{"id":4143,"date":"2025-08-19T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4143"},"modified":"2025-08-17T13:50:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T13:50:37","slug":"with-hearts-made-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/08\/19\/with-hearts-made-new\/benedictine-spirituality\/4143\/","title":{"rendered":"With hearts made new."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4149\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/kelly-sikkema-mywUlDDkHiU-unsplash-1980x1320.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Photo by Kelly Sikkema on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we\u2019re celebrating feast of St Bernard Tolomei, the founder of the Olivetan congregation. He was a 13th century lawyer who, with a few friends, left the city to live as hermits in the hills outside of Siena. However, things did not turn out quite as they planned. <br><br>Having being led out into one of those \u201cdesert places\u201d where God speaks to the heart, they were called back into the city to nurse the victims of the plague in 1349. It was there that St Bernard fell ill and died.<br><br>This morning at Lauds we sang this from the prophet Ezekiel:<br><br><em>\u201cA new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.\u201d<br><\/em><br>It seems to me to sum up both the essence of St Bernard\u2019s life and of the call to contemplation that we all experience. Bernard was led to seek a life of contemplation and prayer. In turn his life of prayer softened the stoniness of his heart enabling him to leave his solitude to care for those in need. <br><br>His life suggests that there is no division between a contemplative life and one of active service, they are two parts of a whole. It is our time spent with God that enables and sustains our service to others. It is the love we discover in the heart of God that softens our stony hearts and enables us to love our sisters and brothers.<br><br>Where is God softening your heart today?<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we\u2019re celebrating feast of St Bernard Tolomei, the founder of the Olivetan congregation. He was a 13th century lawyer who, with a few friends, left the city to live as hermits in the hills outside of Siena. However, things did not turn out quite as they planned. Having being led out into one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,461,271,537,492,245,246],"tags":[843,844,28,18,124,416,346,6,8,33,229,13,29,15,55,23,418,10],"class_list":["post-4143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-divine-office","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-rule-of-st-benedict","category-saints","category-scripture","tag-anewheart","tag-anewspirit","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-community","tag-contemplation","tag-ezekiel","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-prayer","tag-service","tag-stbernardtolomei","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4150,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4143\/revisions\/4150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}