RETURNING TO THE HEART

Fr Billy Swan

Since he was elected Pope in May 2025, Leo XIV often speaks of the importance of returning to the heart. He makes no secret that his inspiration for this invitation back to the heart comes from St Augustine who insisted that the heart is the hidden place of our intentions, motives, desires, aspirations and urges. This instruction of Augustine to return to the heart, was born of his own experience when, for years, he looked for God and fulfilment in external things, leading to an exhaustive search for the happiness he craved: “Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong…You were with me, but I was not with you” (Confessions 10, 27).

To avoid the same mistake, he urges his listeners to “Return to your heart and from there to God, for the road from your heart to God is not long. When you are shocked by this arrangement, you have gone out of yourself, you are exiled from your won heart” (Sermon, 311, 13).

As a ‘Son of St Augustine’, Pope Leo XIV proclaims the same message. He speaks of “guarding the heart”, “listening to the heart” and the “union of our imperfect hearts with Jesus’ pierced Heart” as the keys to holiness and joy.

It’s important to point out that Augustine and Leo’s teaching on the heart as the primary spiritual organ, comes from the Gospel. In the religious culture of Jesus’ time, external conformity had an exaggerated importance at the expense of interior conversion. Jesus’ teaching was radical when he reminded his listeners that: “It is from inside, from men’s hearts and minds, that evil thoughts arise—lust, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance and folly!” (Mark 7:21).

So how can we implement this teaching in our lives and return to the heart? A few suggestions. The first is through prayer. When Christians pray, we return to the heart. When we do go deep within, we meet God who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Here is where Christian prayer differs from other forms of meditation and therapeutic exercises. Interior prayer is not a monologue with the self (how boring that would be!). Rather it is an encounter with the God within us who reveals himself and speaks to us. In the words of St John Henry Newman’s motto: “Heart speaks to heart”.

Conversion and repentance also involve a return to the heart where the light of Christ removes the impurities that linger there. For if bad intentions remain unchecked, they will express themselves in immoral actions. Morality is the public face of interiority. We often hear of someone with a “divided heart” where mixed and conflicted motives co-exist. “Blessed are the pure of heart” are the words of Jesus. With God’s grace and mercy, attentiveness to the heart attunes ours to the heart of Jesus, making us more like him. In the words of Augustine: “Return to your heart, O you transgressors…Christ departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there” (Confessions, 5, 2, 2).

Finally, returning to the heart and being attentive to the God who is present there, expands our hearts to love more and makes more room for others. To love with the heart means to love with the gift of our whole selves. Returning to the heart also helps us to recognise that we have a “cor inquietum…a restless heart” that that can only find rest in God alone. At a time when there is noise and many distractions, returning to the heart takes us back to what we seek most and to the One we love.

Happiness has a fatherland and the road to it passes through our hearts. Return to it often in prayer, allowing God’s mercy to purify it so that it can joyfully love God and others and find its home and eternal rest in Him.