...relevant to it, so you get no kinds of illustrations and quotations and texts and so on, so I've got some more for you. Here's some more, a little more from Rahner about the heart. This is sort of philosophical poetry. Properly speaking, it says, this is in the same article, Only man has a heart, for God, as God alone, is the unity which possesses and maintains itself in eternal selfhood without having to go out of itself in order to find itself. The angels, it is true, realize an existence which is predetermined for them, but in doing so they look upon themselves and consciously lead their acts back to their own origin. You're not expected to understand that at the first reading. But man goes out and away from himself, he must realize himself in something other that he has done and suffered, and can only in this way, in this other, looking away from himself, become conscious of the wellspring and unity of his being.

[01:10]

And such a wellspring, from which the alien other really flows and which possesses itself only in the other, is called the heart. The animals remain forever strange to themselves, and their own source knows nothing of itself, but only of the strange other with which they make contact, insofar as they have already forgotten themselves. For this reason, then, heart is a primordial word of man's, uttered by man, about man, to his glory alone. If this word is applied to God and the angels, then one is transferring to a higher order what originally belongs to man alone. We should say to women also. So heart is something that is particularly human. And why do we insist so much upon the notion of heart in Judaism and in Christianity particularly? Because it's also incarnational, it's sacramental. When we talk about heart, we're talking about something physical, which also has a mental, emotional level, and which also has a spiritual level.

[02:16]

It doesn't have to hold those things together. It's an incarnational reality. And so Christians are much more likely to focus on this than would a Hindu or a Buddhist, for example. When we talk about the heart, we're talking from a point of view which reaffirms the physical, which reaffirms the physical in the resurrection, which contends that the ultimate end of the human person is also a physical life, a physical reality once again. And that this begins in the heart. Here's another little bit from Adam. I started to read this, it gets kind of lyrical here. So long as man has a heart, he will have to speak of it with this precise word, heart. That is to say, always. You can't give up the word for some kind of a concept. You can't transfer it. He will always speak of the heart whenever at once simple and wise.

[03:17]

He recalls himself from multiplicity to his one source. Always, whenever he gathers the permanent essence of his time into the eternity of his existence, he will say that he has stored it in the storing place of his heart. Always, when he renounces himself completely and utterly, he will say, I give you my heart. Always, when he plunges down into the dark abyss of his being, it will seem to him that he is caught in the dungeons of his dead and empty heart. Always, he will sing simply, go out my heart and seek for joy. Always, he will glorify his restoration to grace as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit into his heart. In other words, all of his deepest experiences sort of flow into that place. Always, he who is slandered will comfort himself with the fact that God sees his heart. Always, men will hope that the morning star will rise in the heart. That's from 1 Peter, I think. Always, call those blessed who are pure of heart. Always, experience horror and evil gushing up out of the quarry of the heart.

[04:19]

And always, be happy that goodness can be preserved in the heart. Always, love those who are able to forgive from the heart. Always, be judged by this alone, whether they have loved with their whole heart. Because on the scales of God, only hearts have any weight. That's his final affirmation. On the scales of God, only hearts have any weight. You find things that Jesus said in the gospel that are very much like that. We'll go to those in a minute. Here's something from a Jew, from Buber. This is a good little collection of the things that he has. It's a selection, rather than just a mentality. He's got two good books called Tales of the Hasidim, Early Masters and Later Masters. They're also published by Shopkin Books, a Jewish publishing company.

[05:20]

This is a more selective collection. There are hundreds of stories and letter texts. Every lock has its key, which fits into and opens it. But there are strong thieves who know how to open locks without keys. They break the lock. So every mystery in the world can be unriddled by the particular kind of meditation fitted to it. But God loves the thief who breaks the lock open. I mean the man who breaks his heart for God. The lock is the heart. You can get into the heart, you can get into the depths in all kinds of ways, with all kinds of meditations, with all kinds of techniques. But God loves the strong thief who breaks the lock, who breaks his heart for God. And this, after all, is the Christian way. That's what also we have in there. It's parallel to the saying of Jesus, that it's the violent who force their way into the kingdom of God.

[06:25]

Whatever he means by that. How about the broken heart? We have to be a little more specific about that. If we interpret it wrongly, we could write something else maybe too. In the psalm we read, who heals the broken in heart? That is, God heals the broken in heart. I forget which psalm it is. Why are we told that? For it is a good thing to have a broken heart, and pleasing to God, as it is written, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. Maybe that's from the literary. But further on in the psalm we read, and binds up their wounds. God does not entirely heal those who have broken hearts. He only eases their suffering, lest it torment and deject them. For dejection is not good and not pleasing to God. There's a difference between having a broken heart and being dejected, being despondent, being depressed. A broken heart prepares man for the service of God, but dejection corrodes service.

[07:31]

Corrodes. It sounds like depression. It sounds like despair and self-pity. We must distinguish between the two as carefully as between joy and wantedness. They are so easily confused, and yet are as far removed from one another as the ends of the earth. The difference between a broken heart and despondency, despair, depression. What does he mean by a broken heart? He means something very much like what we call compunction in the monastic tradition. Something like the gift of tears. A softened heart. An ego which has been broken. Which doesn't mean that the person is weakened. Remember when Jacob wrestled with the angel, wrestled with God during the night. And he wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and struggled. And finally the angel, the angel of God couldn't get away. And he said, let me go. It was turning dawn. And Jacob wouldn't let him go. So finally he struck him and he wounded a muscle or a tendon or something in his thigh.

[08:38]

He wouldn't let him go before he blessed him. It's that wound which the presence of God, the struggle with God, inflicts. And which leaves us, as it were, limping. He always limped after it. Which is this broken heart that he's talking about. It's the breaking of our shell which leaves the interior intact. In fact it makes it able to operate, able to communicate. Opens it up. So on the other hand of it, on the other side of it, here's a story. Which doesn't specifically speak of the heart. But it's about it. If a man has fulfilled all the commandments, he's admitted to the Garden of Eden. Even though he has not burned with fervor and has not experienced delight. In other words, his heart has not been lighted up. But since he has felt no delight on earth, he feels none there either. Finally he even grumbles in heaven.

[09:39]

He says, and they make all that to do about paradise. And hardly have the words left his lips when he's thrown out. In other words, unless the heart is open, unless you can experience joy, you can't stay in heaven. You can get in, but you can't stay there. That's very hard. He who still harbors an evil inclination has a great advantage, for he can serve God willingly. This is about the passion. This is against the kind of doctrine of apathy, of passionlessness, which would rub out your feelings entirely. Even the bodily passion. He who still harbors an evil inclination has a great advantage, for he can serve God with it. He can gather all his passion and warmth and pour them into the service of God. He who has no evil inclination at all cannot give perfect service.

[10:42]

What counts is to restrain the blaze in the hour of desire and let it flow into the hours of prayer and service. Not to rub it out. Not to make yourself a zombie. Not to freeze your humanity. But to, the psychologist would say, sublimate it. But to learn how to conduct that energy, to get that energy into the service of God, to turn it in the right direction. It is written, of every man whose heart makes him willing, you shall take my offering. They're always taking the annoying scripture passages if you can't read them. You shall take my offering. Every man should take the goodness with which he is to serve God out of all his heart's prompting, out of his cravings and desires, out of all his urges driving, even the evil urge. If he is seized with love or fear, let him take this love or fear and use it to love and to fear God. Had Esau gone in the way of the teachings, his service would have been better than Jacob's, for he would have lifted up all his evil passions to God. So, he almost suggests it's better to be a sinner, because you have more to offer to God.

[11:47]

You don't want to take it too strongly. But he's got something to say there. That God doesn't like the pallid kind of service. The lifeless, inhuman kind of service. The monastic life can dry us up sometimes. We talked about the biblical view of the heart, the biblical notion of the heart, and then we talked about the anthropology of the heart. Let's listen to what Jesus says about the heart. He makes it, actually, the center of life. Remember where his disciples have that argument that is used about purification, about washing your hands before you eat? And Jesus says you don't have to wash your hands, that's not what's important. He says, what goes into you doesn't defile you. It's what comes out of you that defiles you. What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man.

[12:49]

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. So he says that sin comes out of the heart. What matters really comes out of the heart. Remember Rahner saying that in God's scales, only hearts have any weight. It's the actions that are done in the heart that have consequence. But similarly for good. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus is talking about the good tree and the good fruit and so on. He says the good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and out of the abundance of the heart man acts. We talked about the parable of the sower and the seed before. And as for that seed in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth good fruit with patience. The heart is where the seed germinates. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

[13:52]

And that has a lot of importance in monastic tradition. Luke 21. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness in the cares of this life. And that day, the day of the Lord, come on you suddenly like a snap. There's a whole lot of weight in those words. If you talk about asceticism, what's it all about? What's the purpose of asceticism? What's the purpose of discipline? The purpose is to enable you to be awake, isn't it? To enable you to be free and to welcome the Lord, to be ready for the Lord when he comes. In other words, it's finally, it's all oriented towards the coming of the Lord. Talk of it as the second coming of the Lord, the eschatological orientation, of monasticism, of asceticism. Or talk about it as the next coming of the Lord, the coming of the Lord today or tomorrow when the Holy Spirit comes and asks you to do something. The purpose of asceticism is for that.

[14:54]

And Jesus puts it in those words. Let not your hearts be weighted down. Your hearts have to be light, have to be free, so that they can respond to the Spirit. Remember the heart and the Spirit, the heart and the Word go together. And if the heart is heavy, let it weigh it down. If it's overloaded, it won't be able to respond. There's a hundred ways the heart can be overloaded. Either with sorrow or with preoccupation, with business or with pleasure. The heart can be overloaded with indulgence. He says with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of the slave. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your soul. You can interpret that in a couple of ways. Learn the lesson of gentleness and humility of heart. Or learn from me because I'm approachable, because I'm close to you, because I sort of bend down to you and touch you

[15:57]

and teach you the lesson right in contact with you, on your own level, where you are. I think it means maybe both of those things. So the heart is important in the Gospel. He reproaches the disciples often because their hearts are blind and closed. Why are you so slow of heart, I wonder, he says to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. Slow of heart to believe what has been written. There's a kind of a theological line in the Scriptures about the heart, which is worth more persuant. I'm not going to go through the whole thing because it might be a little heavy. In the Old Testament, we've already read the main passages here and there as we've been talking about this. The Shema. You shall love the Lord with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength. Deuteronomy talks about the circumcision of the heart.

[16:58]

And then we read the passage from Jeremiah 31 about the New Covenant. And the New Covenant is going to be a question of having the law written upon our hearts. Not an exterior law, but an interior law, which means a law that's somehow in the heart. And another passage of Jeremiah, the next chapter. They shall be my people, and I shall be their God, and I will give them one heart in one way. Whatever that means. One heart all together, or a sort of solid heart. Integral heart. And I will put the purity in their heart. And the passage from Ezekiel. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be cleaned from all your uncleannesses. And from all your idols I will cleanse you.

[18:00]

A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my own spirit within you and cause you to walk on my paths and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. Let's say so much. We're talking about the marriage of God and man right now. By the union of the spirit of God with the heart of man so that the heart of man becomes a new thing. The heart that was stone before and the spirit comes into it becomes a heart of flesh. It becomes a human heart. And man becomes man. It may seem odd to us that it doesn't say I'm going to take out of your flesh the heart of flesh and give you a heart of spirit or give you something else. No. It's the heart of stone that becomes the heart of flesh. There's a spirit in there. See that? See that water? And then it picks up in the New Testament and it's really rich. The union, the relationship between the spirit and the heart in the New Testament.

[19:03]

I'll read just a few passages. And they may not at first seem to be connected but they are. Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. Everyone who drinks of this water, the water from the well which she procured for him, will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. It will become in him. That spring of water is going to be established within the person who believes. The Holy Spirit somehow is going to spring up within him. It's not just going to come from without it, from outside of him. It's going to come up from inside of him. And this is going to happen in the heart. A well, a spring has opened up within the person, within the person's body itself, strangely. It's not disconnected from the body. It's not a purely spiritual thing, event, as we usually consider spiritual. You better look out because the spirit and the body are very much connected. We tend to think that the further you get away from matter, the more spiritual you get.

[20:07]

That's kind of a Greek idea. It turns out that somebody said this, an Eastern theologian said this. Nothing is more spiritual than the body. How can you say that? We'll have to look into that later. I'll leave that at the time of the poem. I don't think it's a good idea to try to explain it. But nothing is more spiritual than the body. That's looking at it from the point of view of the resurrection. The body and the spirit go together. They're supposed to be married. So the spirit comes into the heart and begins to transform the body too. It begins to transform by working in the heart. What changes the heart first? In the resurrection. It picks up the whole body and forms what we call the spiritual body that's in contact with us. So the body and the spirit are not opposed. It's the flesh and the spirit that are opposed. Remember in St. Paul? And the flesh is not the body. The flesh is somehow the whole man under the domination of evil, under the domination of the lower instincts. It's not the body.

[21:08]

Not the way the body was made. On the last day of the feast, this is in John chapter 7, when Jesus went to the Feast of Tabernacles. The great day Jesus stood up, and this is in the temple, and proclaimed, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. I think literally it's out of his belly, out of his middle, shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet crucified. Jesus was not yet crucified. Jesus had not yet risen. So the spirit, which is as it were the glory, which he is to receive from his Father and to give to those who believe in him, had not yet been distributed. Now, water is to, out of his heart, out of his belly, shall flow rivers of living water. Who does this mean? Does it mean Jesus, or does it mean the believer? I think it means both.

[22:09]

The living water flows out of the middle of Jesus, and when he's on the cross, and when his heart is pierced, remember his side is pierced, and the blood and the water flow out, somehow that symbolizes that the Holy Spirit comes from the core, from the heart of Jesus, and then, sacramentally, after baptism, through the Eucharist, it comes from the heart of the one who believes in Jesus. It's a union of heart to heart, which somehow happens there, in the piercing of the heart of Jesus, in our baptism, and then subsequently, in the experience that we have of the spirit, when our heart is opened. John 14. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another counselor, the Holy Spirit, to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth from the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. He will dwell in you, well up out of you,

[23:13]

well up from within you, as he says in other places. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. The blood and water, those two mysterious substances, what is their meaning? They were taken to symbolize the sacrament of baptism in the Eucharist. Also, this living water, which somehow is to flow out. They remind us also of the miracle of Canaan, if you want to talk about it later. The transformation of water into wine. And the transforming of this water into wine through the blood of Jesus, through the spirit which enters into the water of baptism, through his death. Hebrews, chapter 10. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way of which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

[24:13]

and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, taking our baptism. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. The hearts sprinkled clean either with water, as Ezekiel had said, or with that blood. Remember the covenant and the sprinkling of blood in the Old Testament. This is Roman. And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. The Holy Spirit which somehow resides in the heart. It resides in the whole body, but it resides in the heart. And because you are a son, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, that's where it grows, crying, Abba, Father. So through God you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir. So this is the center of the Christian fact,

[25:18]

the center of the Christian thing, is the spirit coming into the heart, changing the heart, beginning to make a new creature, a new creation, right there, in the middle of man, and making us the sons of God, establishing that relation with God, and bringing us into Christ, making us somehow of Christ, in Christ, in the body of Christ. The physical reality, as well as the spiritual reality, Christianity is incarnational. What happens is not just spiritual, it's not just intellectual, it's not just emotional, it's physical too. It's grounded somehow in matter itself. Matter itself which is going to be transformed by the spirit of God. This is the amazing thing. This is the revolution that happens, that in the resurrection somehow, God comes into matter itself, and begins to raise it up into that fire. Remember the burning bush. The world itself begins to become that burning bush, inside the heart of man, through the resurrection of Jesus. And the burning bush is inside each of us,

[26:19]

just like it was inside the hearts of the disciples on their way to heaven. That burning bush which seems to be going out, seems to be sputtering as they walked away from the holy city. And then Jesus walks along, and it begins to glow, and it begins to burn, until it bursts into flames, and they recognize it. And then they get back to the city. Romans 8. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, Abba, Father, it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. A little later on in Romans 8, you have that expectation of the whole creation. Remember? The whole creation which is giving birth. That's a tremendous thing. And we ourselves are giving birth. And the groaning in our hearts is the groaning of the Holy Spirit within us,

[27:21]

until we give birth. And what are we going to give birth to? We're going to give birth to our risen bodies, in some way. And the creation is going to give birth to a new creation. And we somehow are the firstborn, the first fruits of that new creation. So, the childbirth that's taking place in us is the rebirth of the whole world. It takes place in man first, because God has become man in Christ. And it happens in the heart. So that's where the Spirit goes and flows. That's where the fire burns. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. This is still Romans 8, a little later on. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us, but sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Remember, it's the Spirit who searches the deep things of God. And who is he who searches the hearts of men? Well, it's not the Spirit who is God, but rather everything.

[28:22]

2 Corinthians 4. For it is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who is shown in our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Now, here's something new. There's this light of the glory of God which shines from the face of Jesus. And this is shown in our hearts. And this goes along with the receiving of the Spirit on our hearts. Now, the two go together. The light of the glory of God and the fire of the Spirit of God. And the light is connected with the face of Jesus. Whereas the Spirit has come from the heart of Jesus. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over the hearts of the Jews. But when a man turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord,

[29:26]

who is the Spirit. The Lord is the Spirit. Christ, somehow, is the Spirit. The Word is the Spirit. They're the same God. Although two persons. And now this change is happening in us. Happening in us because we see the light of the glory of God on the face of Jesus in our hearts. It's faith. We don't see him with our eyes. We see him with the eyes of our hearts. What can Saint Paul mean when he says, with unveiled face, we behold the glory of the Lord? Unveiled face. It means that, for one thing, we see inside. We see inside the letter of Scripture. We see inside the word of Scripture, to the heart of Scripture. And in the Scripture, we see the face of Jesus. Just like the disciples, and I wrote to Amos, they had their faces, the faces of their hearts veiled. But Jesus lifted that veil for them and revealed to them himself in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament, remember?

[30:26]

It's the same with us. The one thing is that the veil is lifted and we see through the Scriptures. It also means a kind of confidence in looking at God. No longer do we have to look at God sort of through the veil of the law, through the intermediate of the law. But we look right at him because God has become man and his spirit belongs to us now. This freedom that Saint Paul talks about is not any old kind of freedom. He said, I don't know if I've got the accent in the right place, but that's the Greek word. It's the confidence, the freedom of relationship with another, the freedom to speak in public, the freedom to be heard, the freedom of a citizen, and so on. But here it means that freedom of confidence before God so that we relate to him face to face without shame, without fear. We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. Somehow looking at the face of the Lord

[31:29]

in our hearts changes it and a change begins in the heart and it changes the work of the spirit. And there's a relation between that light of glory and the spirit which is in our hearts. It somehow doesn't come into the word if we don't get any more precision about it. But we have this treasure, an earthen vessel, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. The treasure is inside in the heart and the earthen vessel is our body and the heart and the body are connected, of course. They're one. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For we know that the earthly tent we live in has destroyed the body. We have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heaven. And that building, of course, is a new body, the body of the resurrection. The real temple of the Lord, the permanent temple of the Spirit. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.

[32:30]

Now, new creation, that's meant to extend to the whole of creation. St. Paul started his passage before by saying, he who said, let light shine out of darkness, has caused the light to shine in our hearts, the light of the glory of God to shine on the face of Christ Jesus. Those are the words of the first creation, let light shine out of darkness. Way back in Genesis, chapter 1. Now, this is a new creation that's being made. And the new creation begins within us, begins in our hearts, at the point, where the furnace, where the fire of the new creation starts, where the light of the new creation is caught, is received, and begins to do its work, where that energy is captured. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. Where neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, an external sign, but a new creation. The new creation of the universe

[33:32]

is there, it's there. It starts there. It starts within us. It takes effect around the table, because of the groaning that's in us, and the groaning that's in the whole of the creation until now. It's worth going over that for yourself sometimes, to catch the real continuity, the strength of that line between the spirit, the heart, the light of the glory of God, the face of the risen Christ, and the new creation. Our own transformation, we've changed. We've changed as we look, basically, the temperature of life. As we look at the face of the risen Christ, in our hearts, in the darkness, yet seeing that light, we've changed. In the passage in 1 John, it is very much like that fear of being caught.

[34:32]

We know that when we see them, we will be like them, because we'll see them as we live. And as we look at them, we become like them, same course as the other part of us. Okay. So much for the scriptures, at least for right now. About the heart, and the prayer of the heart, and so on, there's quite a bit, even in the early monastic tradition. I'll just give one example. This is from Macarius, or Pseudo-Macarius, Quasi-Macarius. Quoted by Telesco's work. The one who wrote those homilies, the 50 homilies, spiritual homilies of Macarius. He says, There are unfathomable depths within the heart. God is there with the angel. Light and life are there. The kingdom and the apostles, the heavenly cities, and the churches of grace, all things are there. Somehow the heart is a place which has no limit. It's able to contain everything, because it's able to contain God. It's at this point where

[35:35]

God is available somehow in it. And where the only limit to the limits of God is Adam. Not that everything that's contained is good. There's something in the Jewish tradition which reflects this. Once again, it's in Uwe's book. He who has a heart is not concerned with space and place, for he himself is the place of the world. He's not concerned with place or space in the world. Because he himself is the place of the world. This says something to a solitary life too. You never know. For God is in one's heart, as we read in the psalm, God is the rock of my heart. And God speaks to Moses, behold, there is a place for me. These rabbinical interpretations of Scripture would rather not be of use here. It would pay too much attention to it. But very often they have something to say

[36:37]

which is very cogent, very good, and doesn't depend on a particular scripture like the Jesus. We know that God is the place of the world, and it is not the world which is his place. Something to think about. Putting it in a language. The world is inside God. That's not in the world. God is the ultimate context. He's both the center and he's the context. He's the environment. There's nothing outside him. There's nothing outside God. Everything that exists is somehow in God. And then a lot of our ways of thinking become kind of absurd. We wonder about the relation between God and the world, God coming into the world and so on. So we need to talk that way. We need to use our geometry, our imagination. But God is the place of the world. Outside of him, what is it? And the same holds for him who has a heart, since God is in his heart. He whose heart is the heart of Israel

[37:37]

must not say, here is the true Israel. His place does not suit me. A place in space cannot matter to him because he is the place of the world, and the world is not his place. The world is in the heart. Now, this relates to what we were saying before about this new creation. The world is in our body, too. The stuff of our body, the matter of our body somehow recapitulates the world so that when we rise again from the dead, the world begins to rise with us. As we're transformed, as we're made into Eucharist, through the Holy Spirit living in our bodies up into the spiritual body, the world is transformed with us and becomes Eucharist also. The world, too, is caught up into the living book. The Hezekiah's tradition, of course, emphasizes the heart very much because it took it up the prayer of the heart. Father Hauser has got a...

[38:38]

He had a very good article many years ago, back in 1935, I think it was, about the great currents of Eastern spirituality, kind of a classic article, maybe a little outdated now. But he tries to line up the different currents in the Eastern spirituality and what they would focus on. One current would be very intellectual, the Greek current, the primitive ideas. Another one would emphasize what he calls spiritual sentiment, feeling. Well, he identified the Hezekiah's tradition, the tradition of interior prayer, especially at Mount Athos, as the tradition of the heart. We might say that Hezekiahism had replaced intelligence by the heart, the nous, the intellect, by the heart. It had made of the heart the faculty of religion, of piety, and of mysticism. In the Evagrian school, man was considered an intellect, and the other, the psychological consciousness, fully aware. In the Hezekiah school, man was considered as a heart. All ascetic effort was made

[39:40]

to consist in the custody of the heart. The whole secret of contemplation was to bring the other faculties back to the heart, for unless gathered in the heart, they became causes of distractions and illusion. On the contrary, as soon as the mind finds the region of the heart, he's courting that, the perichorea, it at once contemplates things which had hitherto been unknown. It perceives, indeed, the air which is at the center of the heart and then sees itself entirely luminous. Thus had spoken of Agrius and John Primacus, without bringing in the heart, unless it were metaphorically. For the Hezekiahs, the metaphor became a reality. They even had a physical method, you know, of prayer, in which they try to concentrate themselves at the heart. And this has a great effect on modern Orthodox theology, especially on Russian theology. The Russians have been called by an expert, the people of the heart.

[40:41]

Father Stiglitz, who is currently taken for the House of Expresses, professor of Oriental theology at the Oriental Institute. Suppose the Russians, the people of the heart, they've taken somehow the theology and the spirituality of Greek monasticism, Greek Christianity, and brought it back to Earth, brought it back to the ground of the heart, somehow, and made it not only popular, but somehow got it all together, and got it together with nature once again. So it's not really so abstract, not really so head-centered, and becomes much more meaningful for us, much more universal. Somehow it seems to get back to the Bible, to the Russians. There almost seems to be a direct line between the Jewish tradition, the biblical tradition, the tradition of very early Christianity, especially the Syriac tradition, and then the Russians. In the last century, the Russian religious revival.

[41:43]

So it can be of good use for us. The book Arseniy, on Russian piety, should have some worthwhile things also to complement what we're talking about here. On the spirituality of the heart. I'm not going to quote any more from Andre Louf about the heart, but his book is continually returning to that subject. The heart is the focus of the spiritual life, and it's true. We talked about the knowledge of God, and a one-dimensional knowledge expanding into three-dimensional knowledge, as the seed of the Word germinates in the heart. As both the seed opens up, and the heart opens up, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are somehow known. They're somehow manifested within us. I wanted to read chapter 2 of St. John,

[42:44]

that miracle of freedom. Excuse me, I just took a minute to do that. I'll just try to bring out a couple of the things that spring out of that. The miracle of the changing of the water into wine by Jesus is a marvelous thing. It's an example of how, in itself, the text is an example of how that the Word opens up, and the water changes into the wine. The flat Word becomes, somehow, the experience of God. There's no text somehow that's more total for this, that's more easily accepted. St. Bernard commented that he returned to it a couple of times, but especially there's a homily, I think for the 7th Sunday after the Epiphany, in an English translation somewhere. Let me just read the text and say a few words about it. On the 3rd day, there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited to the marriage of his disciples. And it's very significant that Jesus and Mary

[43:46]

are both there, because this is a marriage, remember, and there's a relationship between Jesus and his mother, which we never fully get into, into word. Somehow it's too difficult to bring precisely into expression. There's also a marriage relationship. In some ways, they represent the original couple, Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman. And what happened with Adam and Eve somehow is reversed between Jesus and Mary. They're the archetype of man and woman, as it were. The fact that this is a marriage ceremony here sort of joins itself to that, and then leads us forward to what's to happen at the cross, where Mary's standing by the side of the cross. And that is a kind of consummation of this marriage which is going to take place. And then, remember, where Jesus says to Mary, Behold your son, says to John, Behold your mother, and so on. So Cana is a kind of anticipation

[44:47]

of the Paschal Mystery, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, which in itself is a kind of marriage. Every time we try to put it down in words, it sort of exceeds our worth. Many other things spring out of this occasion, this chapter, and so on. When the wine fails, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine. And you've got a picture of this poor family having its wedding, and trying to blow everything, for the sake of the joy of the occasion, and so on. And just the poor human reality of marriage and everything else. Humanity is like the water, waiting for, somehow, the Spirit of God to come into it and bring it the gladness of heaven. The most happy thing, the most joyous thing, probably, in human life, is this marriage relationship, is this dynamic of love. And yet, it too is critical. It too runs out of wine and turns into water. It too becomes dark.

[45:48]

And it's a foreshadowing, a sample of that which is the real thing, which is the full-bodied wine of God's love, the relationship between God and man, of the life of God shared by man. So, this human marriage relationship is itself a sacramental thing. But it too is water waiting for the wine, even though it may seem to be the wine of human existence, the wine of human life, this love, this love of earth. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. She doesn't say, make wine for them. She says, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, O woman, what have you to do with me? That sounds like probably a colloquial Jewish expression for what do you want me to do about this, or something like that, or wipe out on me, or whatever. But what does it say also? It says that our hour for union has not yet arrived, the time for the real marriage, the time for the real wine to happen,

[46:50]

is not yet. This will only be at my hour, the hour of my death. And his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. This is the part of marriage, to say, always, do whatever he tells you. Not as a mania, but as persuasion. She persuades Jesus just by telling him, they have no wine. And this Christ, as it were, her presence there, her loving presence, making, filling the gap between Jesus and that need. And here she says, do whatever he tells you. And fills the gap once again. And fills him with the life of what is to be, what is to be commanded. Now six stone jars are standing there for the Jewish rites of purification. He told them 20 or 30 jars. Six stone jars. St. Francis interprets those stone jars, and rightly, I think, is representing the Old Testament. Stone jars. Remember the stone of the Tablets of the Lord. The six jars standing for the six days of work,

[47:52]

the six days of expectation. The six days which come before the Sabbath. Now the Sabbath is the day of the Lord. The Sabbath is the day of Jesus. The Sabbath is the day, not of water, but of wine. The day of celebration. The six stone jars are waiting there. The Old Testament is standing there, as it were, waiting for its fulfillment, waiting for its transformation from the water of purification, the water of penance, the water of repentance, the water of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is the man of water. From the water of purely natural life, and even John the Baptist, he did no marvels. He didn't do any miracles. And what he taught was simply the doctrine of justice. He told everybody, well, give people their due. Don't abuse them. That's what he told the soldiers. He told the prisoners, the prisoners and so on. He told everyone. To be transformed into the wine of the New Testament, which springs forth with Jesus. It is marvelous. And ultimately, it is, of course, the miracle of the resurrection, which is the fullness of the wine.

[48:53]

The water of human life and of mortality, the water of baptism, it somehow represents the water of death, the consequence of sin, the poverty of water, whatever seeks the lowest place, whatever. There's nothing, though. That's fine. You look for it. Is to be transformed into the wine of life by the blood, by that vine of the blood, in the vine of the body of Jesus. To be transformed into the wine. The wine is the Holy Spirit, which has come in somehow to human nature and made man divine. Married God to man so that the life of man then is the life of God. This is the real marriage that has to happen. Besides the union of the masculine and the feminine, somehow it happens anyway. So, in this wedding, the miracle of Cana, we have a kind of joining, an intersection of marriage with the Paschal mystery of Jesus,

[49:59]

the death and resurrection of Jesus, the union of masculine and feminine, but more deeply, how ultimately the union of God and man, or of God and creation. Jesus said to them, Fill the jars with water. Which as he said to John the Baptist, this way can we fulfill all justice. And he submitted to the Baptist in a jar of water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, Now draw some out and take it to the steward of the feast. And so they took it. And when the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, he didn't know where it came from. The steward of the feast called the bridegroom. Now Jesus was the bridegroom. And said to him, Every man serves the good wine first. And men have drunk freely then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now. And that has all kinds of repercussions. You have kept the good wine until now. We've been drinking water until we drink the wine. We've been drinking water

[51:01]

until we feel the Holy Spirit. In our heart. We've been drinking water until that fire is lighted within us. And then there's a kind of a junction of the fire and the water. The water of repentance. The water of humility. The water of perfunction. The water which is the monastic life itself. And then the Holy Spirit entering in with making wine out of it. And so you have the prologue of St. Benedict where he's teaching you the water of humility. The water of obedience. To return to God by repentance. And obedience. And labor. And then at the end of it you have the Holy Spirit leaping up in your heart. And running in the way of God's commandments. And the heart expands and the wine begins to be poured within you. And then at the end of chapter 7. Chapter 7 which is water. Which is humility. Which is learning that transparency, that nothingness of your own person and your own nature. Learning your emptiness. And your poverty. And then at the end of it

[52:02]

the Spirit leaps up in your heart. And you begin to do without any fear but with love and with joy what we tend to call the separation without a fear of complaint. Once again the water of change into wine. So the rule of St. Benedict is the playing out of this miracle of this transformation of the water into the wine. Of the law into grace. Law into spirit. Constraint into spontaneity. Constraint into freedom. And the same process is a process of going from the exterior to the interior that we were talking about. From the shell to the core. Both in the word of God and also in myself. From the outside to the heart. And from the flat word the flat word to the word which is married to the spirit. Which becomes wisdom. From just the knowledge of the exterior to the wisdom. The intoxicating wisdom of the interior. It reminds us of the passage of Origen. He says that when the

[53:04]

scripture opens up for you it's the kiss of the word. Which is somehow the experience of God. Which is God talking to you. The word which is just knowledge becomes personal address and becomes wisdom because it's got something more even than just the delight of discovery. It's got somehow in it a personal union with God. There's kind of a marriage in that wine. There's a marriage of God and yourself in some way in the experience of reaching forth to the spirit at that moment. So Origen says it's the kiss of the word. Confirmed in purpose but in a different way. Many folks know about the kiss of the kiss because of that kiss of the word. That's another thing we don't know the meaning of. This, the first of his signs is Jesus did it can it in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. The first of his signs What's the last of his signs? His resurrection. And the first of his signs corresponds to the last of his signs.

[54:04]

The changing of the water into the wine corresponds to the resurrection of Jesus. Because our human nature is the water, right? Our human nature is the flat water. And it's that way until we've gone through our death which somehow is symbolized by water through the water of baptism. Jesus said I have a baptism Remember? And how am I constrained until I can't feel it? And he said in the same breath he said I've come to bring fire to the earth. Remember? He talked about his baptism and he talked about the fire. He's going to bring down the fire and put it into the water. Put it into the water of mortality the water of our life. So that the water gets turned into wine. And the wine is the river the wine is humanity the wine is the human person the wine is us and we've been changed into God and we've become the burning bush. Nature and fire is the blood and life of the Holy Spirit. It's the same thing happening again and again and again and again

[55:05]

in Scripture. And it happens in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The death which is also somehow a wedding a fusion of those two poles of our life. The greatest experience of joy and the greatest experience of sorrow. Like Eros which is the dynamism in ourselves that moves everything in it and even, you know, God gets covered in his own great work. And of that black door that ends that limit to all of us brothers that thing that we have to get through which is death. The two of them somehow come together here. And what's on the other side of all that is the line of the resurrection. And somehow everything fits together at the point of that miracle because that miracle represents the resurrection, the Paschal mystery and everything that it was before. Those two things

[56:06]

particularly those two things the Paschal mystery the death and resurrection and that marriage and that union that integration seem to me to be like two lines intersected right on right there. there ain't so much of it fit for the world. Well, that's enough about that. Just to conclude this though, let me reach to another text because this one will help you here. And we can start out on a fresh track for now. This is from Ephesians 1. Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory

[57:06]

may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heaven of mercy. Remember how Saint Benedict said, open the ears of your heart and hear what I'm going to tell you, and then obey and go back. Well, he's talking about the water, he's directing you towards that death of the ego that has to happen if we're to know God. We turn to God by the death of the ego and by obedience. Saint Paul is saying, open the eyes or let God open the eyes of your heart so you can see what you've been given and that's the resurrection. The power which is in us in which the Father exercised when he raised Jesus from the dead. The whole thing is there, the gift of repentance too. From the ears of

[58:06]

your heart to the eyes of your heart, from listening to seeing. And then there's another passage in Obedience 3, and this one you certainly know. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Every paternity that I know is named. But according to the riches of his glory. It's a similar prayer to what he was saying before, but it's much better. He may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now this is a movement first to the center, a movement to the heart where there's Christ in the Spirit. And it's the Father, of course, that's doing that. The Father is the ground, the invisible one behind the rock. That you being rooted and grounded in life, love, may have

[59:07]

power to comprehend with all the saints goodness of breadth and the length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of depth. You see, you move into the heart where you find Christ in the Spirit. You find the Trinity and then you move outward to discover these dimensions. So in order to get the fullness of the mystery, you have to go to the center which is the heart. And that's where God lives. And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. From that introversion and to the kind of explosion outward, it becomes a cosmic one, as you see here. Now, to him who by the power of works with him as his father is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all

[60:07]

generations forever and ever. Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus in the bride and groom. So, the heart is replaced and there a new creation begins. There are a couple of others. I wanted to go on with that text of Thomas Merton, the one about the Louisville street planner that we're putting up here tonight. That's one that ties in very well with some of the orthodox expressions of the enlightenment of the heart. For instance, you have Father Zosima from the Buddhist Paranagia. Have you heard of the Buddhist Paranagia lately? Do you remember him? The old one? He's the guy with the really tranquil

[61:07]

heart, the one who expresses what we're talking about. In some way, he's more real than real people, like Father Zosima. He's somehow more real than what we need as a sanctuary in the church. I don't know why. It was that real person who taught the archetypes of people in the church. I don't know why who taught the archetypes of I don't know why it

[62:09]

was that real person it person I don't know was that real person in I don't know

[63:12]

why it that real person in the church. know was that real person in don't it was real person in the church. don't know why it was that real person in I don't know why it was that real in the church.

[64:14]

don't know it was that real the church. I it was that real person in church. I don't know why it was that real in the church. I don't know why it person in the church. I don't know why it was that real person in the don't know why

[65:31]

it was that real person in don't in I know it was that real person in the church. I don't real person in I don't know why it was that real person in the church. I don't know why was that person in the church. I was that real person in the church. I know why it was that real person in

[66:36]

the church. it was that person in I know was that real person don't it was that real person in the church. I don't know it was that person I don't know why it

[67:36]

was that real person in don't was that person it was that real person in I don't know it was that real person in the don't know

[68:37]

why it was that real person in the church. it was that real person in I don't was that real person in the church. I was that person don't know why it was that real person in the church. I don't know why it

[69:25]

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