“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
In the today’s Gospel, St. John sends out some of his disciples to ask Jesus if He is truly the Messiah. It seems that St. John the Baptist is being very cautious. He is guarding his heart from deception and lies of those who claim to be the Son of God.
Why is it important to guard one’s heart? Proverbs says, “Keep custody of your heart with all vigilance; for from it flows the springs of life.” [1] “How carefully we must guard our hearts! Because otherwise they always tend to attach themselves in the wrong way to people and to things.” [2]
What should our hearts be after? They should be after the ultimate prize, the same thing John the Baptist’s heart was after, Jesus. Among all the aims of our lives, there is only one end that is truly necessary: to reach the goal for which God has made us, eternal union with Him. In order to attain heaven, we must strive to live our own individual vocation to the fullest. We must to be ready to lose everything else and to clear away anything that obstructs our way. Everything in our lives must be a means for reaching God. If there is anything whatsoever that proves to be an obstacle, then we must put it right or give it up in sacrifice. [3]
Why it is difficult to guard our heart? Sin is appealing to us, sometimes simply because it is taboo. Most of the time, the things we fall into that lead us into letting our guard down are the things that seem harmless. “The things we need to abandon, or to cut out of our lives, can be of many very different sorts. Sometimes they will even be things that are good in themselves but which our own egoism, or our failure to rectify our intention, has turned into obstacles to our sanctity. Very often they will not be anything of great importance, but mere whims, habitual minor self-indulgences, failures in complete self-control, excessive pre-occupations with material things, and son.” [4] We are not destroyed by one single blow, or a giant wound, but sometimes by a million small cuts.
Search Lesson: Love God with all your heart
Search Lesson: God Shaped Hole
Is it possible to guard our heart? It can be difficult to guard our heart, but it is entirely possible, because “all things are possible with God.” [5] Saint Augustine gives a great analogy of the struggles we face to guard our heart: “Observe how the sea comes in through any leaky places in the hull, and little by little fills the hold of the boat. Unless it is expelled, the ship goes down…Imitate the sailors: their hands never rest until they have baled her out thoroughly; let yours never rest from doing good. In spite of everything however, the bottom of the ship will fill with water again, because the weak points of our human nature are always there; and you will have to man the pumps again.” [6]
How do we keep the weak points of our boat from breaking? We must look at the finest detail. The greatest athletes are great not just because they are naturally born that way, but because they work tirelessly to hone their skills. They work on the weakest parts of their game. A musician will work on their lyrics or the music until it is perfect. We must work spiritually always to guard ourselves from even the slightest occasion of sin. We should work to see even the smallest sin as big as a boulder and say as St. Dominic Savio said, “I will rather die than commit a sin.” St. Jose Escriva, using Jesus’ story of taking our eye out if it causes us to sin says, “If the right eye scandalize thee…pluck it out and cast it from thee! – poor heart! For this it is that scandalizes you…Press it, squeeze it tight in your hands! Give it no consolations. And when it asks for them say to it slowly and with a noble compassion – in confidence, as it were: Heart, heart on the Cross! Heart on the Cross!” [7] The saint is not saying to physically take out our eyes, but he is saying to hold desperately our hearts to the cross and not let our eyes, or ears, or anything else wonder away to sinful things.
The heart is a symbol of love, whatever we treasure there do we find our hearts. Our hearts should cling to the cross, for that is where our salvation was gained. Our love for Christ calls us to conversion. When our ship is filling up with water we should strive to remember these things: “Love of frequent confession and persistence with the daily examination of conscience help us to keep our souls clean and ready to contemplate Jesus in the cave at Bethlehem, in spite of our obvious daily weakness.” Through the discipline of daily examination of conscience, frequent confession, and persistence in the fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh our hands are ready and willing to pump out the water that threatens to drown our boat.
[1] Proverbs 4:23
[2] Fernandez, In Conversation with God, 16.2
[3] Fernandez, In Conversation with God, 16.2
[4] Fernandez, In Conversation with God, 16.2
[5] Matthew 19:26
[6] St. Augustine, Sermon 16, 7
[7] J. Escriva, The Way, 163