GUARDING YOUR HEART
Inok Vsevolod (Filipiev)
How often do we confess hardheartedness? Most likely, not often. However, not only our neighbors, but also we ourselves are mercilessly hurt and suffer from sin.
The name of the sin speaks by itself. Hardheartedness - a hard and cruel heart.
A hardened heart cannot be spiritually healthy. Such a heart is cut off from pure prayer and open to all kinds of vice. A cruel heart is a sick heart.
Why is hardheartedness such a serious sin? Our hearts become hardened and insensitive to many things. For example, towards our neighbors. They offended us once or twice, and they deceived us once and again, and here we are - innocent victims of evildoers. With such thoughts in the heart, we become hardhearted towards almost everyone.
Further, we see that, as much our hearts are man-pleasing and hypocritical towards the mighty of this world, so much are our hearts cruel, uncompassionate and cold for those who are in a position lower than us in social hierarchy.
Often our hearts become hard because of circumstances in life. We feel we do not deserve the sorrows and misfortunes which befall us. We lament our boring daily life for its lack of joy and hope.
All this contributes towards hardheartedness.
But let's think for a moment: was our Savior hardhearted? Was His heart ever cruel towards others? No, Jesus Christ's heart was never like that. However, He had plenty of opportunities during His earthly life to show "justified cruelty" while present on Earth. Mankind, for which the Son of God became incarnate, did not accept Him! Isn't that a good reason for just punishment? In the beginning the disciples of Christ wanted such "justice." "When His disciples saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and said: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke 9, 54-56)
The heart of the God-Man, the heart of incarnate Love, was never cruel. It unceasingly, even from the Cross, streamed love. Our Savior's heart was always merciful and this example of mercy, of a merciful heart, we do not have any right to reject.
When our heart becomes darkened with offense, when our heart is overcome with evil, when it gets exasperated at everything and everyone, when we fall into the sin of hardheartedness, let us go back in our thoughts to Golgotha and remember how merciful towards all people was He Who was crucified by them.
If we forget this bright example of God's mercy, then our hearts, increasing in cruelty, can reach the worst possible stage - hardheartedness towards God. Not repenting of this sin, a person inevitably will progress from hard-heartedness towards neighbors and situations in life, towards God Himself. Such a person will soon imagine that God is guilty of his misfortune. What a horrible end! A person exasperated against God cannot be together with God; such a person will be cast into the outer darkness, to the depths of horrible hell.
Therefore, conscious repentance of hardheartedness is vital. Having repented of this sin, each person realizes that neither friends nor fate are the reason of all the tribulations, but the person himself. A person understands that the evil that was torturing his soul came not from outside but from the very bottom of his wounded heart. However, to repent of hardheartedness is one thing, to extirpate it from one's heart is another. How does one defeat hardheartedness one may ask? We'll take a spiritual worldview of a modern-day martyr, Jose Munos, the faithful guardian of the Myrrhbearing Icon of the Theotokos, as an answer to this question. Brother Jose, who bore endless hardships and humiliations in his life, nevertheless profoundly believed that you should see Christ in each person!
Isn't it an amazing view? If we try to apply it to our everyday life, we'll see that our life will change.
Suppose we are offended with someone and want to take revenge. However if we see Christ Himself in that person, would we really take revenge on Christ? We constantly laugh at or despise someone, but let's imagine that Christ is in that person's position. Would we continue to make jokes or despise Christ Himself? Someone annoys us, but would we lose our temper if that person were Christ? And so on...
If we apply this Godly-inspired rule to our life, our hardheartedness will disappear very soon, leaving our heart merciful and loving towards all without exception.
On the other hand, what if we are struggling against our hardheartedness, but demons strenuously vex us through the hardheartedness of our neighbors and close ones? What to do in this situation? First of all, we should remember that there is no way to conquer the hardheartedness of others with similar cruelty. Only love and mercy may overcome hard-heartedness. Christ conquered the world not because He punished it, but because He could forgive the whole world from the Cross, and attracted the heart of mankind with His love and mercy.
Thus, let's not forget that we Christians are the children of mercy, not of the Lord's wrath. Therefore, we should especially guard our hearts from cruelty and animosity.
May Jesus Christ help us with His everlasting and Divine mercy towards us unworthy ones!
2001