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| Source: ancientfaith.com |
"And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart."(Lk. 8:15)
Here is a precise definition of the heart within the Orthodox spiritual tradition wonderfully summarized by Archbishop Kallistos Ware, and found in his classic, The Orthodox Way. An Orthodox "spiritual cardiology" is concerned with "guarding the heart" in the "warfare against the passions:"
HEART (kardia): not simply the physical organ but the spiritual center of man’s being, man as made in the image of God, his deepest and truest self, or the inner shrine, to be entered only through sacrifice and death, in which the mystery of the divine and human is consumated. "I called with my whole heart," says the psalmist - that is, with body, soul and spirit." (St. John Klimakos, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 28).
For an extended meditation on the Parable of the Sower, as found in yesterday's Gospel reading of Lk. 8:5-15, here is an older meditation on that theme:
