… my heart, where I am whatsoever I am
Augustine, Confessions 10.3.4
I have been reading a book about devotion to the sacred heart. A modern book with little of the kitch and sentimentally of books of an earlier era. Just to say that the devotion to the heart of Jesus pre-dates the Reformation.
The first chapters look at the image of the heart and quote the above from Augustine. And it got me thinking: if “I am whatsoever I am” in my heart, is that true for Jesus?
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
1 Corinthians 8:1
I have been producing a podcast for the Anglican Renewal Network Australia.
In case you feel like giving it a listen:
This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.
Kierkegaard
Augustine speaks about thinking about forgetting. We live with this paradox everyday.
… the (sacred) heart of Jesus. If there is a devotion that is truly catholic and ecumenical, it is devotion to the heart of Jesus. So I will be sharing some picture of statues of the sacred heart:
Yesterday’s sermon was about the Inbetween Times. It made me think of the monastic/religious life – a choice/vocation to inhabit the in-between times with purpose. And that made me think of this quote by the “the charismatic evangelical” Archbishop of Canterbury:
Life in Religion is the ultimate wager on the existence of God. The church should always be engaged in doing things that make no sense if God does not exist.
Most Revd Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury
The above is written for the Anglican Religious Life Year Book so when it speaks of “life in religion” it is about monastic life. And the reason most forms of contemplative life are so unknowable to modern society is because it is the “ultimate wager” and “makes no sense” without God.
I have also been thinking that the absolute relationship to the absolute telos should be lived openly in secret. “Enclosed in plain sight”, for a modern anchorite. A complete commitment to Jesus who lives in my heart and I in his. But without the outward trappings of the monastic life – habit and a change of name.
Lord Jesus Christ,
I surrender today to you.
I give myself to you as a living sacrifice,
my soul and body,
my entire being.
I give to you all my thoughts, words and deeds,
all my sufferings and labours,
all my hopes and joys.
Above all, I give to you my heart
so that I may love only you
and be consumed in the fire of your love.
I place my trust in your infinite mercy.
I place within your hands all my cares and anxieties.
And I promise you my love and service.
Do with me what you will, my Jesus.
I desire only you.
Heart of Jesus, I surrender myself to you,
be my everything.
… the self has the task of becoming itself in freedom.
Sickness unto death
So I am having this love affair with Sickness unto Death today. (Or should that be I am having a love affair with Kierkegaard?) So the above really spoke to me.
Sometimes I reflect on the many things that I have heard in sermons throughout the years. For me, that includes some time in seminary.
So, I have been wondering:
Why can I not trust my feelings but I can trust my reasoning?
I cannot recall how many times I have been told that my feelings are untrustworthy but my reasoning I can trust. (And let’s assume that hermeneutics is a form of reasoning.) But how realistic is that? Or, maybe more importantly, how human is that?
Happy to read any answers!
a fool and his prayer book 