Lifting the Latch
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and Ongoing Conversion of the Heart
In the month of June, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is at the forefront of my mind and top of my heart. This year, I needed to replace the flag of the Sacred Heart outside the garden and also replace the garden gate. I built the gate with seven posts arranged to point upward, symbolizing the days of creation and directing the eye to the Creator. I painted it red to reflect my own heart, which I desire to be perpetually raised to heaven. I view the gate of my garden to be like the gate to my soul, which I strive to keep perpetually opened to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so that He may consume my weak heart and make it His own.
When I pause to consider His Sacred Heart, I often remember the first moment I encountered His love. He came at a time when I had very little thought of Him, with the gate of my heart firmly locked against Him. Living a life entirely separated from God, whenever my mind or heart was drawn to consider Him, I quickly rejected those thoughts with fear. The life I was living was not in accordance with His truth, and the deep awareness of this penetrated me with such conviction that I had to turn away in order to not be consumed with anxiety and agitation.
And so, when invited to sit with a new friend inside of her church for a moment, I expected to feel great anxiety, fear, and anger. These were the only feelings I had grown accustomed to associating with Christianity. I very reluctantly agreed to follow my friend into her church to observe its beauty.
The very last thing I expected to happen is precisely what took place, and the moment changed my life completely and forever.
I sat down in a front pew and began to look around. “Huh. It is pretty here. I’m surprised I’m not feeling angry.” In fact, I was not only experiencing a lack of anticipated anger and anxiety, but peace was permeating me in a tangible, physical way. I suppose it was this peace which invited me to close my eyes for a moment to rest.
In that moment I resisted my resistance to Jesus, and with just that slight crack in the gate of my heart, He burst in mightily with His Divine Love. It seemed that I stood at the gate of my heart—which had been so long closed and locked against Him—and lifted the latch.
If you know me, you’ve likely heard this story.
As I closed my eyes, I was completely filled with the knowledge and experience of the immense and transforming love of God. He made me aware of His presence. He convinced me of His particular love for me. He assured me that I had never been alone. All of that, in an instant, was burned into my heart and mind irrevocably. What accompanied this overwhelming Love was the conviction that the Truth had implications on my life. The Sacred Heart of Jesus had invited me to be engulfed by His Love, and I was obliged to respond to Him.
While it is true that this moment changed me forever, I did not instantaneously convert and change my life. Things began to shift and my conversion unfolded over the course of the next three years, but I did not fully open myself to His love right away. I re-latched the gate of my heart, and often barricaded it again and again with fear, anxiety, and sin.
Why, I often wonder, have I spent so much of my life resisting the love of God? Why does it take such great effort to resist my resistance, to open the gate of my heart to the One Who formed it and created it to be His own dwelling place?
When Jesus hung on the Cross, after giving us everything, He still desired to offer us more: the Heart which alone can fulfill our every desire. When the soldier pierced His side with a lance, His heart was then opened to us. A door was made within the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through which all of mankind is invited to enter and be transformed. His Heart is the narrow gate that leads to life; it is the Love that longs to consume us.
But to receive this Love, we must respond with love. And often, I have found that the love in my own heart is restricted by so many oppositions. I resist Him because I cling to lesser loves out of fear and woundedness. Whether it is a fear that I am unlovable, an attachment to sin, or simply that I chose to be distracted by the many vanities of the world, there are plenty of reasons that the gate of my heart remains closed and latched.
It is Love Who created me, Love Who calls me, Love Who will absorb my heart in His Sacred Heart—I must only lift the latch. Every yes to Jesus, every imperfect act of love, every time I turn to Him instead of turning inward or away, He increases His love in me and opens my heart to receive more of Him. When I yield to distractions, dwell in my wounds, or harden my heart with doubt, despair, or narcissism, I am closing the door against Him and refusing the Love He is holding out to me.
I desire the gate of my heart to be open so wide, that the flames of His Sacred Heart move freely about the garden of my soul, burning away all that is not of Him, training me in the language of love and sacrifice. As I walk through my garden gate many times each day and pass beneath the flag that waves in the wind, I ask the same Spirit of God who flows through the heart of Jesus to blow His holy wind through my heart, keeping the gate open to His Love, and burning away all else.
