BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART…

Hospital chapel, 8:25 a.m.

A woman in her mid-50s enters with her colorful canvas tote bag full of medical folders, prescriptions, a queue ticket, a small bottle of water. She crosses the center of the small chapel with a determined step and heads toward the statue of the Madonna.

He pauses to look at her while touching her cloak; he takes a coin, two, three, so many… he drops them into the offering box one after another and lights an artificial candle.

Then, slowly, leaning an elbow on the altar to steady themselves while kneeling and getting back up… the altar cloth a bit rumpled. Another blown kiss and off, with a satisfied air, toward the exit.

I look at You: “He didn’t look at You! He didn’t see You? Doesn’t he know You are here?”.

Another woman in her 70s enters, crosses the center of the small chapel, and goes toward the statue of the Madonna. Kisses, coins, an artificial candle. An unsteady step on the step behind the altar and, with a feat praiseworthy for her age, she climbs up the large crucifix hanging on the wall fifty centimeters from the tabernacle, until touching the feet of the statue of Christ and then bringing her fingers to her lips to kiss them. Leaning against the altar, the cloth a bit wrinkled, she heads toward the exit, satisfied.

I look at You: “He didn’t look at You! Didn’t he see You? Doesn’t he know You’re here?”

My Lord, forgive me when, with a troubled heart, restless as the bottom of a stormy sea, I pass through the little chapels of my life and head with an exuberant stride toward appearances, investing the gifts You gave me and throwing myself into performances You made me capable of, to fuel lights that illuminate my satisfaction and bestow kisses that worship my ego, without looking at You, without seeing You, without grazing Your presence there, fifty centimeters away from me, behind a sacrifice of love that I cause to shrivel, where You, as always, never lose sight of me.

Blessed is the heart so pure that it sees nothing but the desire to be kept in You.