You do not have a modern heart.
Regardless of what any of us might think of modernity – love it, hate it, mistrust it, cheer it – it is not the stuff of which we are made. Like all cultures of every time, modernity is fleeting, nothing more than a puff of wind. Who we are and what we are, that which can be captured by the phrase, “the heart,” is rooted and grounded in eternity. It transcends even the time in which we are born and live. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” (Jer. 1:5) This is important for our self-understanding and in our knowledge of God.
There is this from St. Gregory of Nyssa:
The journey towards salvation is marked by a successive elimination of all that we “have,” in order to reach what we “are.” The safest path and surest refuge is not to be deluded and fail to recognize ourselves – who we truly are. We should not believe that we are seeing our Selves when we are only seeing something that surrounds us – our body, our senses, the idea that others have of us.
For anything unstable [that which changes] is not us.
The soul is purified in this way, as she lays aside garment after garment. So, the ideal [salvation] will appear as that supreme instant wherein the soul, having laid aside all of her “corporeal” veils, presents herself naked and pure in spirit to the vision of God in a divine vigil. (Paraphrased by Von Balthasar in Presence and Thought, 1995.)
I remember some years ago being engaged in conversations regarding the role that culture “should” play in theology. The idea that was being presented (with which I disagreed) was that as culture changes, so theology should change as well. It was suggested that culture was something “incarnational” – that it should enjoy a privileged position as though it were comparable to Scripture. That argument has actually carried the day within the liberal protestant denominations. To be accurate, the argument was disingenuous, in that it was merely a justification for a process that was already well underway.
It would be tragic if the same process were to be adopted by an individual and interpreted as “discovering the true self.” A thermometer tells you the temperature of the air around you but says nothing about whether it is breathable.
St. Gregory recognized that who we are is not that which surrounds us, nor even the various “corporeal veils,” the signals sent to us by our bodies. We are not a social construct. The heart (which is also described as the “nous,” the “eye of the soul”) is at the very core of our being. It is the faculty by which we perceive God. It is in the communion between God and the self that we truly reside: it is the “who” of our existence. We are a communion of fullness in our union with God. This is not a “religious” abstraction – it is a description of the true character of our being, of our relating to all things. It is the description of our life as grounded in communion, with all and through all.
Culture is ephemeral, constantly changing and adapting itself to circumstances and various transient forces. There is no permanence in any culture. The nature of our human existence, at its truest and greatest depth, has a timeless character. Human beings today, compared to human beings of 10,000 years ago, are the same. We are created in the image and likeness of God, and this remains the truth of our existence.
St. Gregory speaks of “laying aside garment after garment” in a work of purification that drives us towards the vision of God. Of course, some garments are easier to lay aside than others. Certain garments of wrong-doing are probably the easiest to identify. There are other garments that we have long mistaken for our very identity. These are not easily removed (just as they are not easily identified). It is perhaps helpful to know that we do not know who we are until God Himself tells us. When Christ says to Simon-Bar-Jonah, “You are Peter [a rock], and on this rock I will build my Church,” we are witnessing just such a revelation. It is not a relating of ecclesiastical position. I suspect that only Peter himself could tell us its true meaning – and it required his entire lifetime to make that discovery.
The garment of St. Paul’s false identity likely began to fall away at the very moment that he was thrown from his horse on the road to Damascus. He describes a number of later sufferings:
From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness — 2 Cor. 11:24-27
He is ultimately able to write:
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20)
Very few endure such hardships, though I suspect that the inner scourgings that many endure are even more difficult to bear.
For St. Paul, there is an image towards which he moves: the crucified Christ “who loved me and gave Himself for me.” It is that knowledge, that fullness of communion, that allows him to lay aside the weight of anything that holds him back. At its very heart, you can hear the soul’s voice of love.
There are very few epochs in human history that have endured greater assaults on fundamental human realities than our own. It is little wonder that “identity” has become a watchword and a battleground. St. Gregory’s imagery of “laying aside” the veils is a patient work and a gift of grace. It is important to remember that we are not creating the true self – it is being discovered and revealed. More important still is the fact that this true heart exists in the image and likeness of God.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Our attention is rightly directed towards the prototype, the image and glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, rather than towards ourselves. Love God. Love your neighbor. Move beyond the veils.
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