A New Heart, and a New Spirit
A New Heart, and a New Spirit
Let the subject of our meditation at the beginning of the new year be the saying of the Lord in the Book of Ezekiel:
“And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean; from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezekiel 37:25–27)
A New Heart, and a New Spirit
There are people who practice the means of grace without receiving their power.
Confession for them is merely getting rid of an old account in order to begin a new one. These have “a form of godliness,” yet their hearts have not changed.
They walk in the way of the Lord, but they still have the same dispositions, the same weaknesses, the same sins and faults.
But in this new year, we want the Lord to give us new hearts according to His promise. Thus we live a new life and make with Him a new covenant.
We want to perceive this change in our lives, so that the Lord renews our youth like the eagle’s, and we say to Him: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Give me to rejoice in Your dwelling in my heart, and grant me the joy of Your salvation.
Enough of the years that the locust has eaten, and let me hear Your beautiful melody: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you.”
From this promise it appears that the work of our purification is God’s work. He is the One who gives the new heart, and He is the One who cleanses us from our uncleanness. He is the One who removes from us the heart of stone and places a new spirit within us.
He is the One who sprinkles us with His hyssop so that we may be clean, and washes us so that we become whiter than snow. It is He, not our human arm. He is the One who calls us saying, “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
“I will give you rest.” And how, O Lord? Remove the heart of stone from your flesh. And make you walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them. Blessed is Your name, O Lord. Therefore Saint Isaac says: “Whoever thinks that he has another way to repentance other than prayer is deceived by the demons.”
Therefore in this new year, hold on to the Lord with all your depths.
And say to Him: I will not let You go unless You bless me. I will not let You go until I receive from You help, and until You fulfill all Your promises, for You are faithful in Your promises. Why have You not removed from me the heart of stone? And where is the new heart?
This new heart has many symbols in the Holy Bible. Among them are those whom the Lord called by new names when He called them.
Abram was given by the Lord a new name, Abraham. Sarai became Sarah. Saul of Tarsus was called Paul, and Simon was called Peter. And in the ordination of priests and monks we often give them new names, as a symbol of the new life they will live. Even their clothes change, and their appearance also changes.
Do not let this new year pass over you while all the change in it is merely certain details or partial matters, without changing the whole essence.
Many times a person pays all attention to changing a certain disposition, or a particular sin, or some details of dealings or style of worship, and leaves the whole heart without change. The Lord warned us against this partial or superficial change when He said:
“No one puts a patch of new cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, lest the wineskins burst…” (Matthew 9:16–17).
Therefore it does not benefit you to bring a particular new behavior and attach it to your same sinful dispositions, and to the same love of self and of the world. A mere prayer, service, or religious activity attached to a sinful heart and a corrupt life is only a new patch on an old garment.
The whole heart must change from its foundation, with a new heart.
This heart filled with worldly desires, far from the fear of God and from His love, is not suitable to be repaired by some spiritual practices. For we say in the psalm: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”
Creating a heart means something new that did not exist before.
It is not a process of repair, restoration, beautification, or improvement, but a process of creation. The creation of a new heart is a gift from God.
The renewal of nature you receive in baptism, but the renewal of conduct is something that happens to you every day. It is not as some Protestant denominations say: “I was renewed on such-and-such a day and at such-and-such an hour.” The renewal of conduct is what we call repentance, about which the Apostle says:
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The renewing of the mind includes a new view of matters, a new understanding, a new kind of discernment, and evaluating matters with spiritual understanding. It is a change of the whole life, so that it is transformed from the life of the flesh to the life of the Spirit.
Look at the coal: it is black, dark, and soils whoever touches it. But once fire enters it, it becomes a live ember with light, heat, and flame. It loses its black color and begins to illuminate what it touches.
In the new year, have you been transformed from coal into an ember?
It is good that one of the seraphim took a live coal from the altar and purified Isaiah’s lips with it. The ember is a symbol of our black life that becomes beautiful when the divine fire enters it and kindles in it the heat of the Spirit. Upon this ember we place incense in the holy censer.
The priests hold the censers in their hands; inside them they transform coal into embers, and from above them the fragrance of incense rises, symbolizing the new life that has been ignited with the divine fire. In the ember you see something new, fundamentally different from the coal.
Are you still dark coal, or has the divine fire entered you, burned away the impurities of the world within you, and you have enjoyed the dwelling of God in you, becoming light and fervent in the Spirit?
It is a radical and essential process of change, not merely the change of one disposition among others.
But how does this change enter you? By the entrance of the love of God into your heart.
God must pour His love into you through the Holy Spirit, remove from you the love of the present world which is enmity with God, and remove from you the love of self, so that you may have a new heart.
Your problem in life is that you live in a struggle without stability:
You fall and rise, you sin and repent, then you return and sin again. You love the world practically, and you love God in faith or in theory, and your life becomes a struggle between the flesh and the spirit. “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” So that the saying of one writer applies to you: “I was struggling with myself and striving, as if I were two in one: this pushes me, and that restrains me.”
This is the duality in which you live: a struggle between good and evil, between lawful and unlawful, between God and the world. The love of God has not yet settled in your heart, and the love of the world still attracts you. You do not yet have that pure heart which loves goodness from its depths, possesses it, and lets God possess all its feelings and emotions.
Therefore ask in the new year that God grant you His love, so that you love Him with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Do not place goodness before you as a commandment, but as a desire that you long for.
This is the new heart, the steadfast one, which does not hesitate between two ways and does not live in duality. God has removed from it the heart of stone, and it no longer struggles. Thus God becomes peace within, peace with God.
Therefore pray with all your heart and say:
Remove from me, O Lord, the heart of stone, for I am not able to remove it. Remove it by Your grace and the work of Your Holy Spirit. I do not rely on myself, which has fallen, but on Your power.
I am like a man pursued by death, holding firmly to the horns of the altar in one of the cities of refuge so that he may not perish.
O Lord, I will not leave You until I become whiter than snow. My purity is Your work. Do we not say to You in the Divine Liturgy: “Purify our souls, our bodies, and our spirits”?
Enter into a struggle with God; hold Him and do not let Him go, with tears, with prostrations, with fasts, with prayers, with unceasing persistence, with longsuffering. Do not despair if the answer is delayed, for your persistence is proof of the seriousness of your request.
All who struggled with God received their request. Say to Him: I will not leave You this year. It will not be lost like the past years. I will not leave You on this New Year’s Eve. These weaknesses will not continue with me as long as Your grace works. I will not relinquish Your promises.
Remember for me the word upon which You caused me to hope, which has comforted me in my humiliation (Psalm 118).
The prayers of David would turn at the same time from request to thanksgiving, because he would not leave the Lord until he received the answer. This is what we want in the new year, and we insist upon it until we change.
Try with God reproach, persistence, struggle, and patience. Speak to Him with love, speak to Him with tears, speak to Him with dialogue. Open your heart to Him and surrender to His work in you. Beware lest the Lord’s saying apply to you:
“How often I wanted… and you did not want.”
I want, O Lord—so come. In the new year, do not look backward, but say to the Lord:
The year 76 I will bury in Your abundant mercies. I will cast it into the depth of Your love. I will leave it for You to wash it and make it white. Then I will forget it and begin with You anew—with a new heart and a new spirit.
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Seventh Year (Issue Fifty-Three) – 31-12-1976
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