The Circumcision of the Heart

It’s Fénelon Friday!

LETTER 40: The Circumcision of the Heart

Our eagerness to serve others often arises from mere natural generosity instead of a real Christian love. Sometimes, serving others seems like a good way for self to convince itself of how good it really is. But service which does not come out of real love will soon turn sour. True love is simple and always the same toward its neighbor. It is humble, and never thinks of itself. Anything which is incompatible with divine love must be renounced.

It is by the circumcision of the heart (the cutting ting away of selfish impurity) that we are made children of Abraham’s family of faith. And, like Abraham, we are able to leave our native country without knowing where we are going. What a blessed lot in life! To leave all and yield ourselves to the cutting of God’s knife of circumcision. Who could do the job of cutting away sin better than He? Our own hands would never put the knife in the right place. We would cut away only a little of the fat, and bring about a few superficial changes. We do not understand ourselves well enough to know where to cut. We could never find the sensitive spot, but God finds it easily. And even if we knew where the spot were located, self-love would hold back the knife and spare itself. It does not have the courage to wound itself. And even if the knife were plunged into the vital spot, the nerves would steel themselves against the pain, and the teeth would be gritted, in order to deaden some of the pain. But the hand of God strikes in unexpected places, finds the very place where the infection is fastened and does not hesitate to cut it away, regardless of the pain. And oh, how self-love cries out! Well, let it cry, but do not let it interfere with the success of the operation. God knows that it hurts, but all that He asks is that you remain motionless beneath his knife and do not resist a single stroke.

I have a great liking for John the Baptist, who completely forgot himself so that he might think only of Jesus. He pointed to Him. He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness to prepare His way. He sent all of his disciples to Him. And it was this willingness to magnify Jesus, far more than his solitary and strict life, that entitled him to be called the greatest among them that are born of women

Francis Fénelon, Let Go (New Kensington, PA: Whittaker House, 1973).