As I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament, and in the wake up my second prayer for today's retreat, I realized that perhaps healing, per se, isn't precisely what I should be asking for. I had this vision of my heart. Sort of like a large piece had been torn from it. It was just part of a heart and had ragged, torn edges on one part of it. But while those edges, and that missing piece of heart, and the pain associated with it can dispose me to bitterness, and anger, and self-consciousness, and a myriad of other negative things, they also dispose me to empathy. They have given me the ability to sit with other people's pain rather than trying to fast forward to a solution. To bear it with them. That's a gift. That's a gift I should use to know, love and serve.
So perhaps the image of a fully regrown heart doesn't represent what I should be asking for. Rather, perhaps I should be asking for a my wounded heart to be completed by Christ's love. Where my wound exists, but the space where the flesh is missing is instead filled with Christ's love. Christ's perfect love which perfectly fits each minuscule crevice and limp-ended torn cell, and uses that place as a launching pad to, cheese alert, beam love out at others?
Lord, if this be your will, I ask this. In Your name, amen.