all imagination has to arise, the human heart is deceitful, desperately evil. So when that happens, when the heart of man has cut itself off from that bond, that order, that inner contact with the divine heart, with the divine depth, with the divine glory.

[05:42]

And that heart then is by the futile presumption of man held up and made their little guard in itself. That moment of the fall that throws the human heart into the abyss of sin makes it the realm of the devil. That moment is the same time too, and that is another consideration that we have to meditate upon in this connection. This fall of the human heart, this betrayal of its own real, deep, sin and glory in its subjection to God, the Infinite Thou, this fall of the human heart then touches the heart of God, touches the innermost heart of God.

[06:58]

You see, when we speak about the heart, we enter into a field where there is not the question of this or that, action of this or that, sin of a little more or a little less. But as soon as we enter into that field of the heart, we enter into the field of totality. Totality for infinite goodness. but also totality of perdition and therefore the complete helplessness of man wants his house is cut off from God to as it were to gather the shambles and try to put them together and try of come to other resources

[08:03]

and mobilize them and patch up the damage. That isn't possible. Anybody who follows the divinely received, revealed concept of the human heart knows also and realizes the absolute necessity of redemption. What in this personal and intimate way has been created by God as his own personal, intimately personal domain, as that one can say as the bed, as it were, in which the heart of God wants to rest. What has understood then is also evident that the The healing of the ills of this heart is completely out of the power of man.

[09:10]

Once he has lost his heart, and he has lost his heart when at the moment in which he has cut it off from God, then the central character, the depth of the heart, the totality of the heart is once and forever lost. Because that depth of the heart and that totality of the heart is only there because this heart is, touches God, is in that living metaphysical, theological diable. That heart is the place where we are God's children. At the moment in which we cease to be God's children, we have lost that heart. Hence this heart is then, its depth, its infinite powers, not anymore a receptacle for the glory, grace and infinite love of God.

[10:25]

is then changed into that bad infinity of diabolical evil deceitful beyond measure that totality of goodness is turned as it were in a totality of badness and so in this situation then what is the only possibility of salvation that the heart of God is touched, that the heart of God turns, as it were, is kindled in the blaze of compassion. That is, I just remind you of Genesis 6.6, when the Lord saw that the wickedness of man on the earth was great. It can be great. Wickedness can be great only because there is that infinite capacity of the heart, not filled anymore with the glory of God.

[11:35]

Great wickedness. And that man's every thought and all the inclination of his heart were only evil. then he regretted that he had made man on the earth and was grieved to the heart was grieved to the heart there is of course the dawn of redemption of salvation that is the dawn of a new day i would say of a new heart and this we see then clearly In Prophet O.C., the 11th chapter, the 8th verse, I have called your attention so often to that verse in Holy Scripture. How shall I deal with thee, O Ephraim? My heart is turned within me. My compassion is kindled like a blaze.

[12:38]

I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath, because I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst My heart is stirred within me. My compassion is kindled like a blaze. I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath because I am God and not man. The Holy One in the midst of me. So there we see that, the totality, that what is in man, you know, that inner depth, which is infinite beauty, infinite glory, infinite love, the mirror of the divine goodness, as long as it is in that inner dialogue where the child addresses the father, says, Abba, Father, dear Father, this heart which then, when it is taken

[13:51]

into man's own hands, becomes that abyss of wickedness that then touches the heart of God. Abyssus abyssum inu. One abyss calls the other. And what is then the abyss of God's heart? What is Hence again, that is not a metaphysical quality. That is not some infinite quantity. No, that's a person. That is the Son. That is the Son. The Son is the heart of God. And so then, because the heart of the Father is touched by that fall of this human heart, then he what does god do he sends out his heart as it were abyssus abyssum instead one was so deeply and totally bound to god and then so deeply and totally uh turned away from

[15:08]

That then is being redeemed again by a totality. Not by some momentary relief, not by some drop, let us say, of grace. No, a total turning of the Father to this heart. in order to redeem, in order to cure the human heart, he sends the sun. And he sends the sun to become man, to take upon himself all that abyss of guilt. And that becomes a reality that gets angry. There, that darkness of human heart, the Son Jesus Christ made man, takes that upon himself.

[16:11]

suffers through it himself, realises in himself the depth of lostness of the human heart. That he does, that's the meaning then of the cross. So bitter that the Son of God made man asks the Father, Father, let this pass. but not what I will, but what you, thou, willest. So this, you realize, you know, what the Holy Scripture can say is the opening of the dimension of the heart. This dimension of the heart is the inner secret, the mystery, the center, however you want to call it. the proper depth of the human personality.

[17:14]

This depth of the human personality lives transcending itself in that living meeting, in that vis-à-vis with God, in that bridal relation. or in that relation between father and son. But this center of the human person wants, through man's disobedience or rebellion, loses that character of song and of deep belonging to the father. being the Father's proper domain, the kingdom of the Father's heart. When it loses that, it becomes the realm and the kingdom of the devil. Instead, deep, desperate wickedness.

[18:22]

When God sees it, his own heart turns and is green. He's grieved and he turns, he sends his son. He sends his son to take that darkness of the human heart, that lostness of the human heart. He said, we are into himself. See, the accent is always of absolute totality. This is an exchange. but not an exchange of a little on the part of God and a little on the part of man. This is an exchange in which God gives all and takes upon himself all. He loves us when we are still sinners.

[19:25]

He loves us when we loved us when we were still his enemies, as St. Paul says. And that he does on Gethsemane. That is the love of the Son of God made man when we were still his enemies. All were against him, and the apostles, his disciples, slept. The flesh also. So, this totality of turning and of exchanging is fulfilled on the cross or, let us say, in the Pascha, the cross and the resurrection, because that exchange is only then complete when now, after the Son of Man

[20:26]

the Son of God made man has taken upon himself, let us put it, the wickedness of the human heart, but of course without sin, but that lostness of the human heart, that darkness of the human heart, taken into himself, suffered through that. Then, of course, he gives a new heart. That is the end of it. He gives a new heart. He sends his spirit. You see, there is no possibility, as when it comes to the heart, There's no possibility of, and that is of course what you must understand, education, you know, and that is the reason why we speak about the education of the heart. We must use such completely different categories.

[21:27]

Education, you know, is always, it is proper meaning, it is the attempt of man to kind of He mobilizes his own resources. It's a training. It's a training. It's some kind of making an attempt, as I said before, to catch things up, to be his own physician. by, I say by, moralizing his willpower, you know, using his brains, his ingenuity, etc., etc., and helping the other one, helping the weaker one, you know, just to that that he may help himself. But when it comes, of course, to the theology and that dimension and depth of the heart, Then what is this education of the heart? It is really and truly the manifestation and the outpouring of God's heart, sending the Son to become man.

[22:44]

That means, what is it? To enter completely into us, become our brother. taking upon himself our guilt. But that, of course, is not the end. Through this total exchange, then, is prepared the last miracle in this process, in this drama, in this divine action of the education of the human heart, and that is giving us a new heart. That's the end of this book. We are given a new heart. And how is that done? That is done through the Spirit. The Spirit is that divine power through which we now receive a new depth, a new center, that again, that God-bound center of the God-bound heart.

[23:47]

That is what the Spirit restores in us. That's the mission of the spirit. The spirit and the heart are correlated, cannot be distinguished in the New Testament. So that is the process. Jeremiah says in the 17th chapter, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And no man can know it. That is the limit. That is our helplessness when we face this problem of the education of the human heart. But I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruits of his doings.

[24:51]

But then how is that done? For I will set mine eyes upon them for good and I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord. And they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return unto me with their whole heart that's the exchange I will give them a heart that is the only way total redemption exchange I will give them a heart and the father does it by sending his son to become man and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them to do them good. But I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

[25:56]

Yea, I will rejoice over them, to do them good. And I will plant them in this land assuredly, with my whole heart and with my whole soul. That is what then is done. That's the mystery of Bethlehem. with my whole heart and with my whole soul, sending the sun and sending the spirit into man, giving him in this way a new heart and planting him assuredly with that inner security into the new land and there then he will bring forth fruits and these fruits of course are the fruits of the spirit that Saint Paul describes in his epistles or Baruch the prophet says in the second chapter for I know that the people will not hear me for they are a people of a stiff neck

[27:03]

but they shall turn to their heart in the land of their captivity, and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, and I will give them a heart, and they shall understand, and ears, and they shall hear, and they shall praise me in the land of their captivity, and shall be mindful of my name. and I will give them and that is then the last let's say the climax of these prophecies in Ezekiel the 11th chapter and I will give them one heart and will put a new spirit in their bowels and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh I will give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my commandments for

[28:05]

chapter 18 cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed and make you to yourselves a new heart and a new spirit and 37 and you shall know that i am the lord when i shall have opened your sepulchers and shall have brought you out of your graves oh my people See, that is the true meaning of sepulchre and grave. The heart that is cut off from God turns into a sepulchre, becomes a grave. And that is the meaning of the resurrection, that Christ, the power of Christ's mercy, breaks open the sepulchres and the graves. and i shall have put my spirit in you and you shall live and i shall make you rest upon your own land and you shall know that i the lord have spoken and that i have done it as the lord god so that

[29:24]

to say the end in this process of the education of the heart, the sending anew of the creative spirit, that creative spirit that now in the New Testament is the spirit of the resurrection, the spirit of the risen Christ. And this spirit of the risen Christ breaks open the sepulcher of our hearts and it leads us then, these new hearts and new spirit into the promised land where these hearts shall bring in peace and enjoy the precious fruits of the spirit. So you see right away that this, which is the central, the same mystery, the very heart of our salvation, that that is strictly a divine action.

[30:29]

The divine action is the, as we say, mysterium of the redeeming Agape, of that descending love, descending from the heart of the Father, becomes man and through this work of redemption and makes and works this exchange of the heart takes the bitterness as it were of our fallen heart and its darkness and its abyss and then replaces it with the new heart with that heart that is again really glory. Arise, my glory. That then breaks out into songs of joy. That becomes a large heart. That is a heart filled with the knowledge of the curious, of the Holy Trinity.

[31:34]

And this heart filled with the knowledge of the Holy Trinity then also carries in itself that divine love, that same agape that seeketh not her own. So that this new heart that is created is one. It makes all those who are in the power of the spirit of the resurrection, makes them all one heart. And with this one heart, In one voice they sing the glory of the triune God. That is then the mystery and the fruit and the glory of Pentecost and the end of that process of the education of the heart. What you can see right away that the essential means, let us say, of this education of the heart

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is the sacramental world. The sacrament is that mysterium in which the Son of God made man, worked our salvation, and this divine mysterium is carried on and continued in the sacrifice of Holy Mass. And so this sacrifice of Holy Mass becomes the instrument for that divine education of our heart. And it is evident that through this sacramental education and transformation of the human heart, what alone makes us able and capable of receiving it, and of being subject to it, and of being transformed by it, it is basically the one great virtue of faith, that knowledge of God. And therefore, as it is said in Holy Scripture, not only, and that in itself is the same thing, I will put a new heart

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I came to you and I will put my eyes upon you so that we see, and that is the virtue of faith, that is the light, that is kindled through the Holy Spirit in our hearts, that we see all things in with the eyes of God, in the light of the Father. therefore our own life, good things and bad things seen in the light of the Father, therefore in all things if that. Looking around and looking at our brethren and other men, if you have seen your brother, you have seen Christ. That's the new eye that God has put into our house. We look around and see our brother, we have seen Christ. So in every way, when we look forward towards our death,

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Looking at it only with our human eyes, we would consider it as end. Looking at it with the divine eyes and seeing it in the light of the Father's infinite love for us is the beginning of a new life. It's the dawn of the incarnation.

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