The Comforting Heart

 

H

uman history is just the complex multiplication of what breaks down to a single story: one heart trying to find all the comfort it needs from another heart. In most of our lives our heart would resemble a pinball battering upon one heart incessantly, and then another, and then another ad infinitum. For some the rejection by another’s heart can be enough to temporarily thwart or even stop dead in its track the inborne quest (but it can never really be stopped). Every heart wants to be understood by another heart, loved, cherished, respected, wanted, desired, uniquely, and personally. Even Hitler had his Eva Braun.

So powerful is this desire that some in their brokenness of heart, yielding to the darkness, employ all their strength to squeeze affection from the hearts of others by force, mostly in vain, and always without authenticity—since love cannot be manipulated or conjured. The twisted acts of many serial killers testify to this.

In an extreme and heinous way, the compulsion of tyrants who command the affection of their subjects, and violent-acting sociopaths who force affection from their victims or through the infamy of their deeds, show up in us the relatively benign and more hidden manipulations and exactions we make upon the hearts of others in order to meet the insatiable thirst of our heart for the comfort of another’s love.

This notion of comfort is central to the experience of love. In biblical usage, the sense of being comforted, consoled, comfortable, at rest, and at peace are interconnected and largely interchangeable. In Biblical Hebrew one such word used is nacham (נָחַם) ‘to be comforted, consoled’ and translated also at times as ‘repenting’ and ‘to be sorry’. It first appears in the Scriptures in reference to the newborn Noah (Nocha - נֹחַ), so-named because the people of that time say, “This one will give us rest from our work” (Gen 5:29).

In the Book of Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah describes the desolate state of the city of Jerusalem after its destruction by the Babylonians. Common to ancient sensibility he speaks of the city in feminine terms, depicting Jerusalem as a virgin widow in mourning, defiled and lamenting her affliction caused by the sins of her people—an adulterous people who have cheated on their God by practices of idolatry and licentiousness. Jerusalem, he writes, “She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her” (1:2).

Here the word translated invariably as ‘comfort’ or ‘console’ is the same, nacham (נָחַם).

Doing no more than extending from the ancient Jewish apprehension of “Jerusalem,” the Church Fathers interpreted Jerusalem as a symbol of the Church, and in turn, as a microcosm or micro-type of the soul.

Jerusalem after its destruction by Babylon is symbolic of the human condition after the Fall. A state in which we find ourselves by default, existentially alone and empty. The Hebrew word translated as “lovers” (participle of the verb אָהַב) in the passage above also has a broader meaning of ‘best friends,’ even expressing a close kinship between family members (Gen 25:28). We could thus expand the translation of the passage: “Among all her closest lovers, friends and relations she has not one to comfort her”. This is the state in which we find ourselves in this world: hearts empty and aching to be comforted. Yet no matter how much human love we manage to amass, our hearts are so large that none, not one, among all the close companions and relations of life are able to really comfort us according to the demands of our human nature.

For Christians the answer is not a secret. To appropriate from Augustine’s famous line, our hearts refuse to be consoled, until consoled by the God who made them. Our hearts cannot be comforted except by the One who loved our hearts into existence.

To take a few lines from Neil Young’s 1972 song Heart of Gold: I've been a miner / For a heart of gold / Keep me searching / For a heart of gold / And I'm getting old.

The heart of a friend, a relative, or a spouse, will not be able to love us as much as we were made to be loved. The proof is in the pudding: in all the relationships of life no one is enough. Consciously it might be possible to deceive ourselves otherwise, and many do, some are even convinced that all they need is themselves to be content. But we are innately relational, and the fact that no human company is enough for our heart to be content, points us toward a transcendent horizon of relationship with God in whom alone pure and perfect relationship can be found.

The irony is everyone placed in our lives is more than enough for us when we abide in God as willing and believing recipients of His love for us. The world puts human relationships first and yet it sucks at it. Christians are bad enough at it, the world even more terrible, only God is perfect at relationship, and in relationship with Him all is possible.

In the times of old holy biblical men and women related with a God they hardly knew. Since the coming of Christ, we have learnt that the One God is a Trinity of Persons, a Communion of Love.

In Jesus, the mysterious and uncreated Heart of God, God’s very essence, God’s whole self—since in God there are no parts—was made flesh. The human heart of Jesus is the repository and medium of the divine nature and all its love. In the Heart of Jesus the Father finds a visible and created outlet for His love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a prodigious miracle—all the love of the Almighty God beats in this Heart and it is through It that the Father loves the world and calls it to Him. It is the Holy Spirit who is this Love and by Him we are brought to the Son of Love who brings us to the Father of Love.

On the Cross this Heart summoned all the peoples of every age and commanded them to let Him love them, commanded us to let Him love us. This is what salvation is: to have one’s heart saved from its brokenness, emptiness and loneliness. It means to be comforted by a man who is God—Jesus, Yeshua, Yehōshu'a. What a wonderful mystery, in a human heart, the Heart of Jesus, we find the Heart of God.

Jesus commanded us to allow Him to love us on the Cross. The words of this commandment were not spoken on the Cross but at the Last Supper, when he said, or rather, commanded, “Abide in my love” (Jn 15:9). We easily forget the force of the grammatical imperative, it might easily be rendered, “Abide ye, in my love,” or “You, abide in my love”. The King James Version translates, “Continue ye in my love”. The Greek word translated as “abide” also means ‘to stay with, remain’. “Stay in my love,” “Remain in my love”. This is perhaps one of only two of the commandments not yelled, but rather, almost whispered. It is clear the Lord was giving a commandment because in addition to the phrase itself, its grammar, its general context, the immediate words that follow are these: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (Jn 15:10a).

The words of Jesus touch our ears, but do we let them touch our hearts?

What else is the command to “Abide in my love” but a command of Heart to heart: “Abide in my Heart,” “Remain in my Heart”.

If we were to view every soul that had existence, past and present, in the state in which they were during mortal life, right now with God’s sight, we would see tens of billions of floating hearts, most of them wondering aimlessly, bumping against one another like bunched helium balloons; and there would be two colours: blue for cold, and red for hot. Most of the hearts we’d see would be blue, some more, some less. Some might be a little yellow. But above them all we would see like a sun one heart eclipsing them all, deep red and on fire, radiating love as light and emitting plasma-like ejections, striking other hearts, setting them ablaze and turning them from blue to red. This heart too, we would see as mightily large, larger than all the other hearts we could see. With the force of its own gravity it would be drawing all hearts to itself with the aim of consuming them, devouring them in its love. We would see far more hearts fighting and pulling away from this heart than moving towards it. Few would be the hearts orbiting it, and they would be splendid to behold—piping hot. The hearts of the saints orbiting the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Two such orbiting hearts would stand out, one gleaming with fire and the second largest, like a moon to the sun—the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and after her, a heart incomparable to the rest—the Heart of Joseph her Spouse.

What is it to resist the commandment to willingly yield to the love God in Christ Jesus? It is to resist true love. It is to resist a sacred fire with which our hearts were made to be set alight therewith. It is to resist being comforted by Jesus. Many unknowingly resist the Great Lover of their being, the Heart that made them, saved them, and wants them to accept being saved. But what about we who know the Heart that loves us? How much effort we waste in chasing other hearts to be the solace of our souls, instead of investing all our effort in letting ourselves be moved by the love of God in Christ, in letting Jesus comfort us, in remaining in His Heart. He has done the work, we must do the rest in Him.

Our main work is to stay with Jesus, to keep coming back to Him, and this means staying by the Cross, even on the Cross with Him, because the command “Abide in my love,” “Abide in my Heart” may be heard and received from the table of the Last Supper, as at Holy Mass, but the command is lived from the wood of the Cross—a wood always within our reach throughout the course of our days, but the wisdom of the world commands us not to touch. 

Here, on the Cross, love is tested, exacted, and bleeds. We put the poor Heart of Jesus to the test when our sins nailed Him to the tree. 'Is this the Son of God,' we say, every time we sin, 'the One whose Heart is supposed to heal and comfort our own?' Even in the subtle way we play-out the role of the mocker. Reaching into the past, through our own sins, we marked Him out to fail, condemned Christ and His love, and the Father's love in Him, as not enough for us. To sin, is to turn from and doubt this love, and every time we do so we stand in the shoes of the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus' heart with  a lance. That soldier pierced Christ's side, but water and blood flowed out in abundance when he did, and it served to move one of the soldier's present to repent and believe, professing, 'Truly, this was God's Son' (Mt 27L54). Our sins drive an drove that same very spear into the Heart of Jesus, but the water and the blood that poured forth from that pierced Heart speaks and spoke louder still, “I am the Son of God, and none but my Heart heals and comforts. For you who weep bitterly in the night, tears on your cheeks; who among all your lovers, friends and relations have none to comfort you, I will comfort you. ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and overburdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’” (cf. Lam 1:2; Mat 11:28).

In His Heart we are complete. Therein we find our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and our End, from whom we were made and to whom we long to return. Only from His Heart, this Sacred Heart, can our hearts love God and neighbour with Jesus’ own perfect love. A love that suffers and bleeds, and at the same time comforts and consoles. In the Heart of Jesus we find all that every heart wants and needs. 

Who are they that wish to burn as this Heart burns, love as this Heart loves? The Heart of Jesus is desperate for souls who want His love, because all need it, but too few want it.

The world needs evangelists, the Church, catechists, the former to let all know of this Heart’s love, the latter to remind believers what this love means, but what the world and the Church needs more than anything, is hearts ablaze with Christ. For the evangelist comforts unbelievers with the Good News of Christ’s love, the catechist does the same, but for believers, but only a heart touched by the Heart of Jesus can immediately and actually bring comfort to the restlessness of human hearts. 

Who can dare say they have been touched by the love of Jesus if they have not fallen to their knees in their brokenness and given way to His love. Who can dare say they have been touched by the love of Jesus if they have not taken hold of their own cross and uttered, “Amen.”

The Apostle Paul, a champion of the Sacred Heart, encourages and exhorts:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction,
so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction,
with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings,
so through Christ we share abundantly in [His] comfort too.

(2 Cor 1:3-5)

Baptised to be Social

W

hen were you baptised?

Most Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians were baptised as infants. Christians of other denominations tend to be baptised as youths or young adult, some reject the validity of baptising infants altogether—despite biblical evidence to the contrary (children would have belonged to the households that were baptised, e.g, Acts 10; 16:1-34), and its occurrence since the early Church.

Without denigrating the equal value of those baptisms which happen to be valid, carried out upon those who are older, sometimes because they or their family discovered Christ when they were older, sometimes because they simply didn’t get around to it, or it was the custom of their particular ecclesial community—objectively speaking, the younger the better.

Once we appreciate what Baptism is and does to the soul, we cannot but arrive at this conclusion. A conclusion which the early Church arrived at, for which reason, it established itself as a sacramental and liturgical tradition. This is attested in the Apostolic Tradition (xxi.4), attributed to Hippolytus (approx. 230 AD), or by some scholars, as late at 400 AD: 

And (δ́ε) they shall baptise (βαπτ́ιζειν) the little children first. And if they can answer for themselves, let them answer. But if they cannot, let their parents answer or (́ἠ) someone from their family (γ́ενος).1

Anyhow, this isn’t an apologetic article defending infant baptism. This is just a brief reflection on what can often be brushed off as a boring and forgettable topic.

It’s easy to brush the topic of baptism off as something that happened to us in the past, or some rite we’re used to attending for babies in the family.

When was the last time you thought about your baptism?

Do you know the date you were baptised?

Have you ever thanked God for the gift of your baptism?

If you were baptised as an infant or child, have you ever owned your baptism?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Jn 3:5).

To be born in the flesh is to be born in the natural order and is to be ordered to a natural end, and in this fallen world, that end is death.

We’re pretty much stuffed if that’s all there is. Without God, without the reality of the spiritual domain of existence, our natural birth orders us to the natural end of death. Compost for worms. Or, for those who try to romanticise the latter—star dust. Some people actually rejoice at this idea. Star dust for eternity? It's like the worst ending ever. Not even slightly romantic. One probably needs to get out more if that's an appealing idea for an eternal destiny.

The minds of many settle on this and may fain an attitude of either dogged nihilistic resignation, “Meh. Such is life,” or else pretend eternal annihilation of their personal being is somehow 'beautiful.'

The human heart is not satisfied with this answer, not because there’s something in us which strives to survive in vain, in spite of the cold hard reality of things, but because our heart knows a truth which our minds may have forgotten, which our culture and world has long forgotten. Our heart, beating not so much between our lungs, as it does in our soul, beats with a truth beyond empirical observation: we have an immortal soul which can only be satisfied if it can live forever and be happy forever. Anything short of this, and the human heart is not satisfied. It can’t handle compromise on this point, even if the mind is willing to be duped so as to do away with the strangeness of having to believe in what cannot be seen with the eyes, and cannot be known without the aid of faith.

Faith is what it takes to believe in the words of Christ: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Jn 3:5). It takes faith to believe that we can be born again and are born again in baptism. It sounds obvious, but have we actually, and do we actually, believe in our Baptism?

Faith is a gift, and it comes to those who ask for it. Yes, it’s infused into the soul at Baptism, but still, it needs to be used, we have to actively choose to believe, to want to believe. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24).

Those of us who have been baptised before the age of reason, in a special way, have to at some point profess our belief in the mystery of what took place at our Baptism, saying, “I believe”. We do so publicly as a congregation when we recite the Creed, “I believe in one baptism,” but there’s value in doing so on our own, privately, between just God and ourselves. Even then, it doesn’t hurt to renew our belief and gratitude in the baptism we have received.

What exactly is it we are believing in?

If by our birth in the flesh, in the natural order, we’re ordered to a natural end—death, by our supernatural birth in the Spirit, a birth in the supernatural order, we’re ordered to a supernatural end—eternal life. Our first birth takes place in temporality, within time, in the world, our second birth takes place outside of time, in eternity, in God (albeit through time and the elements of the world).

That’s all well and good. It’s 101 Christian stuff. But we’ll never be able to appreciate enough the profundity of this truth of our Baptism. Just as a newborn child must still grow in the order of nature, so too we must grow in the supernatural order. Nevertheless, even if we have much growing to do, those of us who have been baptised can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; the life I now live in the flesh [here and now], I live by faith in the Son of God, the one who having loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

We’re in Jesus. We live in Jesus.

Grave and mortal sin may crucify this life within the soul. By it we commit spiritual murder against the life of the Son of God within us. It’s not that we harm Him who is now glorified, but we harm ourselves, the presence of His life within us, and contribute in the past to that single crucifixion by which all sins, past, present and future, played a horrifying part.

Perfect contrition and repentance restores this life. The Sacrament of Confession its ordinary and visible guarantee.

The Eucharist nourishes this life. By it we grow. The Mass is the feast at which we’re nourished.

Hours of Adoration and prayer is the company we need to be socially fit for communing for heaven. That’s what prayer is—socialising with God. We all know what happens to people who fail to be properly socialised. Especially to children who fail to be adequately socialised. I can recall to mind the images of children who were neglected and left to be raised by packs of wild dogs, or wolves. Studies show the effects improper socialisation has on the development of the human brain. There are milder examples too—people we know, decent people, but who suffer with social inabilities. Maybe ourselves as well.

Once the damage is done, it’s hard to remedy. Often, it’s not simply the fault of the one who struggles to socialise to maintain a healthy social life. Everyone has their issues, and some have scarring backgrounds. In some ways, maybe we can’t all be aptly sociable, but the real question is, are we aptly sociable in the Spirit or are we spiritually antisocial? Are we antisocial in the eyes of God and heaven? This is a domain of socialising, by grace, within every Christian’s capacity, and our own weakness is an asset in this! (2 Cor 12:8).

Do we want to die as lame-o’s when we get to heaven? Shy little squirts incapable of relating to God, to Christ, to the angels and saints?

Forget about hell, that’s the antisocial domain of eternity—there’s no socialising down there, even if some joke about ‘having a beer’ with Satan. Sorry, the fallen angel who chose eternal spite and hate over eternal joy and love isn’t exactly going to be anyone’s mate. There's no frosty's down there, and certainly if there were, there would be no 'happy hour.'

For those who die with Christ’s life in them, bestowed by God in the Sacrament of Baptism—not the only, but the ordinary, and only guaranteed and visible way He bestows this life—heaven is a guarantee. But purgatory is the meantime place where those go who, while dying with Christ's life in them, remain somewhat socially inept for heaven, and here, in purgatory, they complete their socialisation—learning how to love and commune with Love itself, with God who is a Triune Community of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here the soul learns to commune with God, is purified to relate with He Who is Power and Might, Who loves with a power and might enough to destroy trillions of universes. No wonder we need to be “socialised” to this great God. It’s quite a process to allow His grace to equip our fragile nature with the capacity to commune with Him on a supernatural level face to Face.

Why would we want to wait and delay the eternal company and intimacy for which we were made for? We shouldn’t want to go to purgatory, and we need not, God can do all things with an open and generous heart.

To grow in the flesh as a normal, healthy human being with a balanced life, we need to be social.

Thus, here and now, not later, we need to socialise with God, with Christ, especially as He is present in the Eucharist, and after that, in the Word, and in the People, who make up His Church, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, the Saints, and by fellowship on ground-zero with those who make up the visible Church in our midst.

Venerable Archbishop Sheen describes Confirmation as "the great social sacrament" (Your Life is Worth Living, Sheen). Confirmation, as we know, is the Sacrament which fortifies and emboldens the supernatural life we receive in baptism. It would be wrong to say it completes baptism, but rather, it helps bring to completion that which baptism brings us: the Trinitarian Life, the Great Social Life, the Super-Social Life, the Beyond-Social-Life!

John the Baptist says of Christ and His Baptism—the Baptism into which we as Christian’s were Baptised:

“He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk 1:8b).

Both the Greek and Aramaic texts render the following translation:

“He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit,” or, to be more literal, to escape the true and valuable, but sometimes obfuscating etymological weight of the word “baptism,” we can equally say:

“He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit”.

We’ve been immersed in the Spirit. Not any old spirit, not some abstract dimension of reality or impersonal force that imbibes the universe. We have been immersed by our baptism into the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, God Himself, Who is Holy Spirit. This Spirit is the Love, the Life, the Gift, the Donum, the Communion, between Father and Son. To be immersed in the Spirit is thus to be immersed into a Communion, into the Relationship of relationships, the Relationship of the Holy Trinity: of Father and Son in the Holy Spirit.

Yes, like Paul, we live our mortal life down here, but our real life is the eternal life of Christ, and thus, inescapably, of the Holy Trinity, we received in Baptism.

Is it dead in us? Then it is time to let Christ awaken it through Confession.

Is it alive in us? Well, let’s thank the Lord for it! Let us live this life in prayer and community. By prayer, we socialise directly with God, and by participating in human community, especially in Church, we socialise with our neighbour in whom God indwells.

Let us “walk not according to the flesh,” living by putting the stuff of this mortal life as our motivating goal but let us “walk… according to the Spirit… setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death,” for that is all that’s waiting for us at the end of this natural life of ours—the moth, the worm; but “to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace,” for the Spirit will not end, and nor will that life we live now by faith in the Son of God who loved us, who loves us, and will love us forevermore (cf., Rom 8:4-6).

To be baptised, to be immersed in the Love of God, is to live, walk, move, work, sleep, pray, build relations, reach-out, help, rest, love, all for the Love of God, the Love of Christ, which makes us love and give ourselves up for Him “who has loved and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).

Our life has but one purpose, we were baptised for one purpose: to be enabled to live forever so that we can love Him forever, and forever enjoy His love.

Yes, we were baptised to be social. To live in high society. To be social with God, and in Him, with Him, and through Him, with angels and men.

 

1. The Apostolic Tradition as translated in Gregory Dix and Henry Chadwick, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr. 2nd, rev. ed. ed. United Kingdom: Routledge, 1995. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203060988.