Reflection by Rev. Leonard N. Peterson

I truly believe that a turning point in one’s life comes when one adds a cardiologist to the list of one’s doctors. I have had one for nine years now. Call it a sign that, in golfing terms, I’ve come to “the back nine.” So be it.

During one recent checkup, I told my man that I consider him “the archbishop” of the other medics. As a good Catholic gentleman, he chuckled at the reference but did admit that “when the motor malfunctions, the car definitely won’t move.”

St. Luke, an able doctor himself, cites our hearts as the locus of all our moral decisions, adding that from its “fullness the mouth speaks.” He certainly knew the physical importance of the organ, albeit with nothing like an EKG machine at his disposal. It was the spiritual significance of the heart that made his case for it to be the energy and driving force behind all our moral decisions and their consequences. For example, we can see that judging other people for their faults, a perennially popular Christian sin, begins in the heart.

This late Winter Sunday finds us in the very “vestibule” of the great Lenten season that arrives this Wednesday. It’s a time for serious introspection and reflection, a thorough examination of conscience. Cal it a spiritual heart exam.

“In the heart’s fullness,” St. Luke writes, we find the source of our behavior. That means, among other things, that our heart is where all our faulty decisions emanate. About this, or that, or the other thing. About him or her, our neighbor. About our practical decisions regarding a Christian lifestyle. Ultimately about our love and loyalty to Christ Jesus our Lord/

Lent is not intended to sour our late Winter mood by a decision to deprive ourselves of desserts, or to cancel chocolate and cocktails for six weeks. However, I must add that fasting is recommended by many holy saints as a good “ammo” to shoot down selfishness.

What Lent is primarily about is our coming face to face with faults and sins we tend to ignore because they make us uncomfortable. They caused Our Lord’s crucifixion. It’s time for an honest appraisal of how we are doing or not doing with living a gospel-centered life. Lent asks us, in light of our Lord’s suffering and death, where some personal reform is needed…

Above all, I think Lent urges us to make our partnership with God each day of our lives something real. That could be described, in the present context, as something heartfelt.

Have a good Lent, with your heart in it.

Rev. Peterson’s Reading & Gospel Summary

Reading I: Sirach 27: 4-7

A person’s reasoning and conversations will reflect his or her true values. Their quality will come through mostly when they experience tribulation.

Reading II: I Corinthians 15: 54-58

St. Paul calls upon us to glorify God through our bodies. Death will be robbed of both its sting and victory over us by our efforts to resist sin.

The Gospel: Luke 6: 39-45

It is foolish to correct others for their faults when we have the same or worse. Contrasting “splinter” with “beam” dramatizes the point. Our hearts are really the place where our moral decisions are made.