12. You Have a Heart

The human heart.

The center of man’s affectivity – his emotions, desires, passions – the ability to “feel”, in the broad range of all that involves, from simple happiness and sadness to empathy, deep love, righteous anger, saintly ecstasy. I don’t think any of us disagrees that we do, indeed, have a heart. After all, how many times (in a day maybe!) do we use the word?

Follow your heart…
Let’s have a heart-to-heart talk….
My heart goes out to her….
It’s very close to my heart….
He broke my heart….

Oh, HEART! Oh beautiful, mysterious, awful heart!

Last Saturday, I went to confession (because I’m not perfect), and the priest saw me drive into the parking lot. He came up to my car to say hello, and remarked, “You don’t look too good”. I might have otherwise been offended, but it was a fair observation, as I had been crying quite a bit that morning. After I made my confession, he asked the reason for my tears, and I said, “It’s the same ol’ stuff, Father. I’m just a girl with a heart.”

Indeed, “more tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Sometimes, I really appreciate my heart. Sometimes – usually when I am deeply moved or overjoyed – I am awed by God’s design of the heart. But there are many times when I wish I could shut off my heart, when I want to ignore or overcome its neediness or desires, when I am angry with its deceit and its obstinate pursuit of the “unreasonable”, and I would like nothing more than to tear it out of my chest and hurl it over a steep cliff.

(Anyone else?)

 

 

I have only to be reminded of any infamous historical figure that may well be described as “heartless” to realize that’s not really what I’m after.

But seriously, do the benefits of having a heart really outweigh the ills?

Imagine! What if I could hurl my heart over a steep cliff and be done with it? I would feel so….SO….. nothing. I couldn’t even properly rejoice at my victory. Nor could I become a contagion to excite my brother to rejoice with me. My message would be empty words and his embrace mere ritual. And who is he anyway but another mortal? I can’t love him, nor can I receive his love. As a matter of fact, I would have just thrown away the light in my eyes.

So it is that my heart enables me to experience more deeply the elation of love. But then, the more deeply I love someone, the more keenly I feel hurt by them. What’s the use?! Is it really better to love and to lose than never to love at all (Alfred Lord Tennyson)?

Emotions, passions and desires are a gift from God. In their essence, love, hatred, joy, sadness, fear, desire and anger are all good. They have a place in God’s plan. Now, I might “feel” like eating four extra helpings of dessert or “desire” to punch my best friend in the face, but I have to remember that “from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8). The passions of the first man and woman were perfectly ordered toward the good – love of God and love of neighbor. It was sin that disordered everything. It is sin that takes these good things out of their proper place and time and context.

We are living in a fallen state. This is the reason I am so often at war with my heart. This is the reason that I can’t always just “follow my heart”, because not everything I desire and not everything that I think “feels good” is actually good for me, or good for the person next to me. It is necessary for me to temper my emotions with my reason and will, while not denying or suppressing them, but keeping in mind that at the “heart” of everything is a good desire. It just might need to be untangled and reordered towards its true end.

I don’t know about you, but my heart is kind of messy. And oftentimes I act tough so people don’t see how much they mean to me or what they are saying or doing is really affecting me. It’s scary to be vulnerable and open my heart, because I risk being hurt. And unfortunately, sometimes it happens, because the world is not perfect, and sometimes I am the cause of that hurt, because I am not perfect. But perhaps I can learn to see the pain as gift instead of ill, an opportunity to ask how I may love you more perfectly, instead of merely seeking to enjoy the good feelings of love.

Question: Does she know I'm a Christian?

 

One night, when I was a junior in high school, I was spending some time with my confirmation sponsor and a good friend of ours. We had decided to go to Burger King. Important to note: this particular Burger King had a child’s play area in a little patio outside, complete with a ball pit and a large tube slide and everything! My friend and I decided that we were going to slide down the slide on trays, much to the chagrin of my sponsor. Why not go sliding, right? We may have been a few inches over the height limit, but the place was empty.

So we took off our shoes and gathered our plastic vehicles, and proceeded up the stairs. This was going to be A-MAZING! See, when you go down a slide on a tray, you aren’t as easily slowed by jeans and rough clothing. Nope, it’s all slick and quick.

Laughing hysterically, we reached the top and continued with our descent. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE…….oof! Uh-oh…

Who should meet us at the bottom? A Burger King employee.

(Though my memory is not the best,
I am sure this is probably what she looked like)

“You need to leave,” she ordered us. We reluctantly complied.

There was no more fun to be had. We had been kicked out.

We put our shoes back on and walked outside the gate which led from the play area to the parking lot. Where was my confirmation sponsor???? Her car was not there. I can’t believe she abandoned us at the restaurant! We wandered around for a moment looking for her, and spotted her car at the gas station next store. Oh, she’s getting gas. She’ll come back, we trusted. Sure enough, she did.

We climbed in the car, still laughing at our mischievous ordeal and gleefully explaining the whole event and the moment when the woman came and told us to leave, but she was silent. Gradually, our smiles faded.

After some time, she said very soberly, “Does she know you’re a Christian?”

Well…no. What reason had I given her to believe I was a Christian, in my immature disregard for rules and restaurant etiquette? In fact, if she did know I was Christian, I had just given her reason to believe that Christians were immature and probably not much different from the rest of the world (at least, the youth world).

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes, “I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call [some translations write vocation] you have received” (Eph. 4:1). He goes on, in the rest of the chapter, to describe what that entails:

·         Humility, gentleness, patience

·         Striving for unity

·         Not being led astray by false teaching or “deceitful scheming”

·         Living the Truth in love

·         Speaking the truth to one another

·         Not sinning in anger, and not “letting the sun go down” on our anger

·         Not stealing, but doing honest work and sharing with those in need

·         Building up others with our words, and not using foul language

·         Putting aside all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling and malice, and replacing these  with kindness, compassion and forgiveness

That’s a tough load, I tell ya. But then, the call to beatitude – to union with Christ in heaven! – is a lofty call. We cannot earn heaven, but Christ invites all of us and offers us the gift of redemption that He Himself won for us. We ought to show ourselves worthy of this gift, this call, grateful for His generous mercy.

As Christians, members of Christ’s Body, our lives should direct others toward Christ our Head. Just as it would be strange to carry on a relationship with a headless person, people should not come to us and find only . . . us. Hopefully, by our actions and by our language, we encourage others to look to the Head. Hopefully, by our actions and by our language, we reveal the beauty of Christ, rather than detract from it.

There are times the words of my confirmation sponsor still resound in my head.

Does she know I’m a Christian? Do I love as Christ loves, or am I judgmental and self-righteous?

Does he know I’m a Christian? 
Do I confidently and uncompromisingly live my faith and morals, or do I say one thing and do another?

Does the world know I’m a Christian?

Is there anything that sets me apart, or do I act just like everyone else?

It is not easy to be a Christian. By that, I mean that it is not easy to take the call seriously, and truly live what we profess to believe. It is easy to compromise. Everyone does this. I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to upset them. All my friends cuss. It’s just a joke. I’m just having fun. It’s just a little lie. I have a right to be angry. I’m only like this at home. I'm doing what I think is best. It’s not that big of a deal…

Sliding down a Burger King slide on a food tray didn’t seem like a big deal either, but some things look different in the light of eternity.

 

11. You Have a Vocation

This past week, I had an amazing conversation with a good friend of mine (I’ll call him Patrick) about vocation. Patrick and I both discovered we were in a very similar place in our lives and in our hearts, and what resulted was a most blessed (and, in my view, long-overdue) dumping session about relationships, marriage and celibacy, our hopes for the future, and God’s plan for our lives.

This is a big question among young adults (at least, within Catholic/Christian circles): What IS my vocation?

 

Vocation.\vō-ˈkā-shən\ noun.
                a: a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action

I think the element of “calling” is particularly important to vocation. Most of us will agree that there is something very different between taking some course of action just to make ends meet or to have an experience versus doing so because we feel it is our "call", our passion, perhaps even a major purpose of our life! God has a unique plan for each of our lives. Through our experiences, He offers us opportunities to grow and to learn, so as to be able to live that plan fully. He calls us (“summons” us, if you speak like Merriam-Webster) to serve Him and others in a particular way, the way that best allows us to develop and share the gifts He has given us, and the way that, God willing, most helps us to become holy.

In regards to a permanent state of life, Catholics generally recognize that God calls men and women to:

Marriage: This is the state of life to which most are called. The Church understands Holy Matrimony to be not only a natural institution, but a supernatural institution, a Sacrament. It is regarded as a beautiful way of living out man's universal call to holiness, and is also a type and symbol, though imperfect, of Christ's union with His Church and what we have to look forward to in heaven. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her, to sanctify her..." (Ephesians 5:25-26).

 

With Jill and Christian Welp, a beautiful married couple,
and their youngest daughter

Celibacy: This is lived out in priesthood, religious life (nuns/sisters or brothers) or in a single life
voluntarily and permanently consecrated to God. Celibacy (for the sake of the Kingdom of God)
is appropriately understood as a giving up of one good for a higher good, and in this light the
celibate state can be considered "objectively superior" to the married state (Pope John Paul II,
Vita Consecrata, no. 32). This is because the celibate forgoes the joys of sexual union on earth in
order to give Christ his/her sole affection on earth and live in greater anticipation of the joys of
(spiritual) union with Christ in heaven,  where man will "neither marry nor be given in
marriage" (Matthew 22:30). Even still, this does not, or should not, devalue marriage in any way.
Rather, the two states of life are meant to complement each other, and celibacy itself embodies
the true fulfillment of the married state, which is union with Christ.

 

  

With some former Intercessors of the Lamb.....and a former Carmelite nun :)

 

With Fr. Louis Merosne, a Catholic priest from Haiti

 

As we young adults get to be . . .well, older adults . . . we watch our friends get married or, in some cases, go off to seminaries or convents to discern a deeper commitment to God, and we sometimes get a little restless. We may start to ponder things like:
Maybe there’s something wrong with me…
Maybe I should just “settle” for somebody, so I don't end up alone…
Maybe the fact that my relationships aren’t working out means God is calling me to celibacy…
I could do so much more good in that other vocation rather than the one I really desire…

Hold up.

Let’s refocus.

Pope John Paul II says that man’s vocation is “at once earthly and transcendent” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis). Huh?

As my friend Patrick said (I’m paraphrasing), “I used to hate vocations [to religious life], because I felt like they deprived good marriages. I felt like I had my plans for marriage and God got in the way.” He pointed out that His vision was distorted. Whatever our vocation is, the end is not the vocation; the end is God.

In other words, our earthly vocations are important but they should be a means of helping us to fulfill our transcendent vocation, this universal human vocation which the Church terms "man's vocation to beautitude" (blessedness). Man is created to know, love and serve God in this life, and to be happy (blessed) with Him in heaven. St. Therese of Lisieux put it so well when she said, "My vocation is to love!" Indeed, the question of "vocation" should not make us anxious and afraid, but excited to enter more deeply into the mystery of God's love, via whatever path He should call us to receive it and to share it with others.

For all of us, heaven - eternal life and union with God - is our ultimate end. If our earthly vocation (or the pursuit of it) distracts or separates us from our Ultimate End, let us take the time to stop and redirect our attention and affections toward the ONE we were created for.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything else will be given you besides” (Matthew 6:33).