With all the heart, Ex toto corde, is not merely a cardinal’s coat of arms but a wonderful synthesis which explains the amazing expertise, dedication, and friendliness that marked the flourishing life of the Czech Jesuit Cardinal and prolific author, Tomáš Špidlík. The latter, who died in Rome at the age of 90, on Friday 16 April, was an expert on Eastern Christianity.

For František Hylmar, the provincial superior of the Czech Jesuit Order, “one of Cardinal Špidlík’s greatest merits was his conviction that it’s possible to find common ground again, after so many centuries, for both the Christian East and West. The motto of his work was the word ‘heart’, which means that the heart is the real centre of human beings where people can really meet each other and also encounter God. And the heart can also be a place where the Christian East and West can meet.”

In tackling this essential yet delicate issue of Christian eastern spirituality with a western audience, Cardinal Špidlík risked being misunderstood. As a matter of fact, in an interesting interview which has paid tribute to his dedicated life for unity between eastern and western Christians, on November 18, 2003, the Jesuit Cardinal frankly admitted: “I personally had much difficulty in accepting the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus or talk about the human heart. For us Westerners it was always more important to let the intellect and will speak; feelings seemed too banal for us. We denigrated the heart. Instead, in the Bible there is much talk about the heart; the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of men. Therefore, 10 years ago, my first book, in which I speak about the importance of the heart, caused perplexity and difficulty, because it seemed to abound in sentimentalism. But now it is generally accepted, and very soon the Italian translation will be published by the Vatican Press”.

In his reflection at the conclusion of the funeral for Cardinal Špidlík, which was held on Tuesday, 20 April, in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI meditated on the cardinal’s motto: “with all the heart”. The Holy Father said that by selecting this motto, Cardinal Špidlík “placed… his life within the commandment of love, he inscribed it wholly in the primacy of God and of charity”, as Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 powerfully suggests. Furthermore, in the Czech Cardinal’s coat of arms, the arms of the cross interconnect God’s names of “phos” and “zoe”, “light” and “life”, thereby connoting that “the man who fully receives, ‘ex toto corde,’ the love of God, receives light and life, and becomes in turn light and life in humanity and in the universe”. This infinite heart called Jesus Christ, in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2, 9), is, according to Benedict XVI, “the formal principle of Christian art, a realm that had in Father Špidlík a great teacher, inspirer of ideas and of expressive projects, which found an important synthesis in the Redemptoris Mater chapel of the Apostolic Palace”.

The remarkable legacy of 140 books and more than 600 articles, which the Czech Jesuit Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík wrote, certainly magnificently contributed to the already immense spiritual heritage that the Christian East is proudly endowed with. For the German Pontiff, “interweaving through the years a lively and, in many senses, original theological vision, in which the Christian East and West come together organically, mutually exchanging their respective gifts”, remains an everlasting epitaph characterising this Czech brilliant scholar and Church Prelate. Above all, Tomáš Špidlík is now strongly and gently embraced by the Resurrected Christ, whose following text from a fragment of Hymns on the Resurrection of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, the deceased Cardinal greatly treasured: “From on High He descended as Lord, From the womb he issued as a slave, Death knelt before Him in Sheol, And life adored Him in his resurrection. Blessed is his victory!” (No. 1:8)

Fr Mario Attard OFM Kap