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Reflection on the Gospel – Friday, June 27, 2025
The Human Heart of God
For critical minds, the God revealed in the Old Testament often seems too emotional—swinging between bursts of anger and an incredible capacity for tenderness. Some would call this anthropomorphism—just metaphors that can’t truly be attributed to the real God, who is transcendent and unchanging. That distant God might be kind to us, perhaps, but only with a hint of condescension, and certainly without real emotion or compassion.
But Christians don’t just believe in God (which, in today’s world, is already something). We believe in a God made flesh, who fully embraced our human condition with all its consequences. In Christ, those so-called metaphors become human reality. The prophecy of Ezekiel (36:26), where God promises to remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, is fulfilled in Jesus—a true man, with a real, human heart. Not an angelic heart, but one of flesh—a heart capable of compassion.
Only by loving us with a heart of flesh can Jesus heal human love, wounded by sin, by selfishness, envy, greed, rivalry, and hatred. And not just in impersonal relationships—like social or economic systems—but also in our closest and most intimate relationships, especially in families, which are often sources of deep conflict and pain.
Jesus has brought God’s unconditional love close to us and has made the heart of God accessible through His human heart. He is not a distant, terrifying God we should fear or feel unworthy of, but a Father who cares for us and awakens in us trust and love. This is what we can experience when we come to Jesus with a simple, open heart: a revelation of a wisdom that doesn’t come from knowledge or learning, but from love.
Love, it’s true, can be demanding and at times heavy. “Amor meus, pondus meum” (“My love is my weight”), said St. Augustine. But love is also what gives meaning and direction to our lives. That’s why he added, “Eo feror, quocumque feror” (“I am carried by it wherever I go”)—because the human heart is drawn toward what it loves, even if it requires effort. That’s why Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light (cf. Mt 11:30). And even more so if we remember that Jesus Himself carried the full weight of that true love—giving His life for us.
That’s why the heart of Jesus is not just loving—it is a wounded heart, pierced by the lance. And it is pierced because it is open—a heart already pierced by a love without limits.
The wisdom of love, which Jesus fully revealed on the Cross and which Paul speaks of, is demanding, yes—but above all, it gives us confidence, relief, and rest. In Christ—in His gentle and humble heart—we find the perfect balance between self-worth and humility.
Self-worth, because we are loved without conditions, which means that deep down, we are good and valuable.
And humility, because we know we’re not perfect, and we need to recognize our limits and sins with honesty.
But this isn’t the kind of humiliation that crushes us. It’s the confidence that we can grow, that there are possibilities within us still waiting to be discovered.
And our greatest possibility—if we learn from Jesus—is love:
to know that every time we try to love, God Himself is at work in us, and that He is with us.