Lumen Gentium
"I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You shall live in the land I gave your ancestors; you shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Ezekiel 36:26-28) In this prophetic oracle, Ezekiel articulates God’s promise of profound inner renewal and transformation, signifying a pivotal turning point in understanding God's redemptive interaction with humanity. This transformation is described vividly as exchanging a "stony heart," symbolic of spiritual hardness, resistance, and obstinacy, for a "natural heart," receptive, responsive, and open to God’s grace. Central to Ezekiel's message is the affirmation that genuine spiritual renewal originates solely from divine initiative. According to Ezekiel, human transformation is neither superficial nor self-generated...