From Vultus Christi:The gates forbiddenbecame the open portal,the lover’s embrace,the safeway, the only way, for no one comes to the Father (cf. Jn 14:6)except through this door’s thresholdof given-flesh and outpoured-blood.Here David’s song reveals the mystery:the house become a heart,the heart become a house.“It was there that Your people found a home,prepared in Your goodness, O God, for the poor” (Ps 67:11).
“Go out quickly to the streetsand lanes of the city,and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame” (Lk 14:21).“Go out to the highways and hedges,and compel people to come in” (Lk 14:23)that my house, my heart, may be filled.“The lost I will seek out,the strayed I will bring back,the injured I will bind up,the sick I will heal” (Ez 34:16).
Cross the threshold by night with faith’s unseen feet;with hope a lamp for your steps,enter by desire;dwell therein by love,and with John the beloved and those of his lineage“have power to comprehendwhat is the breadth and lengthand height and depth,and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledgeto be filled with all the fullness of God” (cf. Eph 3:18-19).
The pierced Heartis Love’s last proof.“For while we were still weak,while we were yet sinners” (cf. Rom 5:6, 8),the door was opened in Love’s side.Plunge then, fearless, into the tide of water and of blood.Wash your soul’s disfigured facein the torrent of purity that to the image restores likeness,giving loveliness to the unlovely,There every bruise is bathed in love;there, every old, unsightly thingmade fresh, and new.This is love’s reparation,for only love can repair what Love has made.“Behold,” Love says, “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).
Love’s joy is the one sheepsought and found and prized above all others“on a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Ez 34:12),Love’s joy is Love’s Heartopened for the sake of all, inhabited by the foolish to shame the wise,and by the weak to shame the strong (cf. 1 Cor 1:27).Love chose “what is low and despised in the world,even things that are not” (1 Cor 1:28)and in these is the mercy of His Heart displayed.
Others come knocking, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us”but their greatness, their shining certitudes,not their sins, prevent their entering in.“Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (Mt 25:12)who have not known my Heart of mercy,who have not needed my repairing,nor known nor believed in love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16).
Only this one thing does Love ask:that, “out of the depths” (Ps 129:1), we believe in Love,and, preserved by Love,never despair of Mercy’s Heart.These are “thoughts of His Heart to all generations” (Ps 32:11).Come, then, to the water that washes every impurityand quenches every thirst. Come, be repaired, restored in the Blood.If you would be delivered from death, come (cf. Ps 32:19).If you would be fed in famine, come (cf. Ps 32:19).If you would be loved, come.
