Can Christians Follow Their Heart?

Lots of Evangelicals will say, "no" and will cite:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremias 17:9, KJV

That was King James. Here is Douay Rheims:

The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it
[Jeremias (Jeremiah) 17:9]

No, it's not a modern translation trying to pander to New Age or Progressive Christianity, the Old and New Testaments of the Vulgate (ready since St. Jerome) were translated to English in the Spanish Netherlands, in Douay, and in France, in Rheims.* Why not in England? Because England, at the time, persecuted Catholics. Not exactly your hippies getting old or starting to read the Bible at 60 scenario.**

Doesn't say "deceitful" but "perverse" and doesn't say "wicked" but "unsearchable" ... there is a difference between a tempter tricking you, and a clumsy person tripping himself up, there is also a difference between the darkness of evil and the darkness of mystery.

Already, these are two very different views on the human heart, both in old translations, in English translations that are so old, they are not shown in their original spelling in most printed or online copies. The Douay Rheims was actually complete a few years before the King James, I think the latter of the two instalments was 1609 and King James was 1611.

But even a perverse thing is not totally trustworthy, is it? And if it's unsearchable, maybe you can't find the problem and fix it very easily?*** So, why follow it?

Well, one thing is, you may be better off following it after praying Psalm 50.

Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels
[Psalms 50:12]

But David was pretty well of following it most of the time, or even all of the time up to that thing with Bathseeba that he was here repenting of.

If you don't follow your heart, what do you follow? God? Excellent idea, but how do you know Him? The Bible? Yes, but how do you know what part of it is applicable unless your heart tells you so? Your priest? Yes, but how do you interpret his admonition from one week ago or one month ago or one year ago or more, unless your heart tells you what principle is at stake in the present moment?

Now, some would have you follow your family or Christian friends or employer or school teacher. To some degrees this can be right, but there are times when their hearts are not better off than yours. They should not be an excuse to never listen to your heart. You should not ask yourself "what would NN say?" instead of "what do I want to do?" or "what do I feel I ought to do?" (once, of course it is all within Christian doctrine, of course).

You see, if you are in a state of grace, your heart belongs to God, not the Devil. And the heart sometimes speaks out even against your flesh, but also even more often, unless you silence it, against the world.

Remember, the three enemies of your soul are not your heart, your curiosity and your free will, but the Devil, the World and the Own Flesh.

And before a certain heart in the news° told a man "I'm a woman" I bet lots in his surroundings (i e the World) told him so too, one way or another. So, no, I won't give transsexuals the credit even of following their heart.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Dionysius the Areopagite
9.X.2025

Lutetiae Parisiorum natalis sanctorum Martyrum Dionysii Areopagitae Episcopi, Rustici Presbyteri, et Eleutherii Diaconi. Ex his Dionysius, ab Apostolo Paulo baptizatus, primus Atheniensium Episcopus ordinatus est; deinde Romam venit, atque inde a beato Clemente, Romano Pontifice, in Gallias praedicandi gratia directus est, et ad praefatam urbem devenit; ibique, cum per aliquot annos commissum sibi opus fideliter prosecutus esset, tandem, a Praefecto Fescennino, post gravissima tormentorum genera, una cum Sociis, gladio animadversus, martyrium complevit.

PS, while the first feast of today is actually John Leonardi, I'm following my heart on a blog, which is my own and not the Church's in honouring the first bishop of the diocese I'm in. I've defended the thesis that Denis of Paris and Denis the Areopagite are one elsewhere: ACER Paris et Diocèse (plus tard Archidiocèse) de Paris./HGL

* Now Douai and Reims are both in France, Lewis XIV conquered some since back then. And spelling has been reformed, but not in the name of the Bible version. ** Obviously, hippies do get old, and it's better to start reading the Bible at 60 than never. *** It seems some professionals have tried to make a living of saying "we search the unsearchable and make it no longer perverse" ... if they aren't Jesus Christ, I wouldn't trust them with a good chance of success. ° More than one of those these days, no need for namedropping.