Heart Blockage
At church during prayer time, someone asked for prayers for a person with a heart blockage. As usual my mind went off in another direction. A blockage in the heart is serious business. I wondered if the person had a family history of heart issues and inherited the problem. Was it caused by a poor diet and lack of exercise? Knowing why does not help the person, but it gives me a sense of order.
Soon my line of thinking went to the spiritual realm. St Paul said, “…because if you confess with your lips and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. What are the spiritual heart blockages that would prevent me from confessing with my lips? My pride would cause a blockage to Christ in my heart. Self-centeredness could cause a major blockage. Maybe I inherited an agnostic disposition from parents that shunned all things of religion.
Some of the spiritual blockages mirror the physical clogs, in that they build up over time. St. Augustine said to God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Pascal, reflecting on this idea described a God hole: “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
Decades of filling our God hole with addictions and other pleasure-seeking endeavors, creates life-threatening heart blockages. But there is hope; a diet rich in God’s Word, a disciplined prayer life, personal confession, and regularly partaking in Holy Communion, can clear the blockage. Sometimes the blockage needs to be opened with a spiritual stent. This can be done by attending a retreat like Walk to Emmaus or Cursillo.
Lent is the church’s prescription to clearing heart blockages through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and alms giving. In my work at the Foundation I have often been asked how to increase giving, and how to increase church attendance. The question could be restated: What are the spiritual heart blockages, those obstacles to increasing both our giving and church attendance? I think the answer is not opening our wallet wider, rather it is helping people fill their God hole with Jesus.