The Way to Christ is Within and Through the Heart

The way to Christ is within and through the heart. If we desire to meet the Lord Jesus Christ and have communion with Him we must first purify our nous and our innermost being, our heart, and and in this way prepare a holy habitation for our Lord.

Fr Zacharias Zacharou, that blessed disciple of Elder Sophrony of Essex, explains in his book, 'The Hidden Man of the Heart' p.1,

Edited by Christopher Veniamin Mount Thabor Publishing 2008;

"All the ordinances of the undefiled Church are offered to the world for the sole purpose of discovering the deep heart (Ps.64:6) center of man's hypostasis (person). According to the Holy Scriptures, God has fashioned every heart in a special way, and each heart is His goal, a place wherein He desires to abide that He may manifest Himself.

Since the kingdom of God is within us (Luke17:21), the heart is the battlefield of our salvation, and all ascetic effort is aimed at cleansing it of all filthiness, and preserving it pure before the Lord. 'Keep thy heart of with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life', exhorts the wise Solomon, the wise king of Israel (Prov.4:23). These paths of life pass through man's heart, and therefore the unquenchable desire of all who ceaselessly seek the Face of the living God is that their heart, once deadened by sin, may be rekindled by His grace." 

Our great father among the saints, St. Macarius, whose words are so filled with Grace, tells us in his Homily No. 13 that; " All visible things God created, and gave them to men for

recreation and enjoyment, and he gave them also a law of justice. But ever since Christ's coming, God demands other fruit and another righteousness, namely, a purity of heart, a good conscience, profitable speech, holy and good thoughts, and all the works of the saints. For the Lord says: "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is written in the Law: Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, Do not lust or be angry" (Mt. 5:20 ff.).

For it is necessary that he who truly desires to be a friend of God keep himself from the mire of sin, but for the eternal fire which is in us, (This refers to the presence of the Holy Spirit as fire within the human soul that accepts divine grace and lives in a way that becomes a living temple of the Holy Spirit. Cf. Homily 25:9). This makes us worthy of the kingdom. Glory to his mercy and to his propitious will toward us, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. From Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, p 104, Translated and Edited by George A. Maloney, S.J., Paulist Press 1992

And in Homily 19 p. 146-147 St Macarius states that, "The personmthat wishes to come to the Lord and to be deemed worthy of eternal life and to become the dwelling place of Christ and to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that he may be able to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit and perform the commandments of Christ purely and blamelessly oughth to begin first by believing firmly in the Lord and giving himself completely to the words of his commands and renouncing the world in all things so that his whole mind may not be taken up with anything ephemeral. And he ought to persevere constantly in prayer, always waiting in faith that expects his coming and his help, keeping the goal of his mind ever fixed upon this. Then he ought to push himself to every good work and to doing all the commandments of the Lord, because there is sin dwelling within him. Thus let him strive to show humility before every person and to consider himself the least and the worst. Let him not seek honor or praise or the glory of men as it is written in the Gospel (Jn. 12:44).

But let him only have always before his eyes the Lord and His commands, wishing to please him alone in the meekness of his heart , as the Lord says: "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29).

Likewise let him accustom himself to be merciful, compassionate and good according to his power, as the Lord says: "Be good and kind, even as your heavenly Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36). And again he says: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John14:15). And again: "Strive to enter through the narrow door" (Luke 13:24). Above all, let him take the humility and conduct of the Lord, his meekness and conversation, as his model by ever remembering him.

Let him continue incessantly in prayers, always beseeching and believing that the Lord may come to dwell in him and may perfect and give him power to accomplish all his commands and that the Lord himself may become the dwelling place for his soul.

And thus the things he now does with effort of a reluctant heart, he may perform one day willingly, accustoming himself always to the good and remembering the Lord and waiting for him always in great love. Then the Lord, seeing such an intention and his good  diligence, how he strives to remember the Lord and always seeks to do good and is humble and meek and loving, how he guides his heart, whether he wishes or not, to the best of his ability with force, has mercy on him and frees him from his enemies and the indwelling sin. He fills him with the Holy Spirit. And gradually, without force or struggle he keeps all of the Lord's commandments in truth. Or, rather, it is the Lord who keeps in him his very own commandments, and then he brings forth purely the fruits of the Spirit." From Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, Translated and Edited by George A. Maloney, S.J., Paulist Press 1992

Fr. Zacharias continues, " The heart is the true temple of man's meeting with the Lord. Man's heart 'seeketh knowledge' (Prov.15:14), both intellectual and divine, and knows no rest until the Lord of Glory comes and abides therein. On His part God, Who is a 'jealous God' (Ex. 34:14) will not settle for a mere portion of the heart. In the Old Testament we hear His voice crying out, 'My son, give me thy heart' (Prov. 23:26); and in the New Testament He commands: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.' (Matt. 12:30). He is the one Who has  fashioned the heart of every man in an unique and unrepeatable way, though no heart can contain Him fully because 'God is greater than our heart' (1 John 3:20). Nevertheless when man succeeds in turning his whole heart to God, then God Himself begets it by the incorruptible seed of His word, seals it with His wondrows Name, and makes it shine with His perpetual and charismatic presence. He makes it a temple of His Divinity, a temple not made by hands, able to reflect His 'shape' and to hearken unto His 'voice' and 'bear' His Name (cf. John 5:37; Acts 9:15). In a word, man then fulfills the purpose of his life, the reason for his coming into the transient existence of this world. The great tragedy of our time lies in the fact that we live, speak, think, and even pray to God, outside our heart, outside our Father's house. And truly our Father's house is our heart, the place where 'the spirit of glory and of God' (1 Peter 4:14) would find repose, that Christ may be 'formed in us' (Gal. 4:19). Indeed only then can we be made whole, and become hypostases in the image of the true and perfect Hypostasis, the Son and Word of God , Who created us and redeemed us by the precious Blood of His ineffable sacrifice.

Yet, as long as we are held captiveby our passions, which distract our mind from our heart and lure it into the ever-changing and vain world of natural and created things, thus depriving us of all spiritual strength, we will not know the new birth from on High that makes us children of God and gods by grace. In fact, in one way or another, we are all 'prodigal sons' of our Father in heaven, because as the Scriptures testify, 'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God' (Rom. 3:23). Sin has separated our mind from the life-giving contemplation of God and led it into a 'far country  (Luke 9:15). In this 'far country' we have been deprived of the honour of our Father's embrace and, in feeding swine, we have been made subject to demons. We gave ourselves over to dishonorable passions and the dreadful famine of sin, which then established itself by force, becoming the law of our members.

But now we must come out of this godless hell and return to our Father's house (our heart-emphasis mine) so as to uproot the law of sin that is within us and allow the law of Christ's commandments to dwell in our heart. For the only path leading out of the torments of hell to the everlasting joy of the Kingdom is that of the divine commandments: with our whole being we are to love God and our neighbour with a heart that is free of all sin. The return journey from this remote and inhospitable land is not an easy one, and there is no hunger more fearful than that of a heart laid waste by sin. Those in whom the heart is full of the consolation of incorruptible grace can endure all external deprivations and afflictions, transforming them into a feast of spiritual joy; but the famine in a hardened heart lacking divine consolation is a comfortless torment. There is no greater misfortune than that of an insensible and petrified heart that is unable to distinguish between the luninous Way of God's Providence and the gloomy confusion of the ways of this world.

On the other hand, throughout history there have been men whose hearts were filled with grace. These chosen vessels were enlightened by the spirit of prophecy, and were therefore able to distinguish between Divine Light and the darkness of this world. No matter how daunting and difficult the struggle of purifying the heart may be, nothing should deter us from this undertaking. We have on our side the ineffable goodness o God Who has made man's heart His personal concern and goal. From 'The Hidden Man of the Heart' p.2-3, Edited by Christopher Veniamin,

Mount Thabor Publishing 2008