{"id":46,"date":"2007-01-11T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-11T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/heart-of-it-all.html"},"modified":"2007-01-11T13:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-11T13:45:00","slug":"heart-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/heart-of-it-all.html","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of It All"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the Santas and stockings have disappeared to the North Pole along with the holly-jolly tunes and the Salvation Army bells, commercial-savvy marketers reach out in desperation for some holiday or other excuse to make us buy, buy, buy. And so out come the hearts heralding Cupid&#8217;s arrival on an arrow next month. <\/p>\n<p>A heart is a good symbol to have hanging around the drug store (that I visit every other day for refills and vitamins and candy to bribe the kids with) and the mall (which I have avoided since before Thanksgiving) because, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/nobelprize.org\/nobel_prizes\/peace\/laureates\/1979\/teresa-bio.html\">Mother Teresa<\/a>, holiness starts with a pure heart.<\/p>\n<p>In her book of reflections with <a href=\"http:\/\/blogcritics.org\/archives\/2005\/08\/19\/023813.php\">Brother Roger of Taize<\/a>, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0060682388\/beliefnet\">Seeking the Heart of God<\/a>,&#8221; Mother Teresa writes this about the heart:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be able to pray we need a pure heart. With a pure heart we can see God.<\/p>\n<p>Prayer gives us a clean heart and that&#8217;s the beginning of holiness. Holiness is not a luxury of the few; it is a simple duty for you and for me.<\/p>\n<p>Where does holiness begin? In our own hearts. That&#8217;s why we need that continual prayer&#8211;to keep our hearts clean, for the clean heart becomes the tabernacle of the living God.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the Santas and stockings have disappeared to the North Pole along with the holly-jolly tunes and the Salvation Army bells, commercial-savvy marketers reach out in desperation for some holiday or other excuse to make us buy, buy, buy. And so out come the hearts heralding Cupid&#8217;s arrival on an arrow next month. A&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Heart of It All - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/heart-of-it-all.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Heart of It All - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now that the Santas and stockings have disappeared to the North Pole along with the holly-jolly tunes and the Salvation Army bells, commercial-savvy marketers reach out in desperation for some holiday or other excuse to make us buy, buy, buy. And so out come the hearts heralding Cupid&#8217;s arrival on an arrow next month. A&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/heart-of-it-all.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-11T13:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Heart of It All - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/01\/heart-of-it-all.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Heart of It All - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Now that the Santas and stockings have disappeared to the North Pole along with the holly-jolly tunes and the Salvation Army bells, commercial-savvy marketers reach out in desperation for some holiday or other excuse to make us buy, buy, buy. 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