Return to the Heart

In one of his most famous lines, St. Augustine exclaims, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Hans Urs von Balthasar took St. Augustine’s profound insight and reflected upon it from a different perspective—God’s perspective. Addressing Jesus, and speaking for all human beings, Balthasar exclaims, “Your Heart is restless until it rests in me. Your Heart is restless until we rest in you, once time and eternity have become interfused.”

God yearns for us (see Song of Sol. 4:1–15; Hosea 2:14–20, 11:1–9; Luke 13:34–35, 19:41–42). God longs for us. God eagerly wills that each and every one of us might accept his offer of an eternal share in the divine life and love, so that we might be united with him forever. That is why Jesus knocks insistently at the door to our hearts (Rev. 3:20), but as Balthasar points out, we so often immerse ourselves in the stresses (and the distractions) of daily life that we fail to hear that knocking (or may even deliberately try to drown it out).

The rest of this article can be read at my Substack, "Beauty-Goodness-Truth", or at Word on Fire.