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In the November 2008 issue on the subject of "Sunday" I stated my intention to write an article on a subject that I believe has had a deep influence on Catholic life in this country. It has not had the publicity that other religious issues have generated because it has had a much more subtle effect over a long period of time, but its insidious influence on the way that we see and live-out our Christian calling has been more harmful, perhaps, than many other so-called "high-profile" issues of the day. Although the history of this subject can be traced throughout the many centuries of recorded speech and writings, perhaps even to the very beginnings of any records of religious and philosophical works, present day Christians are experiencing, knowingly or not, the effect this has had on them and on many preachers and teachers.
How often have we heard or read a comment similar to this: "Faith arises from the heart not the head." ? Perhaps we have been present at a group meeting or a talk when someone says something like "Oh, you don't really need to know too much about Christian teachings, let your faith come from the heart." On the other hand, we may have experienced a talk or read an article or book in which the Christian faith is presented as just a question of learning certain facts, like learning a catechism in much the same way we would learn any academic subject.
I was present at a meeting some years ago when a bishop swung the emphasis of catechesis away from learning through the mind to one which concentrated on knowing through the heart. What troubled me at the time was the attempt to divide one from the other as though there was a dichotomy of heart and mind in our human nature. There was no awareness expressed of the unity and integrity of heart, mind and soul in our relationship with God.
On that occasion and many others over the years, I asked myself the question as to how such a view of human response to God's word and love, actualised and expressed in his Son, "the word made flesh", could have become that of thinking in terms of such a fragmented nature. How do we follow the commandment to "love the Lord your God -with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength." ?(Mk. 12:30 & Deut.6:4-5)
At the root of many of the problems in relation to the need to "move on" along the road to Christian maturity, has been the constant re-appearance, both in catechesis, worship and prayer, of this separation of "heart" and "mind". Why is it such a problem ? What effect has it had on Catholic life and worship ? Is it really important in my every-day life as a Catholic Christian ?
Brian Pointer BA(Div) MA(Theo)
St.Richard's, Chichester.
Recently I came across an old book of limericks, some of them very funny, some serious, some mysterious. The book reminded me that the art of a good limerick can be very useful in many different ways and it motivated me to compose a theological limerick to set the scene for this letter. So here it is !
The value of limericks are their brevity which impels the writer to enclose the essential theme in just a few lines, yet attract us by their musical rhyming rhythm. As you can see from the one above, I am trying to show that our relationship with Our Lord can only be really experienced and expressed in our fully integrated human nature. This relationship is not formed through one or other of our different human faculties, as though Our Lord can only reach us, and we can only reach Him, through our minds or hearts.
In fact, even our physical bodies, in which our minds and hearts are held, are an essential part of that relationship. How else could we receive Our Lord in the eucharisted bread except by consuming Him at a special sacrificial meal ? How else could we show our love for Him by showing our love for our neighbour in practical matters ?
So much of what we hear and read in much of what is commonly called "spiritual" gatherings and writings is addressed to the "heart" or "spirit" without even a nod to that faculty of the "mind" through which the yearnings of the heart and spirit are made awafe to us. On the other hand, some of the teachings we hear and read in theological contexts, is addressed to the "mind" and "intellect" with very little reference to the roles of the heart and the human spirit.
The emphasis over the last 30 to 50 years or so has swung towards an imbalance favouring the heart over the mind. This may well be a continuing reaction to a rationalistic influence which tended to dominate theology from the so-called "Enlightenment" movement in the 18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century. There were theologians and churchmen who tried to move the Church towards a more holistic understanding of our God-given humanity, but the damage had been done.
These shifts from one to the other in various writings and particularly in preaching can be seen throughout the history of the Church. However, one of the good things coming out of Vatican II was a much more integrated approach to the question of man's relationship with God and with each other. Since Vatican II, the person who made great attempts to bring a more balanced view of our integrated humanity in relation to God was Pope John Paul II, particularly in the two influential encyclicals "The Splendour of Truth" and "Faith and Reason".
However, despite John Paul's teachings, as well as other enlightened teachers such as our present Pope, we are still often faced with an unbalanced view of human nature which results in many preachers and teachers of the faith producing talks and writings which are either very light on doctrine and an insult to people's intelligence or are almost impenetrable because of their lack of clarity.
A long time ago I was told by a wise man that you cannot have clarity of thought and expression without considerable depth of understanding. Equally, if we are to attain the kind of necessary wisdom that comes from God's word, our hearts and spirits are necessarily involved in giving us the desire and will to seek out the those truths. If it was left to our minds only we would not be able to move on in that journey of "faith seeking understanding", nor would we be able to love God and our neighbour.
Our holistic, integrated human nature enables us to know and love. Therefore, we have to apply our minds and hearts to God's revealed truths, about himself and about us. There is no other way of knowing and loving God and each other if we are to be truly human as "the image of God". This means that we have toapply our minds with all our strength and to put our hearts into it in order to really embrace those truths.
Those who have been concerned about this dichotomy of heart and mind have become aware that one of the areas deeply affected by it is in catechesis, both at the parish and school levels. The debate about the standard of catechesis in many parts of our country has been a constant one for some years. The central criticism is that there has been a "dumbing-down" of the content to such an extent that many Catholic children and adults are not familiar with the essential teachings of the Church.
Although part of the reason for this comes from the influences of the secular world we live in, it is mainly the consequence of this shift away from having to apply minds to learning the truths of our faith to that of seeking experience through the heart. This is not to say that this separation of heart and mind is always that defined, but it is at the root of such a shift of emphasis and often is manifested in catechesis as conflict between the two.
We have only to read some of the catechetical literature to see how the very notion of an "informed faith", of that essential relationship between faith and truth, has been neglected in favour of a catechesis of the "heart" where solid teachings are replaced with notions that show a lack of understanding of the relationship and unity of heart and mind. There seems to be an aversion to putting minds to work in matters of faith.
.As a consequence, many Catholics do not really "own" their faith. That is to say, it is not a faith leading to conviction of mind as well as movement from the heart. Christian motivation arises from the interaction of our whole being with the loving presence of Our Lord in the gift of his Holy Spirit. As recently as June 3rd, Pope Benedict emphasised this point, " ....the. need to invoke, in the experience of faith, not only the mind and the heart, but also the senses through those other aspects of aesthetic taste and human sensitivity that lead man to benefit from the truth with his whole self, mind, soul and body. This is important: faith is not only thought but also touches the whole Being." (General audience. St.Peter's Rome. L'osservatore Romano)
To live-out such a faith, Our Lord is teaching us to grow in knowledge and love of himself, ourselves and our neighbour. Such maturity of faith does not come to us in a moment of time, but is a lifetime's action of conversion. This requires real effort of the mind, to respond to the promptings of the gift of God's Spirit who is at work in the very heart of our being, but always seeking a fully human response.
This does not mean that all of us have to achieve a very detailed knowledge of all the truths of our faith, but it does mean that we have a right and a duty to constantly seek more understanding of those truths which give the reason for the hope that is in us. (1 Peter 3:15) If catechesis is to be an effective element in evangelisation, it has to have the means of leading us to that fullness of the Christian life and will help us to persevere in faith. Catechetical courses, talks or homilies which place undue emphasis on one of the human faculties to the detriment of another (as in this dichotomy of the mind and heart) will only lead us to a weak faith which is vulnerable to any challenge or "ill wind".
Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical "Faith and Reason" (1998), made the very important point about one of the consequences of this lack of motivation to learn more about our faith, "With a false modesty, people rest content with partial'and'provisional'truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and ultimate foundation of human, personal and social existence.". (para 11) Perhaps we are content to stay where we are in our understanding because we experience no motivation to "move-on" in our faith. Maybe, the lack of emphasis on seeking understanding of our faith has led us to place more emphasis on faith as something which is "caught rather than taught".
This particular slogan, which seems to have acquired the character of an unchallengeable truth in preaching and teaching, has done significant harm to the movement towards an integrated approach to a more mature faith. As a half-truth, this slogan has given strength to the idea that we do not have to really exercise our minds in matters of "faith". This was surely not the intention of whoever originally composed that slogan, but without the other half of the truth, it has caused many to think that they can rest content with their initial baptismal faith.
It very much equates to another old saying that "faith is a gift", the truth of which escapes many if it simply remains a slogan ! Faith is indeed a gift from God, as is everything which God has revealed to us through his "self-communication" in his Son, Our Lord. But it is a gift which we need to embrace with our whole being throughout our life, or we run the risk of losing it. The Letter to the Hebrews puts great emphasis on this risk of us becoming "those that have fallen away" through lack of growth in our understanding, "We ought then to turn our minds more attentively to what we have heard so that we do not fall away." (Heb.2:1) This exhortation is repeated in chapter 5 where he describes those Christians who have neglected their understanding of God's teachings as needing " solid food ", with "minds trained by practice to distinguish between good and bad." (5:11-14)
Faith needs to be an "informed faith", otherwise its roots will not receive the nourishment k needs to survive. Those roots, implanted by God's self-communication in each one of us at our initial act of baptismal faith, necessarily addresses all of our humanity - mind, heart, soul and spirit - lived-out in and through our physical bodies. Those roots of faith are offered nourishment through the word of God in the Scriptures and through the gift of his Son's life in the Eucharist. To embrace those gifts we need to apply our minds and hearts constantly, persevering to our own human fulfilment at our own death and resurrection. (Heb.11&12)
There is no doubt that the interaction of all of our human faculties is still largely a mysterious fact of life. Scientists are now at the stage where they can tell and even show us how the brain works, for example, in relation to neural responses to emotions, such as fear and excitement. However, they find it difficult to provide similar empirical evidence of such notions as "mind" and "heart" in relation to the intellect and will. Our human faculties of "understanding" and "willing" are a mystery to them even though they are demonstrated in everyday life of human nature.
Of these two, the "heart" perhaps is the most difficult to identify because in this context of faith it has nothing to do with the physical heart-pump, even though that organ is affected physically by feelings and emotions. Throughout history the "heart" of man has been identified in different terms, such as "the seat of emotions", the "will", the "soul", the "human spirit", the "centre" of our being". Various sayings have arisen such as being hard-hearted, soft-hearted, tender-hearted, cold-hearted, light-hearted, broken-hearted. At difficult times, we are said to "reach down to the bottom of our hearts".
Whatever and wherever the reality of this "heart" is, it can only be part of our holistic and integrated humanity, and as such can only be "active" in our expression of faith through our consciousness of our minds. This is why "faith" cannot be expressed and lived-out through the "heart" only or through the "mind" only, or at least with undue emphasis on one or the other. Pope John Paul II put this point very clearly in his encyclical letter, "faith and reason, each without the other is impoverished and enfeebled. (Deprived of what Revelation offers, reason has taken side-tracks which expose it to the danger of losing sight of its final goal. Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so runs the risk of no longer being a universal proposition.. .and withering into myth or superstition. "("Faith and Reason" 48)
If faith is "the sacred interaction of heart and mind", as I have proposed, can we define in clear terms what it is exactly ? It is used in a purely secular context when we are describing someone who puts their trust in someone else or some thing e.g. "I have faith in him/her" or "I can trust that it will not break down." However, faith in the Christian context is more than mere trust, however valuable that is. The divinely inspired author of "Hebrews" defines faith as follows, " Faith is the essence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (11:1.)
If we unpack that definition, what are the essential points ? First, the "essence" of something is its very reality, that which makes it what it is. In the context of "things hoped for", it is the recognition of and adherence to the reality of what God has revealed to us about our fulfilment, which has been made possible through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is placed before us as justification for our hope, and this requires us to get to know these things in all their fullness. Second, that same revelation, that revealing, also contains the requirement to trust in his promises of what is to come, even though we cannot yet see them. We place that trust in the promises of Jesus Christ because of who he is, the Son of God.
If we fully understand the implications of such faith, we discover the motivation to apply our hearts and minds to move on in our life-long journey of faith. "Faith demands our rational'participation, which is deepened and-purified in a sharing of Cove. It is one of our duties... to penetrate faith with thought, to be able to show the reason for our hope." (Pope Benedict, address to the new archbishops, St.Peter's, 29th June 2009)
:"A disciple of Christ has the right to receive the 'word of faith"(Rom.10.8), not in a mutilated, falsified or diminished form, but whole and entire, in all its rigour and vigour. (Pope John Paul II "Catechesis in our time" 30)