{"id":7273,"date":"2021-09-26T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-26T05:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=7273"},"modified":"2021-09-26T15:42:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-26T05:42:01","slug":"the-heart-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/the-heart-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of God"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Heart of God<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Luke 19:1-10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we break down who Zacchaeus was, we see a tax collector,\nwho was rich, who was short, who runs up a tree to see Christ through the\ncrowds. He is presented in a fairly undignified way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fairly Gospel ends with a courageous declaration \u2013 \u201cLord,\nI give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone\nby false accusation, I restore fourfold.\u201d <\/em>\u2013 Luke 19:10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transitionary moment of this Gospel was Zacchaeus in the\ntree, and our Lord walking under the tree. If we press pause at this moment\nwhen Christ looks up and sees Zacchaeus. You can imagine this moment when their\neyes meet. Zacchaeus would have frozen. At this moment, what did Zacchaeus see\nin the eyes of Jesus? He would have been able to see into the heart of God. He\nwould have felt the love, the mercy, the tenderness, the kindness – all that\nflows from the heart of God. This is the moment that would have changed Zacchaeus\u2019\nlife forever. The moment when he looked into the heart of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God looks into our hearts, that is what He is most\ninterested in. We, too, need to look into the heart of God \u2013 to understand Him,\nand to understand our place in the heart of God. If we understand our place in\nthe heart of God, then our lives can be changed. We will see the love He has\nfor us, we will see the forgiveness He has for us, the restoration, the\nkindness, all for us. We will see our place in His heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The iconographer of the Father\u2019s embrace for the Arabic\nchurch spent a few months working on this icon. We got to know him and watched\nhim work. One day I came to the liturgy and he had just completed the face of\nJesus. He was staring at the icon and I said, \u201cit looks really good.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said, \u201cAbouna, I want you to pray the mass today and\ngaze into His eyes, and after the liturgy tell me what you felt.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wanted to make sure that whoever looks into the face of\nChrist would feel His Love, His warmth, His compassion. That whoever looked\ninto the face of Christ would see the heart of God. We need to know and to see\nthe heart of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was walking in the park with my kids, and a man asked me, \u201cwhat\nis God\u2019s message to me today?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I responded, \u201cGod\u2019s message for today is that He loves\nyou<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very sure.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know about that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he left. How can we not know that? How can we not know that God\u2019s loves us? We need to look into the heart of Jesus, and allow it to change our lives in the same way it changed Zacchaeus\u2019 life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day, we need to look into the heart of Jesus. Jesus looks into our hearts each and every day, and we need to look into His heart. What do you see when you look into the heart of God?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Heart of God Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily Luke 19:1-10 If we break down who Zacchaeus was, we see a tax collector, who was rich, who was short, who runs up a tree to see Christ through the crowds. He is presented in a fairly undignified way. The fairly Gospel ends … Continue reading “The Heart of God”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7275,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions\/7275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}