CCC 1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart.1 Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: “Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!”2 God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:3
Let us fix our eyes on Christ’s blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.
CCC 2561 “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”4 Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!”5 Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.6
1 Cf. Ezek 36:26-27.
2 Lam 5:21.
3 Cf. Jn 19:37; Zech 12:10.
4 Jn 4:10.
5 Jer 2:13.
6 Cf. Jn 7:37-39; 19:28; Isa 12:3; 51:1; Zech 12:10; 13:1.