“Heart speaks to heart.” This was St. John Henry Newman’s motto and it has the ring of truth to it. “Heart-to-heart” conversations pierce to the core. In a heart-to-heart, we open ourselves up and invite someone else to see what is inside of us, to see who we are, to see our secrets.
When heart speaks to heart like this, hearts beat in unison. The intimate knowledge of the secrets of our hearts forms the basis for a deep friendship, “For the true sign of friendship is that a friend reveals the secrets of his heart to his friend” (Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John). Friends know what’s in each other’s hearts. And friends share what’s in each other’s hearts. When our friends’ hearts burst with joy, the joy is contagious. When our friends’ hearts break, ours break with them. This is why we call a friend another self, because it’s like we share one heart.
In the Gospel, we see the heart of Jesus speak to the heart of the Father. In one scene, Jesus prays,
I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11:25-27)
Here we glimpse the eternal heart-to-heart that goes on in God. The heart of Jesus and the heart of the Father beat in perfect harmony, displaying the dynamics of divine love. The Father and the Son know each other perfectly with the most perfectly intimate and personal knowledge. And they love each other perfectly—with a love so perfect that it is also a person, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love.
We can only know this eternal heart-to-heart if God invites us into the conversation. We need God to open his heart to us—we need Revelation. God reveals his heart most fully in Jesus: “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” In Jesus, the divine heart speaks to our human hearts. Jesus is the way into the heart of God, the way into the inner life of God. United to the heart of Jesus, we share in the eternal heart-to-heart of God. In the sacraments, in prayer, in reading Scripture, the heart of Jesus speaks to us, opening up the secrets of God’s heart to us. Then, when our hearts beat in unison with God’s heart, we see everything in a different light, the light of God’s love. The greatest joys and sorrows, the most mundane tasks, become moments in which we learn to love what God loves as God loves. In this way, Jesus makes us friends of God.
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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
