With Lips or Heart?

With some vegetables you eat the leaves and the outside. With an artichoke we get to eat the heart. It’s the best bit.  The best of religion is of the heart.  Jesus today talks a lot about that – contrasting lip service and hearts far from him.

The people who were wondering about sincerity.  They kept the law but then were intolerant of weakness in others. They missed often on people’s goodness and so they talked of people who didn’t wash hands, cups and God knows what else.

We say that otherwise too –
       Get to the heart of things –
a person has great heart –
put your heart into it –
their hearts are miles away.
The ‘heart‘ is the place of true religion.

The heart is a dangerous place.  The head will try to be sensible –‘ let the third world look after itself, after all they are spending on war,’  but the heart will be broken by the hunger of the poorest.  The head will tell you that you need sleep but your heart will get up to care for a baby or an elderly parent.  So the religion of some of Jesus’ time was safe –the rules were kept but was there love?

In prayer allow God touch your hopes to love well in life.
Teach me your truth O Lord, in the sincerity of my heart.

The heart of religion is found in the heart of God. Kahlil Gibran writes in his book ‘The Prophet’:
‘When you love, do not say: God is in my heart
– say  rather I am in the heart of God’.

Donal Neary SJ