The heart and the city

When we read and pray the Psalms, there is a special connection established between our  heart and "the city of God". This Lenten season is an opportunity to breath in this collective support which lies behind the human heart.

The human heart is never alone. There is a collective life present, to which the individual soul is attached. "Conversion" is rooted in this greater or wider life. We share the joys and pains, past and present, even future ones, of this historical community.

Perhaps, in our postmodern fragmented life, when personal relationships are weakened, this is our most important resource. There is an inerasable sense of the community in us, literally in us: beyond us. Waiting for us. Emerging through us. Rejoycing through us. Hoping through us.

Outside the world of Psalms, one can never understand the spirit of conversion to which the Lenten season invites us. This week, which is called Passion week, the scenes of Jesus's Passion-drama, with a particular force draw us into this collective dimension of conversion. Jesus prayed these ancient prayers. He has marked them and enhanced their meaning through using them. Just as we (subsequent generations) add the life of our age to their already rich collective meaning.

Collective salvation history, the particular human heart, and Jesus's life are connected and inter-related. Jesus's life is the Christ's life. The Master's life is not only a personal life, so to say. Jesus's personal passion story (today think of his betrayal by Judas Ischariot during the last supper) has a collective meaning. His life is summing up the whole of salvation history. This individual and indeed redemptive suffering (love) is rooted in the collective breathing of human history which we have just contemplated in the Psalms.

15.04.2014