My dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord give you his peace as we begin our reflection today. In our readings from Genesis and the Gospel of Mark, we catch again another tiny glimpse into the eternal heart of God and the concern he has always shown us, his precious, treasured creation. For God created all things good, but with man he showed particular charity and adorned him with gifts beyond any other living creature. In his care for man, God set parameters, limits, and rules that would govern his well-being. We get a glimpse of this in the reading from Genesis with things he could eat and enjoy in the garden of Eden, and those things God asked him to refrain from for his own good.
This concern God has for man is further elaborated upon by Jesus in today’s gospel. We are told that it is the heart of man we ought to guard the most. I’d like to give you an analogy using the Titanic.
The RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912, and was intended to reach New York City, USA. However, it tragically sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The Titanic was powered by a combination of steam engines and steam turbines—two hearts if you will, to keep the masterful piece of engineering afloat. It had two main reciprocating steam engines, which were capable of producing a combined power output of about 30,000 horsepower. These engines drove the two outer propellers. In addition to the reciprocating engines, the Titanic used a single low-pressure steam turbine that drove the central propeller, which contributed an additional 16,000 horsepower.
Now, if we apply this to the lesson the Lord may wish us to ponder today, the heart is that flaming furnace which keeps the ship of our soul and body afloat and running. It’s the motor which drives the entire mechanism. And when we say the heart, we don’t mean the solely physical aspect of the heart (although it is in fact literally the power station for the rest of the body), for Jesus is hinting at something deeper, something even more marvellous, for it is in the heart that we treasure what we consider most precious to us, but it can also be the place where we harbor hate, and bitterness and things that cast us down. A bit vexed with his apostles, Jesus says, ““Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Our Lord is asking us to pray over and pay particular attention therefore to what is coming out of our hearts. Like the furnaces of the titanic that needed to be taken care of, through a consistent routine of precautionary maintenance, so too, our hearts need to be maintained and guarded from harboring evil. Yes, things inevitably come into our hearts from the outside and effect it, but what we do with those things, whether we decide to hold on to them there, is up to us. The more we allow anger and hatred and bitterness to wallow therein, the more apt we are to manifest or act out the aggression and sin they provoke.
Hence the importance of God’s grace and aid to help purify our hearts. It is said that before the Titanic made it’s glorious first and last voyage, the captain, instead of praying to God for a safe journey, remarked that “Even God himself cannot sink this ship.”
There is no reliable evidence to support that the captain said this, however, a more accurate statement has been reported. In 2007 the book "A Night to Remember" by Walter Lord reported that the White Star Line's press release for the Titanic's maiden voyage in April 1912 said: "Not even God himself could sink this ship, for it is practically unsinkable." The point I’m making is that without God we can accomplish nothing of value. Our heart is purified and maintained by another beating heart. Just as through the combined power output from two, not one source, the Titanic was able to move forward, so to it is not just about our heart alone, but how the heart of God, that is, his love and grace is necessary to shape our own hearts and destinies.
Let us therefore give our hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and continue to guard what keeps the entire mechanism going, for if evil is borne from within, so too is our praise and thanksgiving to God. Let us make our hearts the beating furnace which continually praises and thanks Almighty God for all he has done and continues to do for
us, day in and day out. May our thank-you to him be shown in our commitment to his divine will and to the building up of his glorious Kingdom in the hearts of men. Mother Mary, Queen of the Seas, Queen of our Hearts, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
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