The Eye-Ear/Heart/Hands(Feet) Metaphorical Framework illustrates how an integrated person should be. The Eye-Ear are metaphors for our World-view, the way we look at ourselves, others, life in general. The "Heart" is, in the Bible, not the organ of emotion and passionate outbursts but that of decision-making. The "Heart" is the place where one makes important decisions about one's life. The "Heart" uses as bases for its decision-making what has been learned from life. The decisions that one makes define what one is. And so when one looks back at one's life, one sees a particular life-style emerging: a way of life, a style of living and interacting with other people. This is symbolized by the Hands (for Filipinos) and Feet (the biblical metaphor of walking and journeying).
""World-view refers to what we know about ourselves, others and about lilfe in general. It is symbolized by the Eye-Ear because both of these organs are relevant to the learning process. Our learning involves the point and tell method. When we were still starting to learn about our world, there were people who would point and tell. What we learn from other people forms part of our early knowledge maps that as we grow old we revise and update every time a new discovery comes along our way.
The "Heart" is the place where one makes decisions about one's life. It is there where one plots out the direction one's life is going to take. This is where dreams are made. We make decisions based on the knowledge we have of ourselves, the world and life in general.
Life is one's first "project." But when it is realized that life is a gift from God, then one also realizes that it is a shared project. One who is aware of this therefore can pray: "Father, what do you wish me to do with the life you've given me?" The prayer is actually a prayer about one's vocation.
One's life-style is the habitual way in which one interacts with others and the world. One becomes aware of one's lifestyle in retrospect. When one looks at one's life in the past five or ten years, one observes a pattern made up of places, people, ideas perhaps, and others that one finds in a more or less significant way. Those that appear with greater significance make up one's lifestyle.
The Christian's world-view is "sacramental"; he/she sees all as a sign of something else. In a sense, the Christian is naturally a poet. But to be more precise, the Christian world-view is not about signs but about a reality that he/she knows is connected in its elements. The world for the Christian is an expression of a "Logos" which can be apprehended by reason. That "Logos" however has also been revealed and so the Christian submits to it as the testimony of one who does not lie. This submission is one we call "faith".
The Christian is aware that his/her life is a life-project that is shared with the Giver of Life. He/she is aware of the voice that instructs him/her in the silence of the heart -- a voice called "Conscience" His/her life-project is characterized by "hope", which is not so much a confidence in the future as trust in the God who reserves His future for the Christian.
The Christian lifestyle is a way of life that responds to the two greatest commandments: Love God with all your mind, with all your life and with all your strength; and love others as you love yourselves. "Love" as understood by a Christian is not the attraction of eros, or simply well-intended "benevolentia". It is the agapic love of God that he/she has experienced in the cross in Christ. "Agape" or "charity" is more than a feeling; it is the power to which the Christian submits his/herself out of gratitude, for "God is love."
Corollary: Reason and Faith
Catholics insist that reason and faith go together. The basic experience of education is enough to show that nothing can be known without trusting in the word of another. Reason cannot be sufficient because of its limitations. Where the limits of reason are reached, it must submit to faith.
Catholicism teaches that reason unaided by faith can arrive at the idea of the existence of God and can even describe it. Metaphysics, the philosophical discipline that is concerned with the question of Being itself, is a testimony to this ability. Existence, the whole of reality itself, is epiphanic; and reason can apprehend things in intellection. But because of its weakened condition, reason must submit itself to the revelation of God. This submission it does in the act of faith.
Corollary: What Hope are we talking about?
Hope is one of those much used words in the English dictionary that has to be understood in the context in which it is used. Once can say
1. I hope that tomorrow, the sun will shine
2. Hopefully, everything will turn our right
3. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the proof of things unseen."
The word "hope" can connote many things as this description of WikiPedia shows
Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. To hope is to wish for something with the expectation of the wish being fulfilled, a key condition in unrequited love. Hopefulness is somewhat different from optimism in that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion reached through a deliberate thought pattern that leads to a positive attitude.
When used in a religious context, hope carries a connotation of being aware of spiritual truth; ... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope]
The same WikiPedia article points us to how we understand "hope" in the context of our current discussion:
In Christian theology, hope is one of the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), which are spiritual gifts of God. In contrast to the above, it is not a physical emotion but a spiritual grace. Hope is distinct from positive thinking, which refers to a therapeutic or systematic process used in psychology for reversing pessimism. The term false hope refers to a hope based entirely around a fantasy or an extremely unlikely outcome.
Christian hope is not an emotion. It is directly linked to God (thus theo-logical virtue) and is derived from Grace. St. Paul numbers it among the three gifts that the Christian should desire: faith, hope and charity. Of these, faith and hope is ordered to life's pilgrimage. Faith will give way to knowledge and hope to possession. Love will remain the same here and in eternity.
The Catholic Catechism defines hope thus:
Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1817).
In the Letter to the Hebrews, it is described thus:
Hope is the "sure and steadfast anchor of the soul . . . that enters . . . where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. (Heb. 6:19-20)
It directly responds to the aspiration for happiness (1818) the way to which is revealed in the Beatitutes (CCC 1820)
Corollary: Christian Love
In Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI brings forward what biblical philologists have already known for a long time: that in expressing the love that experienced from God in Christ, the first Christians practically invented their language. Instead of making use of the available words for "love", they chose one that was not popular and made it their word for "love". This is the Greek verb "agapein". Thus the Christian idea of love is immediately to be distinguished from all other ideas of love.
Christian love is self-sacrificing, and self-giving love the prime analogate of which is Christ on the cross. When Paul sings of love in 1 Corinthians 13, it is first of all the kind of love that Christ demands from his disciples when he says: "Love one another as I have loved you."
Christian love is first of all a response to the love of God. "This is love" John writes, "not that we love, but that God has loved us first." It is the main characteristic of the Christian lifestyle. Love for God is verified in one's love for the neighbor (cf. Matthew 25).