Examining the secret things of the heart
vs
the secret things of others
“God
has given you one face and you make yourself another.”
Hamlet,
Shakespeare
The
human heart is so complex; we hardly know ourselves, let alone another human
being. Yet, we spend a great deal of time analyzing and judging the
actions and words of others, seeking out their secret motives and basically
guessing in the dark. There are a number of reasons why we do this. Part of it
is in order to predict what others will do, to protect ourselves in the future,
to exonerate our own misbehavior, and to feel somehow superior to them in the
present, since we really understand what makes them tick. Obviously, none of
these aims helps us to grow in humility. We are like Ham thoughtlessly
uncovering Noah’s nakedness, but carefully covering our own. Another reason for
prying into the secret motives of others is that we prefer to avoid
thoughtfully examining our own lives.
Self-examination
takes effort, silence, and faith. The focus within requires more effort than
letting our gaze wander on things around us. Self-examination requires silence
and slowing down, for the noise of daily life and motion distract us
continuously. It also requires faith, because we all fear what lurks inside our
hearts—our secrets—those things that we scarcely even admit to ourselves.
However, these are the depths to which the Gospel calls us. We are called
by Jesus Christ our Master and Lord to plumb the depths of our own heart.
He alone can command us to do this, for He alone knows the heart of man, knows
its depth, and knows how splendid the heart can be when filled with His light.
Saint Ambrose wrote, “The Lord knows all things, but he waits for your words,
not in order to punish you, but to pardon you.” But how can we even confess our
secret sins and perhaps unknown passions, unless we look deep into the secret
recesses of the heart in order to really see them and know them?
It
takes courage and receptivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to quiet our
own heart and look within. Saint Macarius the Great teaches us, “The
heart is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are lions also;
there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. There also are rough
and uneven roads; there are precipices. . . For our Lord Jesus Christ came for
this reason, to change and transform and renew human nature and to recreate
this soul that had been overturned by passions through the transgression. He
came to mingle human nature with his own Spirit of the Godhead.”
In
order for this transformation to take place, we must first recognize the
“dragons, lions, and poisonous beasts” within our own heart. We must
discover what are those attitudes, ways of reacting, ways of feeling that
poison our relationships with others and with God. We must sense the lion,
representing passions and bad habits, stalking its prey, our very soul, and
ready to strike her down. We must see where the road to do what is right seems
so uneven and why it is so uneven. This is not possible if we are busily
searching out the sins and secrets of others, rather than concentrating on our
own rocky terrain. Recognition and acknowledgment of the “dragons, lions,
and poisonous beasts” within our own heart compels us to cry out to the Lord
for help. Rather than fearing such, we should see this as a moment to
draw closer to God. God’s compassion and mercy allows us to glimpse our
own pitiful state so that we recognize our need for Him and begin to become
humble, quiet, and full of even greater love for our merciful Savior.
Saint Macarius and the ancient fathers recognize this as a moment of grace and
an opportunity for us to embrace the salvation offered us. This is the
“hell” to which Christ calls Saint Silouan to maintain his mind yet despair
not. It is a blessed, salvific moment, full of grace and God’s love, and
strange though it may seem, those things that were secret are released and
taken from us by the hand of Christ Who in return sheds upon us His great and
rich mercy.
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