HEART

| For Him and In Him Alone | The Great Divide |

For Him and In Him Alone

"Lord you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you" (St Augustine) [Fecisti nos, Domine, ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te.]

"My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing, and I will give praise." (Ps 107:2)

"My son, give me thy heart: and let thy eyes keep my ways." (Prov 23:26)

"The truth is that, in each heart, there is a secret garden which God made uniquely for himself.  That garden is locked like a safety-deposit vault: it has two keys.  God has one key; hence the soul cannot let in anyone else but God.  The human heart has the other key; hence not even God can get in without man's consent.  When the two keys of God's love and human liberty, of Divine Vocation and human response meet, then Paradise returns to the human heart. God is always at that Garden gate with his key.  We pretend to look for our key, to have mislaid it, to have given up the search;  but all the while it is in our hand, if we would only see it.  The reason we are not as happy as saints is because we do not wish to be saints."  (Fulton Sheen, Peace of Soul, pp 60-61)

"We are called to live the love of Christ, not little romances.  Jesus Christ has won eternal happiness for us, which we have an inkling of here on earth, and which we will achieve if we strive to act with love of God."  (Bl Josemaria Escriva)

"I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.  You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."  (Ez 36:25-28; cf Ez 11:19-20)

"Do not be afraid, you, my little flock.  Your Father has determined to give you his kingdom.  Sell what you have, and give alms, so providing yourselves with a purse that time cannot wear holes in, an inexhaustible treasure laid up in heaven, where no thief comes near, no moth consumes.  Where your treasure house is, there your heart is too." (Lk 12:32-34; cf Mt 6:19-21)

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Mt 6:24)

"... get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!  Why will you die, O house of Israel?  For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord God; so turn, and live." (Ez 18:31-32)

"Yet if His Majesty, our Sovereign Lord
Should of his own accord
Friendly himself invite,
and say, "I'll be your guest tomorrow night,"
How should we stir ourselves, call and command
All hands to work! Let no man idle stand ....
But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven
We wallow in our sin:
Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always like a stranger,
And, as at first, still lodge him in a manger." (Anon. Elizabethan and Jacobean)

Iesu, Rex admirabilis
et Triumphator nobilis
Dulcedo ineffabilis
totus desiderabilis.
Iesu Dulcedo cordium
Fons vivus, Lumen mentium
excedens omne gaudium
et omne desiderium.  (Liturgy of the Hours, Hymn, Christ the King)

The Great Divide

"These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." (Mt 15:8) [Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me.]

"It ought to be kept in mind that an attachment to a creature makes a person equal to that creature; the firmer the attachment, the closer the likeness to the creature, and the greater the equality.  For love effects a likeness between the lover and the object loved.  As a result David said of those who set their hearts upon their idols: 'Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them' (Ps 115(113):8).  He who loves a creature, then, is as low as that creature, and in some way even lower, because love not only equates, but even subjects the lover to the loved object." (St John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel Bk I, Chap 4, 3)

"Earthly affections, even when they aren't just squalid concupiscence, usually involve some element of selfishness.  So, though you must not despise those affections -- they can be very holy -- always make sure you purify your intention." (Bl Josemaria Escriva, The Forge, 477)

"Some hearts are hard, but noble.  When they come close to the warmth of Christ's Heart, they melt like bronze into tears of love, of reparation.  They catch fire.
"But lukewarm people have hearts of clay, of mean flesh.  They crack and turn to dust.  A sorry sight." (Bl Josemaria Escriva, The Forge, 490)

"It's a misfortune not to have a heart.  We need to have a heart, and to control it.  This poor heart of ours has been born to love, my children.  And when we do not give it a noble, clean, and pure love, it rebels and fills with misery, with corruption, with lust." (Bl Josemaria Escriva)

"This time the trial has been long.  Perhaps -- and without the 'perhaps' -- you haven't borne it well so far, for you were still seeking human consolations.  But your Father God has torn them out by the roots so as to leave you no other refuge but him."  (Bl Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 722)

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