Thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Rebel Creatures
Almighty Nature
A great astronomer once said that his favorite study might, in some cases, lead persons to omit God from creation. They saw and understood so clearly the great power and marvelous effects of God’s creatures that they might be deceived into thinking that they could do without the Creator. Time to astronomers is so long it looks like eternity; and the force of gravity is so far-reaching it looks like omnipotence; and light is so swift, so impalpable, it might pass for spirituality. The greatness of His creatures threatens to eclipse the splendor of the Creator. Creatures can do so much, they appear to be able to do all.
Almighty Science
The wonderful forces of the soul combine with the wonderful forces of nature to fill proud man with the same false principles. The mind of man ranges through the universe, opening the door of every mystery. From the smallest particle of matter to the longest stretches of time, from ions to eons, from ants to giants, from planets to plants, nothing is so dark as not to be lit up by the brilliant mind; nothing so difficult as not to be solved by a theory. Laplace is said to have told Napoleon the First that God was not needed in his scheme of world-making. Others, too, have grown dizzy on the lofty pinnacles their minds had scaled, and have set themselves above the heavens and the Creator of the heavens. They refuse to admit mysteries because that would be to admit that their intellects were not on the highest round of the ladder of knowledge. Mind can do so much; men are prone to think it can do all.
Almighty Dollar
As scientists are tempted to deify matter or mind, so rulers deify their powers; but the lowest class of idolaters are those who deify money. The “almighty dollar” has passed into a proverb. Wealth seems to be able to do anything. It makes the commerce of the world bring it food and clothing, and the art of the world build and adorn its homes, and science amuse it with its latest wonders, and medicine of every land hurry on chartered steamers and chartered trains to cure its slightest complaints. No wonder it believes that such things as Churches and Commandments are not for it. Churches and Commandments exact obedience; wealth issues, but does not receive, commands. Its telephone has a mouthpiece, but not a receiver. No wonder that Socialism should make a god of money, although it hides the object of its adoration under a great many high-sounding names.
The Attack upon the Right
Knowledge, power and wealth are the great rebels. In old fairy stories giants piled mountains one upon another in order to scale the heavens, and capture the thrones of the gods. The giants of old failed and were buried, so the pagans believed, under the mountains they were to climb upon. Knowledge, power and wealth have been more successful. They have dislodged God from his place in the soul, have usurped His throne, and demanded for their tyranny the tribute of adoration. Any one of them is powerful in its absolute sway; all three of them seem to have found a place in the heart of Simon Magus. He had more knowledge than his dupes; he had power, but wanted more; he believed with others that everybody had his price, but probably was the first to think the “almighty dollar” could buy Almighty God. No wonder Simon Peter cried out, in indignation at such principles: “Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Do penance, therefore, for thy wickedness, and pray to God that perhaps this thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. For I see thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity.”
The Victory of the Right
“Thy heart is not right in the sight of God,” said Simon Peter to Simon Magus. The heart of the first heretic was indeed crooked; his mind was not straight; his will was not straight. Such is the meaning of the Apostle’s words. Simon Magus had become a Christian for two motives. He was a magician and wanted the powers that the Apostles had. That was not right and straight thinking. The powers of God are to be used for God. God is at the end of the straight road that leads from His gifts to Himself, To turn God’s gifts to the honor of self is to give a turn to that road, to make it crooked, to make it swerve aside to self. To strive to put a price on God’s gifts is not right and straight thinking. To put any of God’s creatures, whether it be power, or knowledge, or wealth, above God m our hearts, is to make them crooked. God is the head of the universe, and to put anything else there is to turn the universe upside down; but to have the universe standing on its head is not according to the rules of the world’s architecture, which demands that the roof should not be dethroned to give way to the cellar. There is one thing for the proud heart to do – for the proud heart is not right in the sight of God – and that is, what Simon Peter told Simon Magus to do: “Do penance for thy wickedness and pray to God that perhaps this thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee.”
Subject Creatures
Christ’s Call and Wealth
Where had Saint Peter learned the principles of the right heart? Where had he learned the value of money? In the school of the Apostles, from the right Heart of Christ. The Apostles had been called from a life of gain to be fishers of men. Saint Matthew was bid to give up a lucrative position. The instructions on the point of money were clear and precise for the Apostles: “Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money in your purses.” These are almost the same words uttered by Saint Peter before he cured the lame man “at the gate of the Temple which is called the Beautiful.” “Silver and gold I have none,” cried the Apostle, “but what I have I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth arise and walk.” Saint Peter was not as successful in making right the heart of Simon Magus, as he was in making right the limbs of the man born lame.
Christ’s Teaching and Wealth
Saint Peter learned the principles of Christ’s Heart from the teaching and practice of the whole life of his Master. Christ, he would remember, set little store by wealth. Love for Him was more than lucre. The widow’s mite went for millions in the markets of Heaven. The lost groat, which was the much-loved keepsake of a woman, became the symbol of a soul. The small coin was precious for its memories, for the love its owner lavished upon it, and so served to picture the love of Christ’s Heart for the lost souls of men. It was Peter who hastened to cry out: “Behold, we have left all things and have followed Thee.” The occasion was, perhaps, the most striking and the most memorable one in Christ’s teaching about riches. The hurried approach of the rich young man, his eagerness to follow the good Master, the unconcealed love of Jesus for him, the test of the young man’s sincerity, his sad and slow departure, “because he had great possessions,” the terrible words of Jesus about the camel and the eye of the needle and the difficulty of the rich entering Heaven, all these were elements in a scene and parts of a lesson which Saint Peter could never forget, and which at the time drew from him the profession of having left all things, a profession that was as rich in generous love as it was insignificant in contents. The Apostle’s great possessions were boats and nets.
Christ’s Practice and Wealth
The many acts and words of Christ would come back to Saint Peter, when he had before him the heart of Simon Magus, who seemed to think, with a heart not right, that the things of God could be bought for money. Saint Peter would have hated such principles from the day Christ lashed the money-dealers from the Temple, and asserted the unending war between God and Mammon. Saint Peter would have hated the heart made crooked by money with a still deeper hatred when he recalled, as he could not fail to do, that the only traitor of their number had been keeper of the purse and had bartered away the Son of God for thirty pieces of silver.
Christ’s Punishments and Wealth
No wonder Saint Peter knew the crooked heart of Simon Magus. He knew all the warping, distorting ways of money, all the blinding force of its dazzling glitter. The hearts of Ananias and Sapphira lay bare before his piercing gaze, and those that would cheat the Holy Ghost and lie to Him are stricken down before the chief of the Apostles and carried out dead. When, therefore, Saint Peter had turned his thoughts upon the Heart of Christ, he knew how right that Heart was in the sight of God. Christ was the Way, and His whole being, and every thought, and word, and deed of Him was right, because it was to make our hearts right. The ruler which directs the pencil along the paper must have a straight edge. Saint Peter and his fellow Apostles were always squaring their principles with the true ones of Christ. They traced the path of their conduct along the unswerving line of His life and His lessons.
Christ’s Heart, the Perfect Subject
Saint Peter saw finally that the Heart of Christ had to be of all hearts the most right in the sight of God, because It was the Heart of God, because It belonged to the Second Person of the Trinity. Between human hearts and God the way is often long and offers many a chance to deflect to the right or left. Between Christ’s Heart and God the way is as short as it could possibly be. The created will of Christ is not the uncreated will of the Second Person, but aside from identity of being, there is complete unity between them. The two wills belong to the same Person, wish the same end, embrace the same means; they are one as far as two things can be one without being identical. How right, then, is that Heart in which there is no swerving from God! A line may be crooked; a point cannot be, and Christ’s Heart and God’s will are nearly merged into the indivisible unity of a point. They are so close that the Heart of Christ must always be right in the sight of God. As well try to quench the sun’s illimitable fires with one drop of water, as to try to abate, by any created good of mind or body, the ardor of divine love, flaming in the Heart of Christ.