In this presentation we have the second of five topics based on Fr. John Welch’s book, Seasons of the Heart. This topic is the Enslaved heart.
The Worship of False gods
The Carmelites do not have a single person as their founder. We have adopted Elijah the prophet and the blessed Mother as our models. On Mount Carmel, Elijah had a heroic battle with the false prophets of Jezebel, the patroness of the false god, Baal. He was outnumbered four hundred fifty to one. Elijah, in the heat of the conflict, confronted the people: “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him, if Baal, follow him.” (I Kings18:21)
For us, the choice seems simple enough. However, when the gods of Baal come in the form of money, a more comfortable lifestyle, our prejudices, and especially our addictions big and small, the choice becomes a great deal more clouded.
Our Idols or God
The human heart is an idol making machine. The idols, the false gods we create so readily, produce disintegration and fragmentation of the heart. Often, we think of the idols of the Old Testament as foreign and unrelated to our experience. Yet what the idols expose is a fundamental human experience. We continually elevate God’s creatures as substitutes for God. This allows us to stay in charge. Our gods become manageable and totally without demand. It is not hard for us to straddle the issue when our control and comfort are in place. We all need the voice of Elijah to shatter our self-deception.
The human heart easily distorts our relationships with people, things, and ideas. There is a natural pull of compulsion. This relationship then gradually becomes an attachment for us. This is the foundational distortion. Basically, we are binding the human spirit to something or someone other than love. We are seeking God in the creature rather than letting the creature bring us to God. This is a key obstacle in our quest for God which is the foundation of any authentic spiritual life.
These attachments make life easier at first but gradually we slide from the freedom of love to the fear of loss. Many attachments deteriorate into addictions which further cut into our freedom in an escalating degree of compulsion. John of Cross lists some very simple things that can be an attachment on the way to addiction: the habit of being excessively talkative, the way food is prepared, a book or a cell. Then, of course, there are personal relationships with the great capacity for distortion. In our consumer society, companies are spending gross amounts of money to enslave us to their products, turning wants into needs. The ever-expanding horizons of the digital world offer countless new opportunities for addiction.
Life is full of dead-end roads. We constantly manufacture idols in a quest for security and control. On this point the Bible is clear from Abraham to Jesus. A common theme of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament is the journey, the pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is the norm. With it comes a basic insecurity and a call for trust and openness to life. We are driven by a distorted heart. We want a stable home, even with a mortgage, rather than the challenge of the journey. We want to settle down with clear fences to define our reality. To be king or queen of our mansion goes much deeper than we think.
We long to settle down with the lesser gods who are lesser because we govern them. Among these lesser gods, our attachments and addictions hold the position of prominence. The heart battles constantly to become free and open to the journey.
The problem is not the world or its people or things. Our difficulty is the heart creating a world centering on our self. All distortions arise from this idolatry. We are caught in the relentless battle of choosing good or evil, a false security or openness to God’s call. Christ’s parables generally but especially the weeds and the wheat (Mt13:24-30) symbolize this ever-raging battle of good and evil.
The Call to Let Go
When we get out of bed in the morning we usually have a set of relationships and responsibilities that define our world. The circumstances of our concrete and specific world demand a response of love and generosity. However, the pull of the fragmented heart moves us to selfishness, neglect and the tired routine of an easy and closed world that we have created for ourselves. Our mortgage needs to give way to the pilgrimage that is the new world of the Gospel’s call.
The challenge of the Gospel seen through the tradition of Carmelite spirituality lets love triumph. Love impels us to confront our small, controlled world and lifestyle. This means being open to others starting with those closest to us, and our immediate responsibilities. Then we expand to the call of the ever-wider call of the Gospel. Both dimensions call us to be responsible for our world. Love pushes us toward the pilgrimage. The mortgage holds us back.
The idols of our time are not just personal loves and possessions, but especially idols of power, prestige, control and dominance. These idols lead to neglect in our immediate relationships and especially blindness to the poor and their situation in our world. Other issues of justice and peace along with care for the environment are also victims of our neglect.
Our yearning for control resists the Lord’s call to pilgrimage and trust. We face a fundamental choice just as in the time of Elijah or in today’s message of Jesus: the true God or the god of our control, comfort and convenience, the pilgrimage or the mortgage.
Pope Francis on the Enslaved Heart
In his powerful opening Exhortation of his reign, The Joy of The Gospel, Pope Francis speaks on the topic of the Enslaved Heart right at the beginning. He says,
“The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has it source in the heart of the risen Christ.” #2
It is obvious that the Enslaved Heart is a major roadblock on our pilgrimage to God. We can overcome this deterrent with a Listening Heart which we will consider in our next stage on the Seasons of the Heart.
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