The Desires of Our Hearts
I came across a story this week of someone who had lived a life apart from God and sought their identity as transgender. However, this past year, she decided to convert to Roman Catholicism and detransition. The plan was for her to be confirmed at Easter; however, after missing several classes, the priest decided it was best to wait and ensure that she knew the faith and what she was entering into. There was great wisdom on the part of the priest, as now, only weeks after Easter, she has announced that she is going to transition again, citing that God doesn’t care about what she “looks like on the outside but only cares about [her] heart.” Of course, many progressive Christians came out in defence of her and to encourage her in his actions.
I am not writing about this to judge or gossip about this person. Rather, it strikes a chord of something that I think is often not well understood in our modern society: what is the role of the heart? Is the heart the only thing that matters? What does our blood-pumping organ have to do with how we live our lives anyway?
Scripture speaks of the heart in several ways. In Matthew 5:8, Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” In Psalm 51:10, the psalmist prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” In Proverbs 4:23, we are told: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.” In Ezekiel 36:26, God tells his people, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.” And lastly, the prophet Jeremiah tells us in chapter 17, verse 9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” These verses reflect the purity of the heart, the need for its renewal, and its significance in God’s work of redemption and restoration in our lives. However, sometimes, you might see some translations substitute the word “heart” for “will” or “inner man.” But what does the heart have to do with the will?
Within the Early Church’s discussion on will, we get a fuller picture of the role of the heart and will. The heart is the seat of emotions, desires, and loves. The heart controls our affections, what we are drawn and inclined to. Our affections, in turn, form our wills; we do what we love, what we value. In other words, our heart forms the posture of our actions. You might visualize this as all actions beginning in the heart, moving to the head, and being actualized with the body. A modern philosopher, influenced by St. Augustine, who puts it as, “You are what you love.” Because what you love forms and shapes who you are, what you do, and what you worship. This is why we see the prayers of the psalmist and prophets for God to give them new hearts.
This is where the disconnect can happen. We often leave the heart to refer to one part of the person. It is the inner man, but it is never joined to the rest of who we are. But in light of what we just discussed, it is impossible to say God only cares about the heart and not the externals, because they are joined together. Our external actions and the understanding of our identity are formed by what we love. The term “heart” is often used as a synecdoche, that is, a part in reference to the whole. We understand this in the phrase you might say to your spouse, “I love you with my whole heart.” You aren’t saying, “I love you with only one internal aspect” or “I love you with a whole part of me.” No, you are saying, “With all of my love, everything I do, with my entire being, I love you.”
This view of our hearts and wills is reflected in the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom. At the end of Morning and Evening Prayer we read the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom: “ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests; Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.” It is principally the last part that always catches my attention: “thou wilt grant their requests; Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants.” It sounds very demanding. And what if our desires and petitions were selfish? God isn’t a genie by whom you get your sports car. However, rightly understood, it is the part that comes after this that deserves the emphasis: “as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth…” This is the hinge of the prayer. That our desires and petitions must be aligned with the will of God. And where it is not, we pray God might illumine us with his truth. In other words, our desires, our loves, should be so formed by the will of God that we ask for his will to be done. And where our wills or hearts are not aligned, that they may be corrected through the knowledge of his truth.
This is the work of redemption that God is doing: recreating our hearts. Not for us to just do the right thing, but for us to love him and be so joined to him that we love what he loves and we desire what he desires. That his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Christ's Peace,
Fr. Aaron