Troubled Hearts…I think this may be the most difficult spiritual quandary of our time. Troubled Hearts. Almost everyone I talk to seems to be troubled in one fashion or another. Troubled Hearts happen in big ways and it’s totally understandable. Someone’s diagnosed with Cancer and they’re scared…a crumbling marriage and the couple sees no way out but divorce…A husband and father who’s been out of work for over a year. These are huge issues that people are experiencing right here at Christ the King. And they have Troubled Hearts.

And then there are the little things in life that trouble us. Seemingly insignificant events like not being acknowledged by important people when you’ve done something good…or a petty little jab from your husband or wife because you’re an easy target helping them to blow off some steam…or even someone cutting in front of you at the HEB checkout line without as much as an acknowledgment or an excuse me. These small experiences add up like drops of water over time on a boulder that drip and drip and drip and eventually crack the rock. They give us troubled hearts.

Then there are the things that happen that have nothing to do with us at all but are every bit as troubling. The painful fights about immigration in our country…a country that roots its very origin in immigration…the constant tearing down of one candidate for president by another…that’s before we even talk about the fact that these candidates are all American…then there’s…Iran…Alcaida…The Taliban…Abortion…the Death Penalty…Drug Wars in Mexico spilling out into our country. These are troubling issues of our time for our hearts.

That’s what I keep coming back as I read over our psalm…If Today you hear His voice…harden not your hearts. In other words…if you hear Jesus speaking to you during this mass…which he is…in these readings…which he is…in my homily…which I hope he is…then don’t be troubled. Listen to the the rest of the psalm…Sing joyfully to the Lord…come into his presence with Thanksgiving…joyfully sing his psalms.
So what do we do? What do we do about our Troubled Hearts that seem to find little peace and almost no rest? Because this psalm doesn’t change the fact that people get cancer…or that marriages are difficult…or that good people are out of jobs. How do we actually do what the psalm tells us to do and how do we resolve our troubled hearts?

This week I came across something that I think is very interesting…a deep theological concept that helps me deal with the difficulties of my life. Here the thought…Troubled hearts are a result of belief in God that is too small. I’ll say it again…listen closely…Troubled Hearts are a result of believing in a small God. Here’s a good way to illustrate this…St. Anselm of Canterbury…one of our church’s finest theologians…he lived in the 1200s…He explained that God is that which nothing greater can be thought. This was his rational explanation of God. God is that than which nothing greater can be thought. In other words…think of the greatest thing your mind could ever wrap itself around…the Grand Canyon…God’s bigger than the Grand Canyon…the solar system…God is greater than the Solar System…All the Solar Systems that exist in the cosmos…God is greater than all of them. The Cosmos itself and everything that exists in the cosmos all put together…God is bigger. He is higher than the highest thing even conceivable…deeper than the deepest…vaster than the vastest…God is greater than even infinity itself. Now you might be asking…Fr. James what does this have to do with the fact that my heart is troubled right down here…in Belton, Texas. What does this have to do with my real problems today? I suggest that the grandness…the infinite…the incomprehensibility of God is exactly what brings us consolation in life. Despite what we may think…our troubled hearts don’t find rest and comfort in knowing things for sure…it’s just the opposite…our hearts rest in the profound not-knowing that comes from encountering the infinite God. It’s ironic I know…we actually find rest in God’s un-knowable infinite-ness.

Here’s some examples. Impressionism. The style of painting called Impressionism. We’ve all seen paintings by Monet. He painted in the Impressionism period in France in the 1800s. Impressionism is a style of painting where the closer you get to the painting the less clear it becomes. In fact…the closer you get to the actual brush strokes more chaotic it becomes…colors washing out colors with no rhyme or reason or shape at all. It’s only when you step back ten or twenty or even thirty feet from the painting where it appears as Monet envisioned. When you are far away from it…when you’re not trying to figure it out…when it is distant the painting actually comes into focus and understanding. That’s what God is like.

A 2^nd example…the Grand Canyon…a photo of the canyon…or a close up of the Colorado river cutting through a gorge with sheer sandstone cliffs on either side…or even you actually white water rafting down that river amidst the cliff faces doesn’t fully express the Grand Canyon. Standing on the south rim and taking it all in offers a much fuller approximation of the Grand Canyon. The closer we get into the canyon the less we appreciate its full meaning…the farther we stand from it the clearer it becomes. That’s what God is like.

A 3rd example…imagine a magnifying glass. When we magnify something…this podium for example…if I were to magnify this podium under intense power the wood wouldn’t be smooth like it looks to you and me. The magnification of the wood would show all of its imperfections…its splinters…its uneven surface…the defects in the grain. But standing here…a few feet back from the podium…looking at it from a broader perspective…the wood appears much different than up close…it’s smooth to the touch and the grain is easy to see and quite beautiful. This is like God.

So our troubled hearts…our major or not so major problems in this life…when we fall into the trap of over magnifying them…of obsessing on them in our time…for sure we’ll notice the deficiencies…the ugliness of each problem. But when we take a step back and place these problems in perspective of the grandness of infinite God that is greater than anything we could ever envision…it changes how we deal with what seems overwhelming down here. In fact when we place everything in our life…good or bad…over and against the infinite God we end up not magnifying our problems but actually minimizing them…because in comparison to the grandness of God they really are insignificant. Remember that passage from St. Paul’s epistle last week…this world is passing away. When we come to believe this…then there is no calamity that can overwhelm us…when we believe this…then the loss of a job…the break-down of a relationship…even something as scary as cancer won’t change a thing…God is still God and we are still on our way to his loving arms in heaven. This is why our hearts must never be troubled. You might remember that story I shared some time back about the great Jesuit priest Fr. Teilhard de Jardin…he was a scientist the 60s…and one day someone asked him…what if we blow up the world with nuclear bombs…what happens to your Christianity then? Nothing…Fr. Teilhard said…nothing…what is true will still be true…eternity will still be eternity…and God will still be God.

I’ve said this before...too often we think that our prayer should reach up to God and take some of him down into our hearts so that we feel his presence…and feel some calm in our anxieties. But just the opposite is true…real prayer should be something like this. Lord…do not let go of me…if you do I will sure be lost. Rather…take possession of me…take me into your greatness and possess me Lord. To surrender in this way is the beginning of wisdom…coming to know the eternity of God who is so much greater than anything this world could ever confront us with. So don’t afraid. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. If today you hear his voice…and you are…harden not your hearts.