Hearts up! Why it matters today

It's your spiritual warm up

Fr. Cathie Caimano

Jan 01, 2026

1. Your Soul Needs a Workout

We live in a world constantly pulling us downward:

To our worries
To our phones
To our tasks
To our anxieties
To our responsibilities

‘Hearts up!’ is a call to turn ourselves upward:

Towards God
Towards light and life and love
Towards what matters

2. It’s your spiritual warm-up

At a physical gym, you warm up. You stretch, get your heart rate up, start with a few lighter movements.

It’s the same for your soul.

The morning ‘Hearts up!’

This is your spiritual warm-up. You’re waking up your soul, orienting your mind to God, preparing yourself for the day.

You’re setting your defenses. You’re establishing your foundation.

Before the chaos starts, before the demands pile up, before anxiety creeps in:

Hearts up.

Throughout the day

These are your reset moments.

Like pausing between sets at the gym, you pause to refocus. You shake off distraction and recommit to what matters.

Before that difficult conversation: Hearts up! When anxiety spikes: Hearts up! When you’re tempted to despair: Hearts up!

It becomes automatic. You don’t have to think about it. You just turn toward God.

It reorients your whole self

‘Hearts up!’ is not a gentle suggestion. It’s a summons.

‘Lift up your hearts,’ God says. ‘Hearts up!’, we reply.

Here we are, God.

We’re saying:

I’m turning toward you
I’m fixing my attention on you
I’m closing my heart to the enemy
I’m opening myself to you alone

We’re aligning ourselves with actual spiritual reality.

3. It’s spiritual stretching

When we say ‘Hearts up!’ we’re participating in what the early Christians called ‘the ascension of the heart.’

We’re not just thinking about God - we’re internally climbing.

Our soul is reaching upward to join the heavenly liturgy, the worship happening around God’s throne right now.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
- Colossians 3:1-2

This isn’t metaphorical. This is training your soul to recognize where you actually are:

Living in the Kingdom of God.

4. It’s resistance

St. Cyprian understood: saying ‘Hearts up!’ is an act of resistance against spiritual distraction.

The devil is constantly prowling during prayer, seeking to induce distraction and earthly concern.

Every time you reach for your phone mid-prayer. Every time anxiety hijacks your thoughts. Every time you say ‘God’ with your mouth but think about tomorrow’s meeting.

The adversary has penetrated.

‘Hearts up!’ is your defense.

You’re closing the breach. You’re fixing your attention on God. You’re choosing God’s Kingdom over the world’s noise.

5. It prepares you for Communion

In the Eucharistic liturgy, ‘Hearts up!’ is the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer.

The priest says: ‘Lift up your hearts.’
The community responds: ‘We lift them to the Lord.’

This sequence is not accidental.

The community must lift their hearts before they can properly offer thanksgiving. They must be spiritually prepared, internally ascended, before they can approach the mysteries of Christ’s body and blood.

This also reminds us that regardless of our tradition or denomination - and regardless of whether we even go to church - Communion is the most basic form of worship in the Christian faith.

The first thing the disciples did after Jesus ascended into heaven is exactly what he told them:

’Do this in remembrance of me’ (Luke 22:19).

The first Christian community gathered to break the bread and drink the wine - Christ’s Body and Blood in remembrance of his New Covenant at the Last Supper.

And they said: ‘Hearts up!’.