“Circumcise your heart…”

While paging through my Bible before noon Mass, I came across this passage from Deuteronomy 10: 12-22 (NJB) entitled, “Circumcision of the Heart.” With a heading like that, I just had to read this little gem and it moved me greatly. 

I was struck by how richly it overlaps the “love command” of Jesus in the New Testament. Too many times, I hear God’s love and justice pitted against one another. Here, we see the love and justice of God put in proper relation to each other in the preferential option for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger—yet free from favouritism.  

Most of all, I find that the command to “Circumcise your heart…” is a powerful—and graphic—way to reflect on this season of Lent for me and, perhaps, for you too.

Circumcision of the Heart

Deuteronomy 10: 12- 22 (NJB)

And Now Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask of you? Only this: to fear Yahweh your God, to follow all his ways, to love him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments and laws of Yahweh, which I am laying down for you today for you own good.

‘Look, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the heaven of the heavens, the earth and everything on it; yet it was on your ancestors, for love of them, that Yahweh set his heart to love them, and he chose their descendents after them, you yourselves, out of all nations, up to the present day. Circumcise your heart then and be obstinate no longer; for Yahweh your God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords, the great God triumphant and terrible, free of favouritism, never to be bribed. He it is who see justice done for the orphan and the widow, who loves the stranger and gives him food and clothing. (Love the stranger then, for you were once strangers in Egypt.) Yahweh your God is the one whom you must fear and serve; to him you must hold firm; in his name take your oaths. Him you must praise, he is your God: for you have seen yourselves; and, although your ancestors numbered only seventy persons when they went down to Egypt, Yahweh your God has now made you as many as the stars in the heavens.’