The Selfish Heart
Seek not worldly affirmation for your will. Rather, seek heavenly affirmation that you are doing God's will.
Several weeks ago, I was listening to the Crusade Channel on a Sunday. Those of you who are familiar with the Crusade Channel (and if you are not, you should be. Click on the image below) know that, on Sundays, they are closed (as all good Christian businesses should be) and so, rather than offering live radio for our listening pleasure, they air per-recorded sermons and homilies.
As I was listening, I heard an excellent sermon about how self-centered world views prevent us from humbly submitting to God’s will in our lives. Unfortunately, I was driving at the time and unable to take note of who was speaking or any relevant information which would help me find it again. TheKingDude said he would look it up for me but, hey, he’s a busy guy and I’ve put off this substack long enough.
Anyway, it was a great sermon about how we have selfies, self-image, and self-improvement - everything today is so focused on the self. But it doesn’t make anyone happy. We are never satisfied. The only way to be truely satisfied is to put aside ourselves, practice self-sacrifice, and focus on doing God’s will instead of our own.
If I ever manage to track it down, I’ll share some quotes.
In the meantime, this sermon has bopped around in my head for weeks and I just wanted to share with you all some of my thoughts on the subject.
The selfish heart seeks affirmation of its own will
Today we are faced with a heavy push for affirmation of any and all lifestyles which formerly would have been immediately considered sinful. For extreme examples of this, we may easily present the entire LGBT pride movement and the horrendous “shout your abortion” campaign.
It is not enough for them to simply make their choices and live these lifestyles. They must be affirmed in them. They must gather “allies” to their cause and enforce societal acceptance and celebration of their choices. They must alter language and change the rules of grammar to suit their purposes.
Any and all who would oppose their will must be suppressed - even, at times, their own when one group is not “woke” enough to affirm the even more extreme wills of another group or when inclusion isn’t inclusive enough for the mob.
But the selfish heart does not only seek affirmation in the extreme. We see teens dressing in promiscuous clothing, daring their parents to take away their “freedom of self-expression.”
The same teens and young adults are engaging in hook-up culture, emboldened by the affirmation that “everyone is doing it.”
Men and women, unhappy in their marriages, seek out friends who affirm that they should get a divorce because “God wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.”
Young women facing difficult pregnancies are coerced and comforted into getting an abortion, buying into the belief that they can’t handle the burden or that a child will ruin their career.
Basically, the selfish heart will latch onto whatever words it wants to hear, whatever will eliminate some difficulty, make it feel better, or justify an action which, deep in its soul, it know is wrong.
But this worldly affirmation will never be enough. It cannot wipe away the doubts and worries, the quiet whispers of a conscience long suppressed. And so it will continue to seek more worldly affirmation to drown out the voice of truth. It will rally louder and corrupt those around it to justify its own will.
This is why the LGBT movement is trying so hard to push its ideals onto our youth. The selfish heart loves company and the young are most easily swayed.
The selfish heart hides from truth
The selfish heart will always avoid confrontation. It will avoid directly facing the truth and focus on those words of affirmation mentioned above.
This means avoiding anyone and anything which it knows will speak the truth. Often times, this is parents and other loved ones.
Teenagers don’t usually tell their parents when they begin engaging in sexual activities. They will justify it by saying, “it’s none of their business,” when the real reason is that they already know how their parents will respond.
Many people who get caught up in a habit of sin or embrace a sinful lifestyle will avoid going to church. They do not want to hear the words of God telling them to repent and turn back to Him. They will come up with excuses not to go and thus commit further sin.
Even if they continue going to church, they will avoid the Sacraments. Well-formed Catholics know that they are not to receive the Eucharist whilst living in a state of mortal sin. Too many are ill-catechized on this matter or choose to disregard it because the selfish heart cannot bear to have anyone know they are living in sin.
It can be quite humbling to remain in the pew and not go up for Communion. And yet humiliation is exactly the remedy God has provided to heal our selfish hearts. Those who feel the weight of heavy sin often find the Sacrament of Confession to be the most terrifying thing - it requires a complete humbling of self, admitting what we have done wrong and laying ourselves down at the foot of the Cross, begging for Christ’s mercy.
The Confession of Saint Longinus by Tissot
The selfish heart cannot recognize real love
When parents inevitably find out about the transgressions of their rebellious teenagers, they are faced with a choice. The world tells them that the “loving choice” is to accept, embrace, and celebrate whatever poor decisions their child has made.
They should not, by any means, tell them that they can’t be whatever gender they want or that it is sinful to engage in homosexual acts, or that “my body, my choice,” does not justify getting an abortion. These messages are considered, by the secular world, to be hateful and bigoted.
But affirming sin is not love. Anything which encourages or permits others to continue to act against God’s law cannot be considered love. The truly loving choice is to rebuke them. In fact, if we do not then we commit sin ourselves, as it is written in Ezekial 2:18-19:
If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life.
I know of many mothers and fathers who pray daily for their children who have fallen away, who try to speak to them only to be ignored, insulted, and abused. I think of St. Monica who prayed everyday for her son’s conversion - how hard it must have been on her. Her story came out alright as her son, Augustine, went on to become a saint himself and is one of the best know theologians in the history of the Church. Sadly, the same cannot be said for all mothers who pray for their children.
The selfish heart cannot see how this is love. It sees only that the words of God and of loved ones are contrary to its own will. This fills the selfish heart with anger and bitterness. It will not see the love and charity which drives them to speak out against the sin.
The selfish heart suffers from anxiety
Axiety seems to plague our world today. So many people are on anti-depressants and anxiety medication. They have to see therapists and ask for trigger-warnings on social media posts because they… they just “can’t even”.
Why? Why are we all so filled with anxiety that we can’t handle the slightest thing poking into our bubbles of cupcakes and rainbows?
I don’t mean to say that their aren’t legitimate external sources for anxiety and depression - but I think a lot of it comes from the inside as well, and not just hormonal imbalances and what not.
The selfish heart is at war with itself. Truth eats at the selfish heart, threatening to tear it apart. It is hard work to maintian the facade that they actually believe that their selfish choices are right. It is exhausting to constantly convince yourself that what you are doing is actually making you happy. They have to keep feeding the lies, burying the truth under more and more moments of superficial, momentary endorphin boosts. Failing that, they self-medicate to take the edge off.
And when the truth starts to break through or something reminds them that maybe what they are doing is wrong, anxiety rears is head and drives them to an ugly place.
But the selfish heart is oblivious to this internal struggle. It seeks external causes and usually lays the blame on any and all who refuse to affirm them. They blame their parents, family, and friends. They begin systemically burning bridges and cutting themselves off from anyone whom they percieve to affect their mental and emotional health in a negative way.
Of course, there are true emotional abusers out there and these people should be cut off. But, too often, the selfish heart sees “abuse” in those who genuinly care for them and are only trying to help direct them back towards the path of righteousness.
The selfish heart is in all of us
It would be easy to look at all of this and say, “Phew, at least I’m not like them. I don’t have a selfish heart.” But we’d only be echoing the words of the pharisee in Luke 18: 10-14.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The fact of the matter is that we all have selfish hearts. We were born with them as a result of the fall and our lives are a constant battle between our stubborn, selfish hearts and the voice of God reaching out to us over and over.
This battle is not easily fought. We must train, daily to chose God’s will over our own. Taking time out from our business and pleasure to pray, fasting, tithing, giving of our time and talents to help others for no personal gain. All of these trianing helps to prepare us for the big battle.
When temptation arises, we must be prepared to deny ourselves. We must surround ourselves with those who affirm God’s will rather than our own. We must turn to Mary and the saints for intercession when the battle is hard.
I remember when I was a kid and had to “give something up” for Lent. I went along with it, because I was told to, but I didn’t really get why we were doing it. Something about Jesus giving his life for us so the least be could do was give up candy for forty days.
No one ever explained that we were training - that it wasn’t about giving up candy, but rather, learning self-disipline and self-sacrifice so that we would be prepared to face the temptations of the world and of our own selfish hearts.
It really is a shame that the Novus Ordo calendar did away with Ember Days and other fasts throughout the year. They took away so many opportunities for training ourselves and our children. I would encourage anyone who doesn’t already attend the Traditional Latin Mass to at least get ahold of a Traditional calander and learn about these important traditions.