What the ‘Hearts up!’ Practice is:
An ancient command to orient your entire self - mind, body, spirit - toward God’s presence, used for 2,000 years at the Eucharist and available to you every moment of every day.
Lift up your hearts’
We lift them to the Lord’
Subscribe to Free Range Priest - and follow the directions in your welcome email - to get Trexo posts in your email inbox, and join us for Hearts up! - the oldest practice of Christian worship.
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Why it matters today:
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 our salvation and eternal life
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.
3. 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 understand myself in relationship to you
I belong to a community that worships you eternally
We’re aligning ourselves with actual spiritual reality.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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!’.
7. The more you practice, the more you grow
Trexo is training. Trexo is discipline. Trexo is discipleship.
You can’t think your way into deeper relationship with God. You have to practice your way in.
Learning small, repeated actions helps you do this.
The more we practice, the more we stretch and strengthen our souls. The more peace, connection, grounding, and JOY we feel.
The Complete Hearts up! Practice:
You were made for more.
More peace, more direction, more grounding, more purpose. More JOY.
Get started stretching and strengthening your soul.
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