THE WAY OF THE HEART
Would you like to participate in the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network?
Enter “”The Way of the Heart,” the formation itinerary of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which invites our hearts to be closer to the Heart of Jesus, to align ourselves with his feelings, desires and yearnings. As friends of Jesus, deeply united to Him, perceiving His joys and sufferings for the world, the program leads us to commit ourselves with Him for the challenges of humanity and the mission of the Church, present in the Pope’s prayer intentions. Thus this itinerary transforms us more and more as apostles of prayer, missionary disciples, for a mission of compassion for the world.
Learn more here: https://www.popesprayer.va/way-of-the-heart/
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In the beginning there was Love
- I have loved you with everlasting love… (Jeremiah 31:3)
- Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands… (Isaiah 49:15)
- This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son… (1John 4:10)
- God chose us in Christ before the world was made. (Ephesians 1:4)
- Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)
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The human heart, restless and needy
- God, you are my God, I pine for you; my heart thirsts for you, as a land parched, dreary and waterless. (Psalm 63:1)
- Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. (Psalm 130:1)
- Blessed are the poor in heart, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
- Where have you hidden, beloved, and left me moaning? … (Saint John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle)
- You made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. (Saint Augustine, Confessions)
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In a broken world
- God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)
- My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jeremiah 2:13)
- People will stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching for the Lord’s word, but will not find it. (Amos 8:12) ➢ Wake, Lord! Why are you asleep? Awake! Do not abandon us for good. Why do you turn your face away, forgetting that we are poor and harassed? (Psalm 44:23-24)
- He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. (John 1:11)
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The Father sends his Son to save
- See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19)
- I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians… (Exodus 7:3-8)
- I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I myself took them by the arm… I was leading them with human ties, with leading-strings of love. (Hosea 11:3-4)
- God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. (2 Corinthians 5:19)
- The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. (Romans 8:26)
- This is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son. (John 3:16)
- The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10)
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He calls us his friends
- I have called you by your name, you are mine. Do not be afraid… since I regard you as precious, since you are honored and I love you. (Isaiah 43: 1 and 4)
- Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach. These he called apostles… (Mark 3:13-14)
- I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)
- Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper… (John 21:20)
- And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
- Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
- Whoever wishes to come with me has to be content with the same food I eat, and the drink, and the clothing which I wear, and so forth. So too each one must labor with me during the day, and keep watch in the night… (Saint Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises 93)
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Christ abides in us
- On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. (John 14:20)
- … And we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. (John 14:23)
- Remain in me, as I remain in you… As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. (John 15: 4 and 9)
- …Yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me. (Galatians 2:20)
- Do you not realize that you are a temple of God with the Spirit of God living in you? (1Corinthians 3:16-17)
- As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. (1 John 2:24)
- …and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17)
- We are reflecting the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into his image (2Corinthians 3:18)
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We offer our lives along with Him
- The Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. (Romans 8:26)
- This poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury… She, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood. (Mark 12:43-44)
- And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19)
- I am the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me as you have said. (Luke 1:38)
- I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)
- Here I am, I have come to do your will (Hebrews 10:9)
- Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me, to you oh Lord I return it. All is yours, dispose of it wholly, according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is sufficient for me. (Saint Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises 234)
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A mission of compassion
- He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1)
- Never turn your face from the poor, and God will never turn his from you. (Tobit 4:7)
- Make your own the heart of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)
- Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." (Mark 1:41)
- The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. (Luke 4:18)
- Contemplate how the Three Divine Persons were looking upon the whole extent and space of the earth, filled with human beings. (Saint Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises 102) […] The first Point is, to see the various persons: and first those on the surface of the earth, in such variety, in dress as in actions: some white and others black; some in peace and others in war; some weeping and others laughing; some well, others ill; some being born and others dying, etc. (ibid. 106)
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A world-wide network of prayer and service attentive to the needs of humanity
- No peace for you, as you keep the Lord’s attention! And give him no peace either … until saving justice dawns like a bright light, and salvation like a blazing torch. (Isaiah 62:1.6-7)
- Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? […] The Lord said, “If I find fifty [or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten] righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” (Genesis 18,22-33)
- All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (Acts 1:14)
- You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)
- After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. (Lk 10:1)
- Peace be with you! As the Father sent me, so am I sending you. (John 20:21)