The Catholic Sun :: Phoenix Diocesan Newspaper

To see God, to gaze in awe and wonder upon the face of the Lord, is a blessing that corresponds to the deepest desires of every human person. It is also what the Lord promises in the sixth Beatitude (Mt 5:8): “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”

Throughout the Sacred Scriptures, we find expressions of this profound desire. For example, the psalmist prays in Psalm 42:3, “My soul is thirsting for God, the God of my life; when can I enter and see the face of God?” In the New Testament, St. Paul says the following about the beatific vision (1 Cor 13:12), “At present, we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.” And St. John writes in his first letter (3:2), “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

When Jesus teaches, therefore, that the clean of heart will see God He is telling us how to satisfy our greatest longing. We need a heart that is cleansed and strengthened by divine mercy, one that brings our mind and will in harmony with God in three areas: chastity, truth and charity.

‘Ya gotta have heart’

When Jesus speaks of “the heart,” He does not mean a narrow notion of the heart as merely a font of emotions disconnected from the intellect and the will. Rather, He is referring to the inner person, to the seat of our moral personality. We see this in His warning about the kinds of sins that can come from the heart (Mt 15:19), “…from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy.”

It is not surprising that Psalm 51 has been such a popular prayer for many centuries (vs. 12), “A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me.” What a blessing it is when our hearts are purified by God’s mercy and freed of pride’s distortions. The clean in heart can live in the manner St. Francis prayed for: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.”

For good reason, Jesus warned us about the heart’s inclination to do wrong. From the time of Adam and Eve’s first sin, the human heart has been divided and corrupted. It has been trying to serve two masters, God and mammon (Cf. Lk 16:13). Sin has set human persons at odds with God, with others, and within themselves. But when Jesus died for us on the Cross, when from His own pure heart blood and water poured forth, He healed our inner divisions and reconciled us with God. When we accept the gift of His grace, our hearts are cleansed and made capable of love.

Chased and chaste

Living at a time in which we are bombarded by pornography, chased by opportunists selling false notions of sex, and assaulted by depersonalized images of the human body, it is not surprising that many think of the sixth Beatitude as dealing only with the struggle against lust and adultery. This is far from true, however, for chaste living has to do with one’s whole person, every dimension of life.

In his encyclical Deus Caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI writes (#5), “…the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex,’ has become a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great ‘yes’ to the body… Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere.”

The Holy Father goes on to remind us that the only way to genuine love is “a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.” In other words, we need to walk the path of chastity. On this path, with God’s grace we learn to say “no” for the sake of a much greater “yes.” We say “no” to lustful passions and self-indulgence in order to say a grateful “yes” to God and to the vocation in life He offers, whether it be in the single, married, or widowed state.

A faith that purifies

Faith is the gift of believing the Gospel without reservations or conditions. People of faith become like children who are confident to call God “Father.” But most of us struggle in faith against pride and self-reliance. We are tempted to say things like: “I am a Catholic but I don’t accept this or that teaching,” “The Church is too rigid and out of touch with real life,” and “As a mature and well-educated adult, I think the Church should catch up with the times.”

In crises of faith like these, it is important to recall that there have always been truths of faith, which cannot be reconciled with the spirit of the age. But they remain true even if they are unpopular.

The Immaculate Virgin Mary gives us a convincing model of faith and of having a clean heart. In Lumen Gentium (#63), the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,” Vatican II teaches that Mary’s faith was “unadulterated by any doubt.” With an immaculate heart, she believed all that God said and she trusted all that He promised (Cf. Lk 1:45). Of course, there were times when she faced things beyond her understanding. For example, when told by the Angel that she was to be the Mother of God, she asked (Lk 1:34) “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” Upon finding Jesus in the Temple after three frantic days of searching, Mary said (Lk 2:48), “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”

Even in these anxious moments, the Blessed Virgin’s faith remained pure from any doubt. She did not always understand but she did always trust. She showed us the close connection between purity and faith.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes this same connection (#2518), “‘Pure in heart’ refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.”

Already in the fourth century A.D., St. Augustine emphasized this point: “By believing the faithful may obey God, by obeying they may live well, by living well they may purify their hearts, and with pure hearts they may understand what they believe.”

The sixth Beatitude responds to two vital questions asked by people from every age: What is our ultimate goal? How do we get there? The blessing of seeing God — the end for which we were made — is only possible when He has purified our heart. In other words, our seeing God is linked with His loving gaze upon us. It is God who seeks us out, draws us near His Heart, thus purifying and giving us new life.