Transforming stoney hearts into bread

Paul Claudel writes [Christ] did not come to give us a life that would serve only to enable us to die. He did not come on earth to prevent hunger and thirst...He came with his great leaven so that no stone might be incapable of becoming wheat or loaf.

Think of the stones Satan used to tempt Jesus in the desert. Satan placed them before Jesus with an invitation to transform them into loaves of bread. Those stones symbolized human hearts, and Jesus did not come so that we might feed him. He came to feed us. So, even though those stones were meant for transformation, it would not come at the command of Jesus. He could have, but he would not. He waits on us to initiate the transformation. He waits on us to open our hearts.

In the desert of life, we too are tempted to feed off the very things that are set before us, especially in our spiritual quest. We have our devotions, our church time, our meditation time, and our fasts and prayers. But good as they are, they are not meant to feed us, but we are to feed them, with a burning spirit that comes from a heart opening. It's the spirit that prompts the action, not the devotion that calls for it, that gives sustenance to the soul.

Jean-Marie Howe writes to open our heart, to open a depth within ourselves: this is the aim of monastic life, and from this flows its fertility. The treasure hidden in the field of monastic life is depth: to arrive at such a depth of being that our whole life flows from the level of the heart, for it is there where God is, there where God gives to us and through us to the world.

God does more than give to us. When we cooperate in our own transformation, a unity occurs whereby we become like that which feeds us. It's the wonderful assimilation seen when a person takes nourishment, and it occurs on the spiritual plane as well.

Olivier Clement writes to seek the place of the heart. We live so much on the surface of ourselves. We live in our head and in our entrails, and all the vast spaces of the heart we have forgotten. I believe that we must rediscover them.

Discovering them transforms them. The heart of stone can become bread which will feed, but not by Jesus command. Only when I initiate the process. Only when I open.