Thursday OT 1 January 16, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Ever heard the advice “follow your heart?” Probably. Maybe it wasn’t phrased that way. Maybe “be true to yourself” or “do what makes you happy.” Whatever the case, is it good advice, do you think?
Let’s compare it to what scripture says today: “Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart.” That doesn’t quite match up. What about a different part of scripture? “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Not quite. Maybe a part of the bible not in today’s readings? The word “heart” shows up hundreds of times throughout the bible. Maybe some of those will line up with the advice to follow your heart?
In all my study of scripture, I’ve never found a passage that says you should “follow” your heart. In most cases, the heart is kind of “along for the ride,” so to speak. It reacts, it feels, it offers suggestions. In a lot of places, it takes over and causes problems, like with today’s readings or when or when a king’s heart is “proud” and he refuses to listen to God. It’s not all bad, though. Sometimes the heart is “courageous,” sometimes it rejoices in the Lord, sometimes it “strikes” a person with guilt and causes them to repent, like on Pentecost when Peter’s words “cut to the heart” and 3000 people became Christian. Perhaps the best summary of the biblical view of the heart comes from the prophet Jeremiah (17:9): “More tortuous than anything is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?” Torturous, hard to understand. Yeah, that sounds right.
So, should we follow it? Should we follow something torturous and joyful and proud and hardened and repentant and… I think you get the idea. Not exactly a reliable guide, is it? The human heart is fickle, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes hard to tell. So why on earth would we follow it? Because it is powerful. Because, if we had never sinned, it would be reliable. Because the “heart” is part of what makes us human and some part of our human nature thinks that being “important” and “essential” means it should be in charge.
Nope. Following your heart is terrible advice. We pray today for the many, many, many children whose hearts were stopped far too soon because their parents “followed their hearts” and deprived them of life. There are a lot of people who make that terrible choice because they genuinely believed it was the best one, because their hearts wanted to be free of responsibility or because their hearts were afraid of being unable to handle what comes next. So, they hardened their hearts and chose a terrible evil. So many heartbeats are ended every year this way.
But it’s not like we can just ignore our hearts either! Like it or not, the human heart is a powerful part of who we are. If we ignore it completely, it will sabotage us, deprive us of joy, and make life bitter. Jesus himself says “where your heart is, there will your treasure be.” So, if we cannot trust it enough to follow it but we can’t be happy if we ignore it, what do we do?
We lead it. We listen to it, care for it, and gradually train it to go the right direction. That’s why the first reading says, “Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God. Encourage yourselves daily while it is still ‘today,’ so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.” It’s not as simple as “just decide to be faithful.” You do have to make that decision, but if you want that decision to last, you also need your heart to get on board. So we need to “take care.” How do we do that? “Encourage yourselves daily.”
Our hearts are unreliable, but they are not evil. With time and practice and grace, our hearts can grow to line up with what is truly good. It starts with the decision to follow Jesus. Then, every time we are tempted, every time our hearts want to run away from the challenge or get caught up in some other thing, we encourage our hearts to go back to Jesus. We need to honestly acknowledge what’s going on. If you want something sinful, admit it to yourself and to Jesus. If you start to pray and feel like your “heart just isn’t in it,” go ahead and admit that to Jesus. “I’m praying this rosary Jesus, I’m going to Mass Jesus, but my heart isn’t in it. Help me!” Then, speak to your own heart. I don’t mean literally says words to your chest, but imagine speaking to yourself inside. Tell yourself “I know you want something else, but this prayer/sacrifice/vocation/job is what’s actually best for us. Don’t be afraid of it. If we stay faithful to Jesus, he’ll give us everything we truly want. Trust him. Remember the good things he’s already done for us.”
If you keep doing this, if you gradually coach your heart, remind it of why we follow Jesus, if you take the time to pay attention to the good, true, and beautiful things of God, your heart will fall more and more in love with him. Over time, your heart will fight you less and less and it will more and more often begin to support your choice to follow God.
Sometimes our hearts will be more cooperative, sometimes less, but we can begin to follow an upward trend. Most of us will never get to the point of perfectly aligning our hearts with God’s will in this life, but we can make progress. If we don’t even try, if we passively follow our fickle hearts or ignore them, then we’ll move in the opposite direction. Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we can’t do the right thing even when we want to. This is why deathbed conversions are actually pretty rare. If you spend your whole life hardening your heart with sin, then it’s very unlikely you’ll even want to convert when the time comes.
So, do not wait. Do not “follow your heart.” Instead lead your heart day by day to Christ. “Take care” and “encourage yourselves daily.” Encourage yourselves with what God has done for you: made you, redeemed you, adopted you, given you grace. Recall the times his power has shone through even in the darkness of this world. For 49 years, our country claimed a “right” to destroy an unborn child; evil seemed unbeatable. I honestly thought I’d never see it happen, but just 3 years ago, that evil law was overturned. There is still much work to be done though thankfully we’re off to a good start here in Louisiana. Still, do you know what day it was when they overturned Roe vs. Wade? Friday June 24th, 2022. In most year, June 24th is the feast of the birth of John the Baptist. You know, the guy who leapt in the womb of his mother when he felt Jesus in the womb of Mary? Pretty cool. Even better, in 2022, on the actual day the law was change, June 24th was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“Follow your heart?” Nah. Follow his heart. His heart does overcome evil. His heart is reliable. And if we do not give up, our hearts will become like unto his.