Heart Speaks to Heart

Heart Speaks to Heart February 22, 2017

I wrote yesterday about why I don’t write a ton on specific theological controversies. I had a conversation today that made me think a little more deeply about that, and about how I would “give answer for the hope that I have.”

It’s easy to burn out on theology and doctrine and all the rest of the trappings of faith, I think. I’ve certainly been burned and burnt out by the confusion of trying to rationally break down and comprehend what is too large and encompassing for my comprehension.

Even in times of burnout, though, ritual has always held an appeal for me. At heart, I think we are all drawn to the numinous. There’s a seed for faith there,  in our attraction to what is mysterious and ineffable.

John_Henry_Newman_by_Sir_John_Everett_Millais,_1st_Bt

My first blog, Heart Speaks to Heart, was named for Cardinal John Henry Newman’s motto, which he drew from Augustine: Cor ad cor loquitur.
Newman talks about how, although faith is rational, it’s not rational in the sense of inductive reasoning, where a ->b -> c. Faith is held rationally the same way everything else we organically learn and know is, by witness, by observation, by experience, by hundreds of indirect pieces of evidence which give us the shape of a greater reality, even if never observed directly. This way by which we operate as rational creatures outside the walls of classrooms and logical exercises and apologetic arguments, he calls “the illative sense.”

I took a class on Newman once that had only one other student. She treated him like a logician, and picked and fretted over words and seemed constantly frustrated with him. But I think he was profoundly mystical and was trying to communicate something he couldn’t fully express. And because he knew himself to be trying to describe something not easily captured in “if-then” formulations, he wrote reams and reams to try to capture what he knew but couldn’t concisely express about God and faith and the Church.
I’m fond of Newman for that reason. He comes across as a scholar at first, but it seems to me like all his scholarly writings are part of a lifelong attempt to describe what a different person would have put in paints or poetry. (Though Newman did write poetry as well).

We read a lot about the conversion stories of people led into the Church by apologetics and reason and convincing proofs. Those are the kinds of people inclined to write books! But I think our focus on those stories distracts us from the far greater number who come into the Church relationally, in response to things they see in others but cannot understand, things they are drawn towards but have no words for.

And this, I think, is why Newman, a man who spent his life writing works of apologetics, took as his motto, “Heart Speaks to Heart.” This is how faith is transmitted for so many. Perhaps, in the end, heart-to-heart is the evangelical model that matters most.

I hope so, anyway, because it’s what I have in me to give.


I know I’m not the only one who is wearied sometimes by the endless words, the arguments over how to understand our faith, which can so easily become a confusing tangle and a distraction. 
On that topic–and in the spirit of hearts speaking to hearts–I’d like to recommend meditating with the writings of Julian of Norwich, which are both devotional and simple, and mystical in the most wholesome and accessible way imaginable.

And if you aren’t going to Mass these days, I encourage you not to let the wars of the intellect interfere with feeding your soul and heart on the transcendent.

Lent is coming. It’s a good time to shut out all the noise and walk simply, like a child.

Browse Our Archives