What is going on in your heart? Probably more than you think

Spiritual reflections on Sunday Reading: Video Homily to Follow

What's going on in your heart?

I hope that as you read this, the answer to that question is that, through electronic stimuli, the muscle in your chest a contracting rhythmically to push blood around your arterial system. If that is not the answer, then you will not be reading this for much longer. However, reading that question, I suspect that is not where your mind immediately went.  

In pastoral work, in the Confessional, but, perhaps, most especially in spiritual direction this is a question which I quite often put to people. Where is your heart? What's going on in your heart? Will you open up your heart? And when I do so, I almost always get an answer about how the person feels. 

This is not wrong, and often it is what I want to know. Yet, it is important to remember that our hearts contain more than our feelings - at least Biblically speaking. 

The Bible uses the word 'heart' countless times, and yet it is never referring to the internal organ which keeps us alive physically. It is always used to refer to that non-material part of ourselves - the centre of our inmost being. Whilst today, we locate the heart as the centre of our feelings and emotions, for the Biblical authors the heart was also the seat for many of the powers which we today attribute to the brain. Specifically, the heart was the centre of knowing, the centre of man's moral consciousness and the place of the will - his power of choosing. 

Feeling, Knowing, Choosing & Sensing Moral Reality

So, what's going on in your heart?

The answer to this question, really, must be much deeper than how do I feel. Amidst the swirl of human feelings, what are the truths that I know and hold onto? And in what choices do those feelings and that knowledge manifest themselves? In action that are in accord with my consciousness of moral reality or not? These are the kinds of questions that are really implied, when asking what's going on in your heart?

It is with this understanding of the human heart that we can begin to make sense of Jesus' contention with the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem.

Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. For it is from within, from men's hearts that evil intentions emerge. (Mark 7.14-15)

We may feel all sorts of things in our hearts, some good and some bad. However, the greatest expression of our hearts is found in what comes out? Having felt evil, what are the truths that I hold onto? How to I express that in my choices? When I feel like doing or saying or thinking something wrong, I nevertheless have the knowledge that that is only a feeling; and, having felt it I can choose to act in accordance with what my conscience tells me is right, or not. And it works the other way round, too. I may feel all sorts of great impulses to goodness - but knowing that they are good, I still have to choose to put them into effect... or not.

Examining our Hearts

As human beings, and especially as Christians, we need to be in touch with our hearts; but, as we have discovered, that means more than simply knowing how I am feeling. We need to look at what is coming out of our hearts, because, as Jesus tells us, that expresses what is going on inside.

Our Lord Himself gives us some warning signs that things might be going wrong: "fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.’" (Mark 7.21-23)

However, in our Old Testament and New Testament readings, we are given a guide as to the fruits of a good heart. Firstly, Moses tells the people of Israel in Deuteronomy:

[K]eep the commandments of the Lord your God just as I lay them down for you. Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding. (Deuteronomy 4.6)

The heart being the seat of knowledge - ie. wisdom & understanding - expresses the goodness of its knowledge of God by choosing to keep His commandments. As St. John will later put it, this is the ultimate test of whether we have love for God in our hearts:

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. (1 John 5.2-3)

In the New Testament readings St. James offers another guide as to the fruit for which to look, emerging from our hearts:

Pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world. (James 1.27)

By looking out for the dangers - the sins - of which Jesus warns us, and by looking for growth in the good signs - attentiveness to God's commandments and caring for the poor and vulnerable - we can get a good picture of where are hearts are. And we should be aware of our hearts, because, in a real way, they are the most important part of ourselves. 

Don't Panic, Heart Transplants are Possible

Please God, you are looking at your heart and finding it full of love for Him. If so, thank Him. Even that love is a gift of His grace.

If, however, after having a good look, things aren't as great as you'd hoped - don't panic. With God's help, there is always great hope. There is indeed the possibility of a heart transplant - it's called Conversion of Heart.

If you find that there is sin in heart that you need confess - go to confession and receive God's mercy. It is the sacrament of conversion and it brings about conversion of heart. We may need to go again and again, but each time, we convert a little more.

And once we have converted from our sin, then is the time to grow; to grow in our faithfulness to God and  in our love of our neighbour, for love of Him. As St. John Henry Newman puts it:

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

While we live on this earth, as Christians we should always be looking to God, asking Him where we need to grow, next. What new challenge or calling does He have for me? Where can I give myself more to His service? Which part of my heart does he want to change and enlarge now?

When we have the bravery to invite God into our hearts - not just our feelings, but allowing Him to shape what we know, our vision of the moral universe and the choices that we make within it - then we are giving Him the room He needs to unite our hearts with His own. And when we allow Him to do this, then our hearts will begin to beat to His rhythm; and you just know that that is a heartbeat that will go on, forever.

(Photo: Photography is in my heart, Nina Matthews from Sydney, Australia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)