God wants your heart

Tuesday, February 07, 2017

From the Gospel for Tuesday of the 5^th Week in Ordinary Time

“How well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honors me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me;

In vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines human precepts.” (Mark 7:6-7, citing Isaiah 29:13)

What matters the most is neither the mind nor the lips, but the heart. Remember the image I quoted yesterday how “God is a beggar sitting at the gate, patiently begging for love.” Remember also the ancient Jewish commandment which Jesus cites as the greatest of all the commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4f, cited by Jesus in Mark 12:30). And finally, recall the question Jesus asked Peter three times, after the betrayal and after His resurrection: Do you love me? (John 21:15-17)

It is not academic theology that matters, nor perfectionalistic ritualism, nor obsession with the parish’s economy, nor the ability to come up with keen insights into Vatican politics, nor the most exquisite liturgical choirs, nor tribunals nor the refined distinctions of moral theology. All or some of these things might be good in themselves, but they all carry within themselves an innate danger; that is, the danger of getting obsessive over these things and making them out to be God rather than God Himself who is, again, begging for our love.

That is why it is also so important for us to “get out of our heads” when we go to pray; that is why contemplative prayer and meditation is so important: times when we can lay these things aside and simply be alone in a room resting in the presence of Jesus Christ, “like a lover in the arms of the Beloved” (to borrow a phrase from Fr. Richard Rohr).  Rest in Him. Stay in Him. Remain in Him. He will supply you with what you need when you go about all of the other stuff, but always remember that the “other stuff” is precisely that: other stuff. It’s not the cake nor the icing on the cake, nor even the cake fork.

And if you are not sure how to pray contemplatively, ask Him to guide you. He will. Because He has given you free will, and He wants you to freely give your will over to Him. Seek these things first, and all other things will be given you besides.

God bless you!