Where Is Your Heart?

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
26 October 2014

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.

        These words of the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton expound on the great lessons we have learned in our First Reading and Gospel for this weekend: Namely, we cannot love God or neighbor exclusively. Love for God is rooted in our love for our neighbor; love for our neighbor is rooted in our love for God.

        This, then, is the basis for the understanding of Catholic Social Justice. This, then, is the basis for Christian charity.

        And so the question arises: Where is your heart?

        The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that: The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." 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. (Paragraph 2563)

        If, then, our heart is that place that not only we withdraw to, but is also the place of truth and encounter, where is it to be?

        The old adage of “Charity begins at home” becomes a lie, for lack of a better word, when we look at the heart. Charity, love, truly begins in the heart, not in the home. Charity begins when you and I withdraw and personally encounter the living God – heart speaking to Heart. Charity begins when you and I choose whether we will live in the freedom of God’s grace or choose to die due to our selfish decisions.

        Where, then, is your heart?

        For the Christian, charity is never an option – it is the way of life that we adhere to and live out because it is not only what Jesus commanded us to do (“Love one another as I have loved you” [John 15:12].), but we enter into the fullness of our participation in living out the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. For the Christian, charity becomes the very heart of who we are and not simply what we do. Our intertwined love of God and neighbor compels us toward compassion, concern, empathy, and action.

        In his encyclical, Veritas in Caritate, (Charity in Truth), Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI teaches us the following: Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbor; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope. (VC, 2)

        Think back to the opening words from Thomas Merton. We never worry about whether or not someone is considered “worthy” to receive our love. Who cares if another is worthy or not?! “. . . Everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it.” Charity is what we practice in relation to our neighbor because charity is what we have received from God.

        Yet, the question arises once again: Where is your heart?

        This is the question Pope Francis has been asking the Church to reflect upon since his election. Our Holy Father has been stressing that we are not just a Church of teachings, dogmas and doctrines. Rather we are that AS WELL AS a Church of mission. We are a Church of charity. Our mission to proclaim the Gospel is rooted in our personal experience of how the love of God and neighbor has embedded itself in our hearts. Pope Francis points back at the teachings of Pope Benedict, and becomes the example of how to put that teaching into action. Pope Francis challenges us to understand that our hearts must be rooted in the Heart of Christ, since, through the Paschal Mystery, we see the fulfillment of Love in action when we look at the Cross. When we see just how far Love, Himself, would open His Heart for us, we must ponder how much we would open our hearts not only for God, but for our neighbor – including those we would deem unworthy or undesirable, for no one is unworthy of God’s love; no one is undesired by God.

        On this day, then, we approach our God in our brokenness, asking Him to strengthen us in holiness through our reception of the Word and Sacrament. We come before our God, struggling to open our heart to His Love as we struggle to open our hearts so that we may love our neighbor. We place before the Sacred Heart of Christ our unworthiness so that we may become worthy. We acknowledge those moments of feeling undesired, knowing that God always desires the whole of who we have been created to be.

        And so, where is your heart? If we’re honest, it is “the dwelling-place where [we are], where [we] live; . . . [it] is the place "to which [we] withdraw." The heart is our hidden center . . . ; [the place where] only the Spirit of God can fathom . . . and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision . . . It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter . . . it is the place of covenant.” Yet our hearts are also the places where we struggle, and, finally, where we surrender.

        Ultimately, our hearts are searching and striving. They attempt to keep the love of God and neighbor intertwined while living in this world. They toil to practice charity while hearing the quiet whispers of the Devil to do otherwise. They wander between the ecstasy of union with God and the despair of a life wrought by sin.

        Our hearts are never complacent in living out the charity Christ has exampled and commanded us to do. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

        Looking, then, to the Cross, we pray that the Lord’s example may be that which compels us to charitable action. Looking to the Cross, we struggle to follow the Law and the Prophets as we pray:

Most high, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness
of my heart and give me Lord,
a correct faith, a certain hope,
a perfect charity, sense and knowledge,
so that I may carry out
Your holy and true command.

AMEN

---------------

Enjoy the journey . . .