The heart is “the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God” (CCC 368). In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus defines purity of heart by telling us what it is not. A pure heart is not a heart from which come thoughts and actions, attitudes and desires for “unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, and folly.”
The human heart is wracked by the distortions of concupiscence making it difficult at times to decide for God. Every one of us can testify to the struggles we undergo to be “pure of heart” and how difficult it is to keep our hearts clean when we are standing knee-deep in available options for satisfying our lower instincts. Certainly, we could think of the person struggling with an addiction to pornography or lust, but there is also the uncleanness of anger, of greed, of deceit, of envy, of arrogance. Who among us can boast about never having wrestled with these?
Here are some points of spiritual advice when our hearts struggle to put on the mind and heart of Christ:
- Refuse to let ideas, memories, and images into your mind that lead you to thoughts and behaviors that are angry, lustful, envious, deceitful, and so on. Fill your mind and heart with what is true, good and beautiful through a careful choice of the media you use, how much time you spend on social media, and what you read and decide to look at.
- Look for patterns and discover the one or two main ways in which you struggle with temptation. Focus your prayer and watchfulness on these.
- Become intimately aware of the movements of your heart so you can meet an evil thought with a short prayer, for example, Lord Jesus, I love you… Jesus, mercy… Jesus.
- Increase your love for Jesus through prayer, spiritual reading, and above all the sacraments.
When St. Catherine of Siena had been beset with temptations against purity and had struggled for several days without a sense of Jesus being there to help her, she complained to him, “Lord, where were you when my heart was so tormented?” Jesus responded, “I was in the center of your heart.”
In this Gospel passage Jesus rejects the legalistic reduction of the virtue of purity to exterior cleansing and focuses on our heart because it is within us that the Trinity abides. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).
Daily Reading
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1 Dt 4:1-2, 6-8 Moses said to the people:“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decreeswhich I am teaching you to observe,that you may live, and may enter in and…
Saint of the Day
Saint Anna the Prophetess
Saint Anna the Prophetess recognized Jesus’s significance when many overlooked Him. She stood by Mary, embodying grace, guiding her during formative years.
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