{"id":1494,"date":"2007-06-20T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-20T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/i-will-give-to-you-a-new-heart.html"},"modified":"2007-06-20T20:33:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-20T20:33:00","slug":"i-will-give-to-you-a-new-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/i-will-give-to-you-a-new-heart.html","title":{"rendered":"“I will give to you a new heart”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
A 23-year-old seminarian in New Jersey, Edmund Luciano, (that’s him in the middle on the left, with his sister and his cousin) just had a heart transplant<\/a>, and it sounds like he’s doing remarkably well: <\/p>\n

Luciano knows only that the heart donor was a 12-year-old boy, according to the agreement with the sharing network. \u201cThe donor\u2019s family knows more about me than I know about them,\u201d he said. \u201cI was told (by the sharing network) that the grandmother was greatly comforted by the fact that I am studying to be a priest.\u201d He explained that the recipient is encouraged to write a letter to the family when he or she is ready to do so. \u201c(The donor\u2019s family) chooses whenever they are ready to write back or to make contact with the recipient. Otherwise they remain anonymous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has definitely been a mystical experience for me to think that there was a family in that much of their own tragedy that was able to respond to the needs of someone else, that they had enough love. … How could I not want to meet people who can love that much? So there is hope to one day meet them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I was praying to John Paul II, I have kind of named him \u2018Paul\u2019 when I think of him and pray for him,\u201d Luciano said of his donor. Calling him \u201cthe donor,\u201d he added, seems too cold. \u201cI have his heart. It is a little more personal than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReading through the Liturgy of the Hours and the scriptures,\u201d he said, \u201cmany things that were once metaphors are not metaphors to me anymore. You\u2019re in a whole new place when you have literally spent time with death and your life is given back to you.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i> We are all clay, in the Potter’s hands. I can only imagine how this extraordinary young life is being shaped, and re-shaped, day by day, and what remarkable work he has yet to do, with another young heart guiding him on, every beat a blessing and a hope. Pray for him, and with him.<\/p>\n

Photo: The Catholic Spirit<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 23-year-old seminarian in New Jersey, Edmund Luciano, (that’s him in the middle on the left, with his sister and his cousin) just had a heart transplant, and it sounds like he’s doing remarkably well: Luciano knows only that the heart donor was a 12-year-old boy, according to the agreement with the sharing network. \u201cThe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"I will give to you a new heart" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/i-will-give-to-you-a-new-heart.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""I will give to you a new heart" - 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