Bowels of Mercy

The heart is the metaphorical center of man's emotions: when he speaks "from the heart," he is saying what is truest to him, what he really feels.  When we listen to "what the heart says," we are listening to those deep feelings that we really hold, but which we might try to avoid (our subconscious, if we want to speak psychologically).  When we "pour out our heart," we are unleashing the feelings we normally keep under wraps.  It is fitting that the Lord Who knows all--even our deepest thoughts and feelings--would be described as the "heart-knower" (καρδιογνωστης) (Acts 1:24, 5:8).

So it is in English, at least.  But other languages have other metaphors, other arrangements of bodily functions.  Thus Hebrew, and often Greek, finds the seat of emotions in another place: the bowels.

We have many English names for what is buried in our abdomen: bowels, guts, innards, entrails, viscera, inner organs, etc.  They generally all refer to the same thing: that mess of organs and tissues and blood hidden beneath our belly-skin.  At first, it might sound disgusting to find the seat of our emotions there, in that bloody mess, but don't forget what the heart--the true heart, not the scalloped symbol of Valentine's Day candy--is like: a bloody mass of muscle, with tubes and veins all over.

Further thought finds that the bowels are not absent from English feelings either.  When we "have a bad feeling about this," it's not generally a feeling in our heart or in our head: it's a feeling in our guts.  It's a "sinking in our stomach."  (Though it can also include a creeping on our skin and goosebumps.)  When we feel oddly confident about something, we say that it's a "gut feeling."  Something that we revile makes us "sick to our stomach."  

Most of these bowel-feelings in English are negative, with the notable exception of a confident "gut feeling."  But in Hebrew and Greek, the feelings are many, and the most striking--to me--is what is simply known as "good-bowels" (ευσπλαγχνια, eusplagchnia).

One of the oldest known Marian prayers is the one typically known by its Latin title, Sub tuum praesidium, "Beneath your protection."  Latin was not its origin, though: the earliest form is found in Greek, in a Coptic liturgical text.  (The Coptic language itself is originally a liturgical amalgam of Demotic Egyptian and Greek, and Coptic liturgical texts often borrow Greek words, phrases, or even whole prayers without alteration.)    In that form--still prayed in Byzantine Churches around the world--we do not flee to Mary's "protection," but rather to her "compassion" or "mercy," or--more literally--her "good bowels" (ευσπλαγχνια).

These "good-bowels" mean that one's deepest feelings toward another are good, in a full sense.  Greek has other words in this sphere: συμπαθεια (sympatheia) is the origin of "sympathy," that "suffering-with" that is the exact same etymological meaning as "compassion"; ελεος (eleos) is the general term for "mercy," which Greek writers constantly relate to its near-homonym ελαιος (elaios), "oil," so that mercy is like pouring cleansing, healing oil on wounds.  We Byzantines constantly pray for the Lord's mercy, for His ελεος (sharing a root with the imperative ελεησον, eleison), but we also often speak of the Lord's great ευσπλαγχνια.  Perhaps we might (tentatively) say that ελεος is more active, more related to the work of mercy, whereas ευσπλαγχνια is more of a state of being, a condition, though one that necessarily flows forth into action. 

So, as the Romans celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday, we can all recall the All-Merciful Lord and the deep compassion He has for us, the deep goodness of His bowels towards us, and also the compassion of His Mother, in which we take refuge, she who is the tongs holding the "noetic coal taking flesh from you...burning up the woody sins of all mortals, and Goddenning"--or, more Latinately, "divinizing"--"our nature through His compassion" (Pentecostarion, Sunday of the 5th Week, Canon of the Samaritan Woman, Ode 8).  

May He ever have compassion for us, He Who is the Lover of Mankind.

Text ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.