An Avenue of Intimacy: Tanner Kalina’s All Your Heart

An Avenue of Intimacy: Tanner Kalina’s All Your Heart

By Teagan Byrne, Junior Editor Intern

Anyone who has made the bold choice of offering their life wholeheartedly to Christ may have found themselves asking, as I have—what do I do?

How do I offer a home to divinity in my daily life? 

The beginning of this adventure can sometimes feel vague or dance between two extremes: focusing all our strength on following true commands, or spending all our time searching for an emotional experience with real beauty. In these moments of genuine searching, the way God created us as human persons reveals a way to invite Him further into our lives:

He created the human heart.

One avenue of intimacy with our Lord is seeking a deeper understanding of our own hearts and how we can better offer them to His love—an idea that Tanner Kalina thoroughly adventures through in his new book, All Your Heart, available July 20 from Ascension Press. 

Published by Ascension Press, All Your Heart asks thoughtful and personal questions about how to engage the spiritual life in the day to day, not in the interest of  arbitrary rules or mere emotion, but as an integrated whole person ready for encounter. Kalina writes about this kind of encounter through the lens of the heart, a concept that holds deep roots in the Catholic faith. 

In casual conversations in modern culture, the word heart is thrown around haphazardly. Kalina himself notes this, and raises the concern that we have  “semantically satiated the word ‘heart,’”¹ meaning that we have used the word so many times to describe so many different experiences that it has lost its significance. At most, the word seems to just refer to strong emotions. Yet, the concept of the heart is found throughout Christianity. It would seem unnecessary and unhelpful if “heart” had no real meaning at all. And, if “heart” just means “emotions,” then the heart could never help us encounter divinity with our whole selves, since a person is never just their emotions. Turning from the heart to a strict head faith cannot be the answer either—understanding the commands of the faith is vital to a real relationship with Christ, but the mind alone cannot make the leap to actively pursue Christ in every moment of every day. There must be something that helps the whole person love Christ in one integrated movement. This something is the heart, understood in its true spiritual richness.

“Authentic discipleship is the slow awakening of our hearts.”²

The vision of the heart that Kalina describes throughout the book is grounded in Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the witness of the saints, and even ancient philosophers wrestling with mystical truths before revelation. The book explores the heart as the fundamental dwelling of the human person³ and the real interplay between the intellect, the will, and the emotions.⁴ While the heart remains a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend, through the witness of Scripture and the saints we can understand that the heart is more than just a sentiment and vague idea. The heart is something we cannot reduce to simple emotions, thoughts, or actions. The heart is a deeper integrity of the human person that connects all aspects of ourselves into who we are as a whole, personal being. This mystery of the heart is made concrete in our relationships, works, and desires as our own selves are revealed to us—the beautiful and harmonious sides of our heart, as well as the brokenness in the heart’s shadowed places. 

Developing a thorough understanding of the heart allows us to confront the hardship of heartbreak directly. In All Your Heart, Kalina identifies what causes our hardness of heart: idols we make out of anything not Divine, or a disconnect between any part of our person and Christ, whether in our minds, our actions, or our feelings.⁵ So many of us have this shared experience of heartbreak, of longing for real love and lasting relationship and struggling to attain it. We wrestle with battles within ourselves—fear, worry, anger, and despair. We often hear that the Lord wants to encounter us in these darkened places, but it is hard to understand what that really looks like. 

A Journey in All Your Heart

The concepts and spiritual works that are considered in All Your Heart as Kalina writes about real wholeheartedness with Christ are made easy and relatable by the author’s personal, lighthearted style and genuine commentary—a beautiful gift for those who want to really understand and apply these insights into daily life. Kalina gently and thoroughly journeys through each aspect of the heart, helping give the reader a concrete idea of how to truly encounter Christ in their lives through an active opening of the heart to Him. 

In order to communicate these beautiful themes, Kalina shares his personal experience of brokenness and his journey toward renewal of heart in Christ. He describes specific phases and moments of his life, including his time of retreat into nature to find meaning after a painful breakup, his experience of desiring more in the midst of daily commutes, and other formative moments of suffering and deep encounter with the Lord. These personal stories are uplifted by rich and thorough reflections using sources from Catholic tradition and other Christian sources. These sources ground the conversations in something more than one person’s experience; made concrete in Kalina’s own story, the reflections speak to the real journey of each person. Kalina communicates these beautiful and thoughtful truths of the faith in relatable, accessible ways that lend to the practical use of the book and aid in applying the truths in daily life. 

A Scriptural Invitation

Thoughtful reflections on the heart offer a real path to closeness with Christ, grounded in the richness of the Scriptures. From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures mention our hearts consistently.⁷ Keeping wholeness of heart at the forefront of our thoughts helps to bring the faith into everyday moments and prevents our relationship with Christ from being only emotional or only scrupulous. There is a richness of the inner dwelling place where God has asked us to find Him and make a home for Him. A genuine understanding of the heart is a beautiful, concrete way to begin that adventure again. 

The Holy Spirit put the word heart in the Scriptures over a thousand times⁸—it seems that it would be a great treasure for our spiritual lives to understand what He is talking about.

Pre-order Tanner Kalina’s All Your Heart at Ascension Press here. The book will be released on July 20, 2026.

Learn more about writer, speaker, and evangelist Tanner Kalina on his website tannerkalina.com. Don’t miss his upcoming appearance on our podcast, A Resounding Yes! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, & Fio.

1. Tanner Kalina, All Your Heart, 19. ↩︎
2. Kalina, 204. ↩︎
3. Kalina, 39. ↩︎
4. Kalina, 40. ↩︎
5. Kalina, 77. ↩︎
6. Kalina, 10. ↩︎
7. Kalina, 24. ↩︎
8. Kalina, 30. ↩︎

---

Alongside her studies, Teagan has enjoyed working for Catholic efforts in design, editing, and writing, which have included working for the Catholic Education Center and for Metanoia Magazine. Communicating the truth and beauty of the faith in clear and creative ways has always drawn her attention, and she draws inspiration from the beautiful writings of Catholic tradition together with everyday lived experience.

Beyond work and studies, Teagan continues her creativity through decorating intricate cakes, practicing her watercoloring skills, and making fun projects with her family, all while enjoying several cups of coffee in the mornings