Undusted Texts

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 th...

I have sometimes heard complaints that certain devotions that have become popular as the Church has progressed through history are too revolutionary, that since they are not rooted enough in the most fundamental doctrines of the Church taught since the times of the apostles they are just new fads a saint or other spiritual writer came up with off the top of his or her head. While I cannot say that there are no absolutely no devotions like this, I think I can safely say that the majority of devotions grew and developed over time (like doctrine does) and was merely given a more normative exposition by a certain saint or spiritual writer. One example of this is seen in the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, associated most with St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. According to The Revelations of Margaret of Cortona , about a Third Order Franciscan saint from a few centuries before St. Margaret Mary, she was not the first to have this devotion: "Long before the revelations of Our Lord to...