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The naked heart

 

A naked heart, is a heart completely abandoned to divine mercy and the love of God.

Jeanne de Chantal

In correspondence in May of 1616 between St Francis de Sales and Jeanne de Chantal, Francis wrote encouraging her to continue the exercise of her naked abandonment to God with the prayer:

... Lord, pull, pull firmly from my heart all that clothes it. Oh Lord, I do not withhold anything - seperate me from myself....

Jeanne responded:

Certainly, I have a great desire and, it seems to me, a firm resolution to remain in my nakedness, by the grace of God - and I hope He will help me. I feel that my spirit is utterly free and with an unknown, infinite, and profound consolation to see itself in God's hands like this. It is true that the rest of me remains astonished........ if I wished to allow it my soul would seek to reclothe itself with the feelings and expectations that our Lord has given it. But I will not permit this, so that its motions are only perceived as if they were far away..

True nakedness is unveiled personhood, and is totally incompatible with lust that only breeds shame, addiction and emptiness.

The opening of Pandora's box, the release of 'the knowing of other than person' at the Fall necessitated the veiling of personhood as protection against impersonal objective knowing - the perception of death.

The original beauty of naked personhood was lost at the Fall, but restored in the Redemption

With the veil in the temple being torn in two from top to bottom at the death of Christ, humanity was provided with a way back to the the pure perception and innocence of the Garden of Eden.

C S Lewis in the 'The Great Divorce' writes:

I cannot remember now whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost invisible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through her clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: The spiritual body lives along each thread, and turns them into living organs.
 

image A naked heart, and the appropriate interaction with others in the nakedness of their heart is central to a vital Christianity.  Paradoxically one of the biggest threats to the nakedness of heart we are facing at this time is through pornography and sexual immorality.  Again paradoxically it is through embracing virtues which includemodesty and self-control that we can be liberated.

 

See also Nakedness and Primitive Christianity.

 

 

God as Good! 

 
  Who is your God?

The character of Yahweh vs the character of Jesus

Goodness Love and Virtue (A theological appraisal of the 'Old Testament God')

The 'Wrath of God' as Satan

The Prodigal Son

The Jericho Thought Experiment - WWJD?

William Law

Goodness Love and Virtue (pdf version for printing)

God is only Love

Jesus Healing Music

God is Good Links


 
 
 

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