What is our "Heart"?

[nobody]

As Christians we are told to “open our hearts”. We are taught about “movements of the heart”. We are told to love God with our heart, mind and soul.

What is this heart? Literally, our heart is an organ, not associated with our thoughts; it can be replaced. Is this “spiritual” heart what is produced in the part of our brain that controls feelings and emotions? How is it separate from our “mind”?

 

[joshua1]

It isnt exactly a metaphor. The heart in the body supplies the rest of the body with all it needs. The heart is in the center of the body. Without the heart supplying the rest of the body, the rest of the body’s organs wouldnt work. All flows from the heart. In a spiritual metaphor, the "heart refers to the very core of our being. IN other words to me, when I say I love God with all my heart, I love God with all that I am and from the very core of my being, the very CENTER of who we are. All our hopes, dreams as well as love flow from that spiritual heart that feeds the rest of the body and those around us…With all my heart to me, means with all that I am

 

[Fidelis]

Perhaps this excerpt from the *Catechism *(regarding prayer) will help:

**Prayer as covenant **

**2562 **Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

**2563 **The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

**2564 **Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

 

[nobody]

Thank you, Joshua1 and Fidelis.

If I may ask more, then…

How do we open our hearts to the grace of God, if our heart is “beyond the grasp of our reason” (2563)?

 

[Zahmir]

Thank you, Joshua1 and Fidelis.

If I may ask more, then…

How do we open our hearts to the grace of God, if our heart is “beyond the grasp of our reason” (2563)?

By simply being open… By trusting God and everything He has taught us. To “open your heart” means to lay out everything and to offer everything for God. It also means to let your heart reach out beyond the confines of your own self and reach out both to others and Christ.

By opening your heart, you are trusting in God’s love. I don’t think this trust is fully rational… nor is faith, else there wouldn’t be so many religions. But rather, “we just do trust and love and have faith.” I think this is what it means for our heart to be “beyond the grasp of our reason.”

I should rephrase. If you ask a man why he loves his wife, how would he respond? If you picked a good man, his answer would be something like, “I just do.” This isn’t a fully rational decision though it is supported by many rational thoughts. In the same way, why do you trust God? You just do. This is opening your heart.

Read Daniel and notice how much he and his friends trusted God to protect them. THAT is opening your heart.

 

[Jeanette_L]

Great thread and responses! A lot of food for thought.

The Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. So, does that give us another clue maybe about what the Bible means when referring to the heart. Maybe it’s that soft place, or that hard place at the core of each of us. The place that either clings to or rejects virtue, maybe? The place that can be touched when nothing else can move us and we don’t even know why? The place that responds to the light of truth in an instant, and somehow we know it even if (and especially if), we don’t like it.

Keep them coming!

 

[alexaustralia]

Nowdays we think of the heart differently than at Biblical times. The heart is the inner person. It is not just where feelings reside but reason and will and all that makes a human well…human. So when told to love with all our hearts … it means to love with all of our being.

 

[nobody]

Thank you for your replies. It seems that there have two types of explanations (extremely simplified):

1. Our heart is our unconscious “core”.
2. Our heart is our whole being.

Are these two views contradictory? Why or why not?

Peace.

 

[little]

My grown up daughter cares not for me, her father, nor her mother because she perceives us as bad. She believers I didn’t care and somehow despised her like Cinderella.
My heart is broken and the pain is overwhelming, for I love her, she is my only daughter

My heart aches