How to get rid of the calloused heart?
I gave you an advice: to be joyful. If you are joyful the heart opens itself as well it is receptive; because the heart is the deepest and most profound depth from all our organs. The heart is made by God so that He may dwell inside, it is not like the other organs.
This heart we have which beats and which we can touch is a symbol of the heart. The heart is beyond it. It has profoundness beyond conscience. It bears in its depths and profoundness that extraordinary point which God made it as image and resemblance, there where the Savior says: „We shall come with the Father and we shall make there our shelter. This is the image and resemblance, not the legs and eyes and ears. The mind is a subordinate of the heart.
How do we reach at this heart?
It is very easy. Go there with your mind and say: „Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner. If you have a joyful, good-natured, easy going disposition, the hearts opens up.
What means this : „I am upset ? How to be upset when Christ is Resurrected, when we understand what means the cross we must bear. A man who believes in Christ is joyful, is hopeful that Christ doesn`t leave him at all
This permanent joyful disposition is also a state of prayer and of Christian living and of a heart aware of God. This is the secret: to have your heart aware. God doesn`t need your knowledge, He knows what you want. He needs your demand, your attention. You see the parents, the father and mother when they see that their child put all his hope in them are full of love for him and are ready to give him everything.
Excerpt from Dialogues – Father Arsenie Papacioc, Areopag via http://www.urcusspreinviere.ro.
