Jesus told us that the Greatest Commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” But how often do you work to love the Lord with your mind? How do we even do that?
Fr. Ed Broom, a regular Relevant Radio® contributor, stopped by Morning Air® to talk about the importance of fighting distractions and temptations so that we may put on the mind of Christ.
“I think it’s incumbent upon us to really try to cultivate our mind,” Fr. Broom said. “Studying St. Augustine, he’s got a beautiful thought. He says if you meditate upon the Word of God it goes into your mind, and then from your mind into your heart. And then, once you open your mouth, what is in your heart goes from your mind to your lips and it goes to other people. So one of the greatest things we can do is try to fill people’s hearts, but also their minds with the truth. … So I think we have to really desire for our mind to be transformed.”
One aspect of giving our minds to Christ involves what we expose our mind to. The things that we see and take in to our mind can be beautiful, inspiring, and help us grow in holiness, or they can lead us further from Christ. With smartphones we literally hold in our hands the power to choose to look at what is beautiful and true, or what is pornographic and vulgar.
“We really have to make a concerted effort to be careful what we’re looking at,” Fr. Broom cautioned. “The TV, movies, and literature we look at. I think parents have a real challenge today, because their children are being bombarded by this. For this reason, one of the books that I wrote was a consecration to Jesus through Mary. And I really believe that if we can consecrate ourselves to Jesus, but through the heart of Mary, that Mary protects us in many ways, especially with respect to our eyes.”
Scripture tells us that “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” And we see in the lives of the saints how many saints come in pairs or groups. St. Monica, St. Augustine, and St. Ambrose helped each other grow in holiness. St. Ignatius was a friend and mentor to St. Francis Xavier. When we look at our friends and our conversations do they help us turn our minds to the Lord, or do we keep our conversations at a surface level?
“You talk about football, we can talk about Facebook, we can talk about politics, but talking about God is the most important thing,” Fr. Broom said. “St. Thomas Aquinas actually defines love as willing the good of the other. What is the greatest good of another person? It’s the salvation of his soul. So, if I really care about you I’m going to do all I possibly can by my words and my actions to bring these people to their ultimate end.”
“St. Ignatius said that man is created to praise God, to reverence God, to serve God, and by means of that to save one’s soul. So good friends are bridges between heaven and earth.”
Another way we can give our mind to Christ is through the sacraments. Fr. Broom compared the sacrament of Confession to weeding the garden of our souls, and pointed out that we actually receive the mind of Christ when we receive His body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist.
“If you receive the Eucharist you’re also receiving the mind of Christ and the heart of Christ,” he said. “I’ve said that when we receive the Eucharist we receive a spiritual heart transplant, because we receive the heart of Christ. But also, in an analogous sense we can even say that every time we receive the Eucharist we receive the mind of Christ.”
“They say you are what you eat, so if you have bad eating habits you’re going to have problems. But if we eat and consume the Eucharist we’ll become more and more like the person who loves us most. And that is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Listen to the full conversation below:
Morning Air can be heard weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. Central on Relevant Radio and the Relevant Radio App.
