The spiritual heart 2

To begin, every Christian must focus inward toward his heart and search in it to become better acquainted with it, and not to undertake just a superficial search, but to search in depth and especially at those points which are much darker. The investigation

must be done under the abundant light of Divine Grace and of the Holy Spirit. Here also the Christian must ask for this light from God so his eyes can see in the dark depth of his heart, saying: "Shine within our hearts, loving Master, the pure light of Your divine knowledge and open the eyes of our mind." And the light will come. But this is not enough. Honesty and humility are necessary in our investigation into the heart.

If you want to look into your heart with honesty and humility and to reach, to find whatever bad thing is in there, you will definitely see it. Then the road towards purification will be opened. With God's Grace and with your ascetical struggle, bad things will be removed and the heart will be cleansed.

If you do not want to investigate your heart, if you do not want to look inward with honesty and humility, then you'll never be able to purify it. Do not think therefore that just because you do not see the bad things you have in it, that they do not exist. They exist and will exist, and as long as you are willfully blind, they will get bigger, they will enrage, and like other wild animals, will tear to pieces whatever good there is in you.

While you will be thinking that the bad things don't exist since you won't be seeing them, everyone else around you will be seeing them. This is so because when we have something evil in our heart, sooner or later it will surface and appear in our actions, in our facial expressions, in our words and movements. Everyone else will see it. Only you won't be able to see it because you won't want to see it.

              Abbott Spyridon, The Heart