Mind, reason, heart

Two of the themes explored by Pope Benedict in his various homilies and addresses during the course of his recent visit to the UK were (1) the correlation between faith and reason, and (2) the correlation between faith and prayer of the heart - particularly as these two motifs find expression in the thought of Bl JH Newman.

Today I came across the following short quotation from Greek Orthodox writer Metropolitan Kallistos Ware which looks at the relation betwen the intellectual faith-reason sphere and the noetic prayer-heart sphere. I suspect that Newman who have been substantially in agreement.

So long as the ascetic prays with the mind in the head, he will still be working solely with the resources of the human intellect, and on this level he will never attain to an immediate and personal encounter with God.

By the use of the brain, he will at best know about God, but will not know God. For there can be no direct knowledge of God without an exceedingly great love, and such love must come, not from the brain alone, but from the whole man - that is, from the heart.

It is necessary, then, for the ascetic to descend from the head into the heart. He is not required to abandon his intellectual powers - reason, too, is a gift of God - but is called to descend with the mind into his heart.

H/T Sowing Seeds of Orthodoxy