Lectio
“He who sits alone and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing: but there is one thing against which he must continually fight: that is, his own heart.”
— St. Anthony the Great, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Meditatio
Our hearts are the last battlefield — and yet, even in their confusion, they long to be recollected into the divine source from which they came. Constantly pulled in two directions at once — toward both God and flesh, divine mystery and perceived knowability, holy longing and worldly desires — our hearts both lead us to love and lead us astray.
We have an inclination — call it sin — to make the very experiences, ideas, and relationships through which God draws us nearer into idols we cling to and worship, rather than letting them point us toward and lead us home to Godself.
And yet, beneath the battle, something deeper stirs within us. The great mystery that is God calls us into itself from deep within our beings, and nothing will bring us rest until we rest in and with that self-same God who gifted us with his self-communicating love and also the freedom to choose other-than-love. God — who is both nearer to us than we are to ourselves and yet beyond our grasp — longs for our reunion with the same longing with which we long for him. But deep down, in and as the essence of our beings, our hearts long for God — they long for love — because, as St. Augustine said, our hearts were made for God, and we remain restless until our hearts find rest in Him for whom they were made.
Though God is constantly communicating to us and drawing us nearer to Godself through our bodies, the Word, and the world around us, we remain easily distracted by that which is not God — pulled away from the very source our hearts most deeply seek.
So let us take time to sit in the silence. St. Anthony and the desert fathers and mothers knew that silence does not end the battle of the heart — but it is where we stop fighting alone. And so let us be still and know that God is God, and let grace do what we cannot — draw our hearts home to Him.
Oratio
silence stills
my restless longing
revealing
that which draws me near
holy rest
divine indwelling
settling into
that which was always near
Contemplatio
What gift of God have you been tempted to cling to rather than follow where it leads?
Related Scripture
“I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” — Romans 7:19 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Our Hearts May Make Idols, But Our Hearts Were Made For God, which explores the same restless, divided heart — and the hope that beneath our capacity for idolatry lies an original longing that only God can satisfy.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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