You’ve Gotta Have Heart!

Jul 1

St. Francis de Sales tells us: “Our words must come from the heart, not the mouth. The tongue speaks only to the ears. The heart speaks to the heart.” A few weeks ago the members of the Wilmington-Philadelphia Province and the Toledo-Detroit Province gathered together in Cranberry, PA. One of our foci for the week was to practice these words of de Sales. I discovered how important they are and how difficult speaking heart to heart can be.

In the words we heard during preaching and reflection, the guidance of those who led us, and our conversations in groups gathered around tables, we were given examples of the difference that speaking heart to heart can make. We heard stories of successes and failures in ministry or at least in how some of us approached ministry. We spoke our concerns about Oblate life. We listened to the concerns of our brothers. Through it all, we sought to get below the surface and speak from the heart and listen to another as he spoke from his heart.

As men, not to be too stereotypical, we are often more comfortable in the head: analysis, critique, raising objections, trying to solve situations, etc. However, heart-work goes beneath all of that and calls us to be vulnerable, to speak our joys and our sorrows, our successes and our failures, our fears and our hopes. There is no judgment there. There is a sharing that invites us to look at our lives and those of others in new ways, to discover the deeper realities of one’s life that are expressed in how we live, not just what we do.

I began to come to a new understanding of the words Pope Francis wrote on the occasion of the 400th Anniversary of the death of St. Francis de Sales, Tatum Amoris Est (Everything Pertains to Love). Pope Francis wrote: “We can understand why Saint Francis de Sales felt that there was no better place to find God, and to help others to find him, than in the heart of the women and men of his time.” I began to see my brothers, part of the people of my time, with new eyes and felt invited to share on a level I had not done before except with a select few. The experience was truly heart work and heart freeing for me. And it taught me a few things about heart speaking to heart and why it is so necessary.

First, I learned to take time to be in touch with what is going on in my own heart. I need the silence of prayer to give God space to speak to me and me space to touch what is going on at a deeper level.

Second, I learned that it is important to pay attention to the other with whom I’m in conversation. I need to listen without trying to “wrap it all up in a bow,” so to speak. I need to let the other be as he or she is and to note what their eyes and bodies are saying along with their words.

Third, I learned how important it is to receive the heart and words of another person in ways that honor them, respect them, receive them, and recognize that being with another in this way is to be on holy ground.

Fourth, I learned that only then could I speak from my heart to ask questions that might help me better understand their words and their hearts; to affirm that I really heard what they said; and then share my heart in ways that could invite dialogue rather than focusing on me more than them. In other words, I had to let go of the ego.

Fifth, I discovered how much this way of interacting is the process of prayer, to paraphrase St. Francis de Sales, trying to breathe as one with God and inviting God to breathe as one with me. (In prayer we aspire to God and God inspires us).

Heart to heart is hard work. I believe that it is more necessary in our world today than it has ever been before. We tend to lob words at one another. Like the song sings: “You’ve gotta have heart, lots and lots and lots of heart.” That was St. Francis de Sales’ wisdom and following it will be our salvation.