When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty.If you search for the awakened heart, there is nothing but tenderness.You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness.It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed.It is the pure raw heart that has the power to heal the world.
If there is any focus that the spiritual leader of the future will need, it is the discipline of dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, "Do you love me? Do you love me?" It is the discipline of contemplative prayer. Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from becoming strangers to our own and God's heart. Contemplative prayer keeps us home, rooted and safe, even when we are on the road, moving from place to place, and often surrounded by sounds of violence and war. Contemplative prayer deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everything and everyone around us keep suggesting the opposite.