I spend my nights down on the wharf in unlit alleyways
Next to the church downtown where Sally prays
Come down sometime, we’ll eat a rusty can of corn, yeah
And listen to the radio, I love you, I love you, it says

Where did your heart go?
Did you put it on a train?
Did you leave it in the rain
Or down in Mexico, yeah?

You cry but I don’t, no, I’ve seen it all before
There it goes again, the slamming of the doors
Sometimes the river calls me, in the night it calls my name
Says put your troubles down beside me
Things have always been the same

And rock and roll can’t teach me, no, what the river said that night
I jumped into its beauty and drifted out of sight

‘Where Did Your Heart Go?’ David Weiss / Don Fagenson Was (Not Was) 1981 (covered by George Michael / Wham 1986)

So many of us struggle with the sense of not being worthy of being loved. Yet we seek it, often in the wrong places, because it is part of our DNA. We are made to be loved. Like the character in the song we can become cynical. The radio plays love songs while people curse each other and slam doors. We want to escape and the river speaks of the eternal, of beauty and peace. Our friend wants a quick fix, to jump in and be carried away. Quick fixes though rarely fix anything. The eternal can be our inspiration but Sally is doing the hard graft that gets us there. George Michael did a great version of ‘Where Did Your Heart Go?’ in 1986 (the year I first received the love of God in his eucharistic presence). George seemed to spend his life looking for it, in the far off places of drug induced highs and sexual encounters of the varied kind. He kept on looking for his heart until it finally gave out at the age of 53. Elton John in a tribute described him as ‘one of the kindest, sweetest, most generous people I’ve ever met.’ It is strange how we often don’t see ourselves as others do and more importantly that includes how God sees us.

As he entered Caper′na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it. When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.

Matthew 8:5-10

In chapter 8 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus heals. He heals the leper, he heals the centurion’s servant and he heals Peter’s mother-in-law. The pre-condition to healing is faith and the consequence of healing is to serve. Jesus marvels at the centurions faith. The centurion knows what authority is as he exercises it over many others. He in turn recognises the authority that Jesus possesses. He is not worthy to have Jesus come to his house because he does not see Jesus as his equal. Jesus is the source of healing precisely because he has greater power than the centurion. Yet Jesus offers to come to his house and considers him worthy of healing precisely because of his faith. Not worthy, yet considered worthy…this is one of the great spiritual paradoxes of our Christian faith.

Having a sense of being loved by God is the most important driving force in our faith life, in our faith development and our growth towards union with Him. We need to know that we are worthy of that love, that being his creature and his child we know that God, being God, doesn’t make rubbish. We will never receive that love if we push it away. But that love costs us and demands that we change, and so we do push it away or rather we love and chase after things that are not of God. We can turn to things that are antithetical to God, even love of our own misery. So often we are not aware that we are doing this until we come unstuck. Then we turn back to God and declare our unworthiness. It is important to declare this unworthiness because through it we can again receive the love of God and know more fully that God still loves us just the same despite it. We are flip floppy – worthy, not worthy – but God never changes. He is unchanging, yet always new – and always there for more of him to be discovered.

Before reception of Holy Communion we say the paraphrase of Matthew 8:8 “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” It is a call to examine ourselves and look at all the things in us that make us unworthy. We can then embrace the God who is unconditional love and despite everything wants to heal us. Not to embrace our unworthiness is indeed the profanity that St Paul speaks about to the Corinthian church…

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

1 Corinthians 11:27-32

It is so serious a matter that church discipline has taught that any grave sin in us should be forgiven in sacramental confession before Holy Communion is received. Yet there is always a flip side, scrupulosity. To see my actions and my efforts as having to be ‘worthy’ in my own eyes before I can approach the Lord, can be seen as a rejection of God, of God as being the sole source of my salvation. Pope Francis gave us a good reminder of this when he said…

The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.

(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 47)

“My heart is ready Oh Lord” (psalm 57) – my heart is not ready. Worthy – not worthy – all part of the receiving and giving dynamic of any relationship, not least our relationship with our creator and saviour. The greatest challenge, I think, is to take the focus off ourselves and direct it towards God. Allowing God to love us, and knowing he has an abundance of love to give us, is the first step. We are not just passive sponges though and all relationship demands a response. Jesus on the cross cried out “I Thirst.” He thirsts for our love, for a return of the love he has given us. It can often be hard to love others but how hard can it be to love Jesus who gave everything for love of us? Let your divine love flow by loving Jesus as he hangs on the cross for you. And with St Bernard console his heart by driving out the nails…

Your affection for the Lord Jesus should be both sweet and intimate, to oppose the sweet enticements of the sensual life. Sweetness conquers sweetness, as one nail drives out another

St Bernard Sermon 20 on The Song of Songs

You are not worthy, but he has said the word…so be healed.