Guarding the heart
It’s, of course, good to take care of the heart. As a vital organ, all the blood that circulates in our body passes through it to be purified and pumped back to the different parts. A body without a heart is simply dead. And with a malfunctioning heart, that body would be into pure agony.
Spiritually, the heart is absolutely necessary and its care inalienable. In this sense, the heart refers to our very core that gathers and summarizes all that we are. It’s where our true, ultimate identity can be found.
It is also where God, our Creator and Father, stays with us. He gave it to us to be his home with us. That’s because we are nothing without God. Let’s remember that God sustains everything. In our case, he does that by entering into our heart. Our true identity should always include God.
We have to learn to welcome God in our heart, and to keep him there in as best a condition as we can “afford.” Though he owns it—he made it, in the first place—we also own it, and somehow it depends on us whether to receive him or not in our heart.
Thus, our Lord’s plea: “My son, give me your heart.” And this appeal is reiterated in one of the psalms: “Keep my words in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those that find them, and health to all flesh.” (4,21-22)
I wonder whether we are doing something in this regard. What we can immediately see is carelessness and recklessness in the affairs of our heart. We allow it to go anywhere, hardly giving any attention to God and his request.
We let it welcome, almost indiscriminately, all sorts of things, including those that are clearly dangerous to us. As a result, all kinds of anomalies sprout—pride, greed, anger, lust, gluttony, avarice, laziness, etc. They make our heart sclerotic, taking away its tenderness and undermining its proper functioning.
We have to raise the level of awareness and competence in taking care of the heart as our abode with God. First, we need to be cautious and attentive to the way we use our senses.
Just like we have to be careful with our diet to protect our heart as a vital bodily organ, we need to be prudent in what we see and look at, what we hear, how we feel, what we imagine and remember, etc., to protect our heart as the seat of our spiritual life.
The story of David who peeped on the wife of another and later committed sin with her and other worse deeds to cover up his error is classic in highlighting the crucial role of our senses in our spiritual life.
From early on, even from childhood, we need to learn the tricky art of how to use our senses—where to focus them, how to protect them from danger, how to discard the dirt that unavoidably attaches to us along the way…
I think it is a grave and urgent duty to instill especially in the children this discipline, since this is going to be indispensable the rest of our life. We have to develop the appropriate curriculum and impart it as widely as possible. In this area, we cannot afford to remain in the kindergarten level.
If in the advertisement of products like cigarettes, we are quick to warn people of their bad effects, it should be much more so when we promote forms of entertainment that pose a clear and present danger to our soul.
Our current environment is unfortunately badly polluted in the spiritual and moral sense. There are many devious tricks embedded in shows produced under the name of artistic freedom and business that need to be exposed and avoided.
Of course, the effort required for this is going to be gargantuan and, given the temper of the times, thankless. But I must say, it’s all worthwhile. “Vale la pena.” The fruits that can be expected can more than make up for the costly investment made.
If a lot of resources are poured into the campaigns of such dubious issues like global warming and the reproductive health, we should be generous in giving whatever we can to promote a better spiritual and moral ecology, by giving due attention to the care we need to give to our heart as our sanctuary with God.
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City. Email: roycimagala@gmail.com)