A Heart that Sees: Purity, Desire & Discernment

I recently had the pleasure of giving an address to the seminarians of Vianney College, which is the seminary for the Diocese of Wagga Wagga.

For my non-Australian readers, Wagga Wagga in the Wiradjuri language means “the place of many crows”. This name is reflected in the coat of arms of the Diocese of Wagga Wagga, which has three crows on a blue background. The area is known for its agriculture, particularly beef and dairy products (the fetta from that place is by far the best I have ever had anywhere in the world). For a small regional city of 60000 (it takes five hours to drive there from Sydney), it is surprisingly multicultural. A sign of this is my friend Stina Constantine, who is of a migrant background (and more importantly founded Virtue Ministry and its associated podcast Living Fully), and was also last year’s winner of the “Ms Wagga Wagga” competition. This which made her an cultural ambassador of the city both domestically and internationally (Wagga’s sister cities are Nordlingen in Germany, Kunming in China and Leavenworth in the United States).

Given that I was addressing a seminary crowd, I was asked to speak on the subject of discernment. I tied the talk to the theme of purity of heart, echoing one of the Beatitudes where Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8).

Beginning from the Beatitude, I identified a nexus between the desire and sight, and looked at how desire forms an indispensable part of our discernment. In this respect, I channelled Julian Carron’s text The Radiance in Your Eyes: What Saves Us from Nothingness, to look at how the desire for totality not only protects us from the onslaught of nihilism creeping into our communities, but also puts us face to face with the eternity of God. As such, desire is not simply a distraction from the cold, hard process of decision making, but an integral part of longing to see the gaze of God that in turn, responds to that desire.

You can listen to the full address below, or on Soundcloud.

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