What’s At The Heart?

What’s the heart of who you are? It seems like everyone today wants to find that thing that makes them unique. This isn’t new to the human experience, and often times it turns out that people focus on not what makes them unique, but what helps them fit in the culture at large. So, in the end, they really haven’t found who they are at all.

John Paul II said, “…God, with his call, reaches the heart of each individual, and the Spirit, who abides deep within each disciple, gives himself to each Christian with different charisms and special signs. Each one, therefore, must be helped to embrace the gift, entrusted to him as a completely unique person, and to hear the words which the Spirit of God personally addresses to him.”

Love always requires sacrifice. Christ showed us how to love when he allowed himself to be hung up on a cross for each and every one of us. The way in which love manifests in each life can only be achieved through the grace of God. It is so much bigger than us and our selfish inclinations. Charisms, those special gifts from God that allow us to build God’s kingdom, cannot be used for evil, so you could say charisms are the way that we show love best. Learning about the gifts that God has given us personally allows us to honor the uniqueness of our life, and to focus on what really matters about our identity, without getting caught up in things that are secondary. Each of us has a purpose and a destination in our life, each of us has a gift that we can share with the world, each of us is called to love. But we have to stop looking at ourselves, self knowledge is not for us alone, self knowledge teaches us who we are so that we know how to love. It’s always been meant to propel outward, not to look inward.

“Every flower has its own created beauty, splendor of the rose, the lily's whiteness does not deprive the violet of its scent nor lessen the daisy's charm.” -St Therese of Lisieux