Truth and Sin in the Heart

Psalm 4:

What you say in your hearts, regret upon your beds...

Psalm 14:

O Lord, who shall dwell in Your tent? Or who shall rest upon Your holy mountain?
He who walks without blemish, and does what is right;
Who speaks the truth in his heart, and deceives not with his tongue...

Psalm 15:

I will bless the Lord who has given me understanding; even in the night my heart exhorts me...

Matthew 5:28:

But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 15:18-19:

But the things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man. For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.

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St. John Chrysostom, commenting on Matthew 5:28, says:

If you permit yourself to gaze often on fair countenances you will assuredly be taken, even though you may be able to command your mind twice or thrice. For you are not exalted above nature and the strength of humanity. She too who dresses and adorns herself for the purpose of attracting men's eyes to her, though her endeavor should fail, yet shall she be punished hereafter; seeing she mixed the poison and offered the cup, though none was found who would drink thereof. For what the Lord seems to speak only to the man, is of equal application to the woman; inasmuch as when He speaks to the head, the warning is meant for the whole body.

St. Jerome, commenting on Matthew 15:18, writes:

[...] by this passage we may refute [p. 560] those who think that evil thoughts are suggestions of the Devil, and do not spring from our proper will. The Devil may encourage and abet evil thoughts, but not originate them. And if he be able, being always on the watch, to blow into flame any small spark of thought in us, we should not thence conclude that he searches the hidden places of the heart, but that from our manner and motions he judges of what is passing within us. For instance, if he see us direct frequent looks towards a fair woman, he understands that our heart is wounded through the eye.

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These passages should lead us to reflect on how easy it is for us to corrupt our hearts, to harden them with sin. We should be inspired to a greater sensitivity of our inner motions. The mouth speaks what is first in the heart. We don't even need to outwardly speak evil things to our neighbors. Letting our heart speak these evils is enough to sin and corrupt ourselves and defile love. Therefore, the Holy Ghost tells us to regret the evil that we speak in our hearts. Those shall dwell with the Lord who speak truth in the heart and, with their hearts full of truth, proceed to speak the truth outwardly to their neighbors by not deceiving them.

Moral evil originates from the heart. The responsibility falls on us. The devil may suggest evil or fan it into flame as St. Jerome tells us, but we decide what goes into our hearts and what comes out of them.

St. Gregory the Great on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

And now, at the eleventh hour, it was said to the Gentiles: Why stand you here all the day idle? The Lord speaks of their carelessness and indifference concerning their salvation, for they had not yet done anything to be assured of it; yet, if you ponder upon their answer to the householder sending them to his vineyard, you will have cause of being ashamed. Their answer to the householder’s question, why they stood all the day idle, was: Because no man hath hired us. Indeed, they, unlike others, had neither patriarchs nor prophets to instruct them. No one had hired them, for no one had shown them the way leading to salvation. As to us, who neglect the practice of good works, and lead an idle life, what shall we answer for our justification? For we received the true faith, so to speak, in the womb of our mother; we heard the words of life when still in the cradle, and we drank the milk of Christian doctrine, given by our holy Church at the time when, for the life of our bodies, we were sucking the breasts of our natural mothers. [...]

Now, consider how some are called, already in their childhood, to lead a perfect and holy life; others in their youth; these in their manly age; some others in advanced years; and lastly others in their old age. Do you understand that all of us are laborers, who may at any time be sent into the vineyard of the Lord? Again, beloved brethren, consider your own lives, and ask yourselves whether you are worthy laborers of the Lord, whether you are mindful of the work you are doing, and lastly whether you labour indeed in the Lord’s vineyard. Be sure that those who work for their own interests only, have not entered the vineyard of the Lord; for those only are accounted as His laborers, who prefer the glory of God to their own profit and interest. Such worthy Christians endeavor to serve God with ardent love and sincere devotion; they strive to win souls to God, and exert themselves to take others along with them to the habitation of the Saints; whereas those who live for themselves and try to satisfy their vices and concupiscences, are condemned as idle laborers, making no effort to work in, or care for, the Lord s vineyard. [...]

We also feel in us the fire of concupiscence, against which we contend, and which we try to extinguish; and this continual fighting may be compared to the burden of the day and the heats. [...]

Though we be aware of our good works, we know not how strictly they will be scrutinized by the great Judge; yea, each of us ought to feel exceedingly happy to receive even the last place in the kingdom of God. [...]

The following words of this Gospel, many are called, but few are chosen, cannot but inspire us with terror; for many receive the light of faith, but to a few only is granted the happiness of heaven. [...] All voices are loud in confessing Jesus, but the lives of those who confess Him do not agree with their exterior acts of faith. The greater number of those here present think it sufficient to follow Jesus in words, whilst by their acts theyare separated from Him. St. Paul points them out to us, saying: They profess that they know God, but in their works they deny Him (Titus 1:16). This is confirmed by St. James: Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). And the Psalmist repeats the words of God: I have declared and I have spoken; they are multiplied above number (Ps 40:6). By these words we understand that, when the Lord calls men through His prophets, the number of believers greatly increases. However, not all those who by the gift of faith obtain the knowledge of the truth will be numbered among the elect. It is certain that when a great number of wicked Christians are gathered together with true servants of God, because of the same faith that they profess, they nevertheless do not deserve to be numbered with the faithful on account of their unchristian lives. For it cannot be denied that, though the holy Church includes in the same fold the sheep and the goats, the Eternal Judge will one day separate the just from the wicked, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:32). Know ye, therefore, and recognize that none of those now given up to the pleasures of the world will be received among the elect; that the Judge will exclude them from the happy fate of the humble, since in this world they were lifted up on the wings of pride. They had received the gift of heavenly faith, but they clung to the earth, and heaven will not be opened to them.

Meanwhile, though a great many people, whose lives are unchristian, may be found in the Church of God, I beseech you, beloved brethren, neither to imitate them nor to think them to be lost. We are aware of the unhappy condition of these people to-day, but we know not what they will be to-morrow. It often happens that those whom we see behind us on the road to holiness, soon precede us on account of their progress in spirituality; then it is with great difficulty that we follow those whom at some time we seemed to precede. When St. Stephen shed his blood for Christ, his murderers laid their garments at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul (Acts 7:57), and who may be accused of having also stoned St. Stephen by assisting the murderers; yet, by his great labors undertaken for the Church, Saul has gone before the holy martyr, to whose death he contributed. Let us, therefore, consider these two things greatly deserving our attention. First, knowing that many are called but few are chosen, no one can help himself without the grace of God, and, though being called by faith, no one is sure of his eternal salvation. Secondly, when we see our neighbor in the clutches of sin and vice, let us not presumptuously think that he will be lost, for God's infinite mercy is unknown to us.

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Source: St. Gregory the Great, "Homily on Matthew 20:1-16," The Divine Lamp Website, February 9, 2011, accessed December 6, 2013, http://thedivinelamp.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/septuagesima-sunday-pope-st-gregory-the-greats-homily-on-matt-201-16/.

Also quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Catena Aurea, Matthew 20:1-16: http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/CAMatthew.htm#20.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Miracles and Virtue

So he sends them as he was sent, to preach. Hence Do penance... and as Jesus had begun (above 4:17): "Do penance,": so he commands them. He had begun: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; "For salvation is far from sinners" (Ps 119:155), but now it is near through the passion of Christ: "With his own blood he entered once into the holy place, thus securing an eternal redemption" (Heb 9:12). Hence he says, is at hand, namely, through my passion. So it is established in them by partaking of grace: "The whole kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:21).

But they could say: How shall we confirm what we say? Certainly by miracles as he did. So he says, Heal the sick... But if someone asks why the Church does not work miracles now, the answer is given that miracles were preformed to prove the faith, but now the faith has even been approved. Therefore, just as a person who formulated one demonstration to prove some conclusion would have no need for another one, so here. Hence the greatest miracle is the conversion of the whole world, so there is no need for other ones. But just as the other miracles were bodily, so every day spiritual miracles are performed, because the spiritually infirm are cured. For the infirm are those tossed about by sin and those prone to sin: "Welcome the man who is weak in faith" (Rom 14:1), and they are healed by the Lord. But those who consent are dead, because separated from God, as it says in Ephesians (5:14): "Awake, you sleeper, and arise from the dead." Likewise, lepers are cleansed; for lepers are those who infect others, because leprosy is a contagious disease, and sometimes they are cured. In 2 Kings (5:27) it is recorded that the leprosy of Naaman cleaved to Gehozi. Furthermore, devils are cast out; for devils are ones who have already committed sin: "They rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil"(Pr 2:14), and as is said of Judas (Jn 13:27): "Satan entered into him." And these are sometimes cured.

But because the apostles could say: "Now we shall be rich; if we perform miracles, we shall have much." This was the reason Simon Magus wanted to perform miracles. But the Lord excludes this, saying, You received without pay, give without pay. It is great to perform miracles, but it is greater to live virtuously. Hence he removes pride from them, because pride can happen in two ways: either from cupidity or from deserts [sic]. For the highest form of pride appears when a person ascribes to himself the good he has.

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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint Matthew's Gospel (Super Evangelium S. Matthaei lectura), trans. R.F. Larcher, chapter 10, lecture 1, verses 7-8; http://dhspriory.org/thomas/SSMatthew.htm

Emphases mine.

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Interestingly, St. Thomas's answer to the question why miracles are not performed today as they were in the past suggests the possibility that the Church may again work miracles in the future if the faith were to come into worldwide question.