When modern, secular people speak of the interior, they think of the brain that "thinks" and the heart as the seat of emotion and desire. This is not far off of the Thomistic, philosophical system which speaks of an intellect and will (seat of desire). However, Thomism sees these as faculties of an immortal soul, not mere biological phenomena.
There is also the ancient Hebrew idea of the heart. The heart is the innermost core of the person. We can think of the mind as the heart thinking, desires as the heart desiring, etc. The Hebrew idea of the heart would encompasses the Thomistic idea of intellect and will without emphasizing the distinctions to be made between the two.
Let's be honest; the deep relationship between heart and head is indeed mysterious, perhaps a taste of the Trinitarian mystery itself. Our internal life is one of the many things God has created wherein we can make distinctions, but not fundamentally separate (e.g. three Persons, one God). There are different ways of trying to describe this mystery, and they can all be useful. The Thomistic system is better at helping us make distinctions (e.g. three Persons), while the holistic Hebrew idea is better at helping us ponder the interdependence of the parts (e.g. One God). The modern secular idea is basically Thomism, but missing a supernatural horizon.
When we ask which should lead out, heart or head, it depends on the terminology you are using, the paradigm you are thinking within, and what you mean by that question.
If you mean by that question, "what is most profound in a human being, their intellectual capacity or their capacity to love?," the authentically Catholic answer would be love. To clarify, when I speak of love here,, I am using it in the broad modern sense of our ability to both desire and commit to things. This idea of love wins out in both a Hebraic and Thomistic worldview. It also makes sense to us moderns on an intuitive level. Somehow, we know deep down that life is about loving and connecting, not just knowing things.
If you mean by that question, "does emotion or reason lead out?," then that is a different question. In that case, the heart is defined as a mere organ of emotional reactions, and not a profound link to the transcendent. The authentically Catholic answer in this case, is that reason should rule our emotional reactions. Rightly understood, however, it does this to serve the heart. God and His plans are always greater than what we can understand with our minds. Our hearts are the place where God whispers deep mysteries to us that would be otherwise incomprehensible. Right reason always upholds the voice of God as the sole absolute, and ponders the language of the heart to ensure that God's voice is heard rightly and upheld. Meanwhile, right reason guides our emotional reactions to serve the deepest purposes of our hearts. The distinction must be made between our emotional reactions, and the deep loves God plants in our hearts. They are not the same thing. Reason helps us to order our emotional and thought life so that the most profound purposes in our hearts are respected and pursued.
To summarize, within a Catholic worldview, the head rules the heart in the sense of reason guiding our emotional reactions and examining all of the internal movements of thought, emotions, and desires happening within us. However, the head submits to the heart in the sense of reason serving the hearts deepest purposes: reason exists to help us know, choose, and love God and to abide in His mysterious plan for our lives. When God calls us into a mystery, it is eminently reasonable to following Him into it. Right reason does not demand to understand everything. Rather, it ensures that whatever we choose, including blind faith, surrender, and risk-taking, are done for the glory of God.
How do emotions fit into this? If we are fully alive in love, then we are fully alive in God, and our every human faculty is correspondingly vibrant. Healthy, loving hearts emote vibrantly. Emotions give us the energy to pursue what God wants for us, and avoid what He does not want for us. Insofar as emotions are thought of as Holy Desires, e.g. the sacred point of contact between what God wants for us and what we find ourselves wanting, then reason does well to listen to what our emotions have to say.
So, we have three ideas of the heart:
1) The heart as the privileged place of encounter between God and self, where we choose God, and hear His voice
2) The heart as a catchall expression to sum up our emotional lives on a natural level
3) The heart as the seat of holy, Godly desires
Depending on how you define the heart, you will answer the question of heart verses head differently.
If 1), then heart leads.
If 2), then head leads.
If 3), then Heart leads.
Therefore, in common parlance, it works best to say, "the heart leads," because more often than not, when people speak of the heart, they are intuitively thinking of it in the sense of 1) or 3). The head leads if we are speaking only of emotions in a general sense, or on a natural level.
A final thought. The question of heart verses head introduces a dichotomy into how we think of our internal lives which is not truly Catholic. In truth, what we think impacts our feelings and desires. Our feelings and desires impact our thoughts. Everything is interrelated. And everything is impacted and in conversation with the voice of God in our hearts. It attests to the Trinitarian mystery of man's internal life that we can and must respect the differences between heart and head, without fundamentally dividing them. Perhaps, in the final analysis, we can not rightly put into words how to "put it all together." Rather, through lived experience and intuition, we somehow know the time and place for each.
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