On the bookcase across from where I sit at my desk, I can see a medium size stone resting among other mementoes. It is a stone that I discovered on my travels, and it is shaped like a heart. I have had a number of such stones over the years since I had by-pass surgery – stones of varying sizes and from different places. But they all had one thing in common; they were heart-shaped. At times I used a stone at a prayer service or a talk, never to get them back. Other times, some got lost in transit or travel and I had to find a replacement.  Now, I keep this one visually present, and it has its own handy sack for travelling.

Now, before you think that this man is acting strangely (and you might well still arrive at that conclusion) the stone is a symbol to remind me of my surgery and what happened afterwards during a 30 day retreat. It reminds me of what significance the Lord opened to me - even as my body was opened for surgery - about my life and my journey up till then, and what hopes there were to be for a future. “I'll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed. I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You'll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You'll be my people! I'll be your God! (Ezekiel 36:24 - 28)."   The words of Ezekiel have become an important part of my prayers and reflections over the years since the surgery occurred.

I am usually reminded of that heart of stone whenever I reflect upon our own 2002 chapter documents. We seemed to be saying quite clearly that we were attempting to come to understand what was at the centre of being a brother. Or to put it another way, “On whom or on what do we set our hearts?” It is the continuing struggle that we are facing. In 1996, four directions were enunciated as a first step to coming to terms with our brotherhood in this post-modern age of ours. In 2002, we have been given seven insights to aid us in our quest for this identity. How are we to turn hearts of stone to the hearts of flesh about which Ezekiel reminds us? 

I find it interesting that another religious brotherhood, the Marist Brothers, received a circular this past year from their present General, Br. Sean Sammon. The title of his message to his brothers is called, A Revolution of the Heart. I was struck at first in coming across the letter that here was another case of synchronicity.  The Marist General was asking his brothers to focus on a revolution of the heart. Sean sees that the heart must be moved, transformed in order for his brothers to reclaim an authentic identity for the current age, an identity around their religious brotherhood.  It must be an identity that is never suggestive of clericalism and churchliness. As he states in his beginning chapter, “any religious order worth the name has an obligation to offer its members a particular way of following the Lord, a unique approach to self-transcendence.” 

Perhaps it is this creating a new heart amidst all that has been part of our history and our traditions that we need to look at again and again. I know that to say that creates the impression that somehow it denigrates what was in the past. I mean only to say that what is past is the past. I would not want the person that I am today to be judged by the child, adolescent, young adult, inexperienced teacher, and even religious leader that I was in my past. I am who I am today, and the congregation is what it is today, and never its past alone.

So it is with the identity we are seeking to understand. Do young people identify us as blacksmiths in their world of cars and planes (an illustration that Timothy Radcliffe, former Prior General of the Dominicans, has raised about religious)? If we would return to the heart and allow ourselves to truly listen to what our reflections and prayers are saying to us in that sacred place, we would create the revolution about which Sean Sammon speaks. As he reminds us, genuine renewal of the heart “frees (us) from the trappings of history. … We are called to live on the perimeter, and to be the Church’s living memory (its heart), reminding it constantly about the nature of its identity. That is our prophetic role.”
 

Sean gives a good illustration of the role of religious vis-a-vis the institutional church that reminds us of our prophetic stance.  He takes the resurrection account of Peter and John running to the tomb after being told by the women that the tomb was empty (John 20:3-8).  John the younger man races ahead, but when he gets to the tomb, he pulls back and waits for the older man, Peter, to arrive and lets Peter enter the tomb first.  Religious have a role to play for our Church; we are to run ahead - be prophetic - "but to wait, when necessary, for the larger body to catch up."

Can we begin to look within our hearts to discover how we are allowing the Spirit to create prophets out of us?  Can we examine ourselves about whether we are allowing our hearts to harden into stone when our Friend (New Testament translation, The Message, consistently refers to the Spirit as Friend) desires a heart of flesh?   These questions may help us to continue the on-going discussion:

Who are the Christian Brothers? What is at the heart of the Brothers, the Congregation? What do they cherish and hold dear?
 

Br. Nick Morris (Rome)