Day 6
Focusing on the Heart
Today, on this Lord’s Day, I wish to invite all those who are listening to my words, not to forget our immortal destiny: life after death — the eternal happiness of heaven, or the awful possibility of eternal punishment, eternal separation from God, in what the Christian tradition has called hell. There can be no truly Christian living without an openness to this transcendent dimension of our lives. “Both in life and death we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).
— St. John Paul II, Homily, September 13, 1987
The first arena of love that Jesus points out is the “heart.” In all three New Testament versions of this greatest commandment, heart is always first on the list.
Sacred Scripture uses this term more than a thousand times, but never to refer simply to the biological organ. The term always has a fuller, more complete, and more spiritual cachet. With so many appearances, the word can’t help but take on a variety of connotations, yet the core meaning always remains the same. The heart refers to the deepest center of the person, the irreplaceable and irreducible “I” of the unique human individual. All the other powers of human nature flow from and depend on the heart. A person can say, “My feelings, my decisions, my hopes, my desires, my thoughts . . . ” But while all of those possessions belong to someone, the heart is the biblical term that refers to the core identity of that someone; it encompasses the substantive center of the possessor of everything else.The Catechism explores the mysterious origin of prayer:
The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant. (CCC, 2563)
This is the heart. Jesus commands his followers to love him, in the first place, with all their heart. What does this mean?
The Treasure Hunt
Jesus gives us a revealing clue in another one of his discourses, when he says, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matthew 6:21). A treasure is what we value most, what we desire most, what we set our sights on attaining or maintaining. To love God with all our heart, therefore, means to make God — communion with him, friendship with him — into the overarching goal of our lives, into our most precious possession, into our deepest yearning. It means making our relationship with God the true north of our earthly journey, so that every decision, every desire, every hope and dream, every interpersonal interaction is evaluated, lived, and developed in light of that fundamental, orienting relationship.
As a result, anything that may damage our relationship with God must be cut away or re-dimensioned, especially sin and sinful habits, whereas anything that harmonizes with or may enhance our relationship with God is welcomed and integrated more and more fully into our life. As you can see, engaging the whole heart in our love for God is not something that happens from one moment to the next; it is a process. To love God with all your heart means intentionally and gradually making your relationship with him into the greatest — indeed, the only — treasure of your life.
Keep On Seeking
Loving God with all our heart means wanting, above everything else, to grow continually in our communion with him, in our friendship with him. This desire may start small, but as we grow, it also grows. And as our heart comes to love God more and more fully, every other desire is slowly but surely subordinated to and harmonized with that overarching desire, and so every experience, circumstance, and activity serves to bring us into a deeper knowledge of him. This is why Jesus was able to assure us, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).
In the end, we get what we want. If we truly want God, if our heart is set on pursuing God, on seeking him, on living in a deeper and deeper communion with him, God will not deny us that treasure, which is called heaven — after all, that’s what he created us for. This is why he can solemnly promise: “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). In the original Greek, the verb seek has the sense of an ongoing process: “Keep on seeking, and you will find.” If we keep our hearts pointed toward God, we will reach full communion with God, wherein we find our happiness.
On the other hand, if we persistently prefer to seek our fulfillment in something else, in some idol — whether other relationships, achievements, or pleasures — and leave communion with God as a secondary concern, or as no concern at all, God will honor our choice. He will keep trying to convince us to set aside our idols in favor of his friendship, but he won’t force us to do so. If we keep declining his invitations to the end, the purpose for which we were created — living in communion with God — will be everlastingly frustrated, and this is called hell.
Two Kinds of People
C.S. Lewis put it simply and eloquently in his masterpiece, The Great Divorce, referring to our Lord’s amazing promise about seeking and finding: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8). Lewis comments on that dictum as follows:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.
When Jesus commands us to love God with all our heart, he is teaching us the right answer to the very first question he asked in the Gospel of John, a question that each of us must answer anew every single day of our lives: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38). Where am I hoping to find the happiness I cannot resist desiring? If I hope to find it in God, I am loving God with my heart. As I progressively learn to hope to find it in God alone, and to order all the other smaller loves of my heart around that greatest love, I am learning to love God with all my heart.
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
What idea in this reflection struck you most and why?
When you look into the depths of your soul, how do you answer Christ’s question: “What are you looking for?”
If an observer were to follow you around for a typical week of your life, what would they conclude you are looking for in life?
Here on earth we find ourselves filled with conflicting desires. Even though, on the one hand, we do sincerely desire God, we also experience less worthy desires that often pop up uninvited. But God understands what you’re made of! He will help you increase your good, God-centered desires, and purify the others. You just have to work with him.
Today, what will you do to nourish your hope in God as the source of your lasting happiness?
- I will take ten minutes to write down the most beautiful and satisfying experiences I have ever had — and then reflect on how they are connected to God and his love for me.
- After each meal today, I will say a short but sincere prayer of thanks before getting up from the table.
- (Write your own resolution) I will
Concluding Prayer
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
— Irish monastic prayer from the sixth century
