2518 The sixth beatitude proclaims, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”307 “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;308 chastity or sexual rectitude;309 love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.310 There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith:
The faithful must believe the articles of the Creed “so that by believing they may obey God, by obeying may live well, by living well may purify their hearts, and with pure hearts may understand what they believe.“
3112519 The “pure in heart” are promised that they will see God face to face and be like him.
312 Purity of heart is the precondition of the vision of God. Even now it enables us to see according to God, to accept others as “neighbors”; it lets us perceive the human body – ours and our neighbor’s – as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty. Catechism of the Catholic Church
This faith and obedience, the two sides of the same coin is something that I learned early on in my ‘reversion’ to the fullness of the Catholic faith. I remember shortly after falling in love with the Lord anew. I was in my bedroom and had finished praying and was attempting to meditate on the days readings. So I just sat there for a while and spoke to Him. I plainly asked Him ‘so what now’? This sitting around in prayer thing still seemed pretty ‘boring’ to me at the time. I was wondering if this was it…did leading a Catholic Christian life simply mean sitting around praying all day.
His answer was so profound that even after two decades I remember it still. He told me…”you’ve prayed, now be attentive to ME and obey what I ask of you.” Well, let me tell you, my life has been anything but boring. Obeying Him has lead me on the most amazing adventures…my life to the reader may not seem very adventurous…I’m simply a homeschooling mom…but the path that lead me here was totally and completely amazing. It reminds of the following poem
This poem reflects the beautiful relationship that He wants with us.
At first, I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.
But later on when I met Christ, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back helping me pedal.
I don’t know just when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since.
When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable . . . It was the shortest distance between two points.
But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places at breakneck speeds, it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said, “Pedal!”
I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?” He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust.
I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I’d say, “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand.
He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me gifts to take on my journey, my Lord’s and mine.
And we were off again. He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage, too much weight.” So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light.
I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it; but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, knows how to jump to clear high rocks, knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.
And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus Christ.
And when I’m sure I just can’t do anymore, He just smiles and says . . . “Pedal.”
— author unknown
You can go to this page—> Jesus My Lord and Savior to read more about faith and obedience and how both are required.
143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience of faith”.3 (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
We were created to live a life of faith, with the help of God’s abundant grace through the Sacraments. We were never meant to go at it alone, living depressed, lonely lives filled with anxiety and despair. That isn’t part of the plan. And even though we continually fall short, we can choose this path over and over. It is up to us. That’s the Good News that Jesus died to bring us.
Pray and obey! We are to submit our entire being into doing what we discern as being His will. That’s what it means to pray always. Our actions get turned into prayer because it is a loving response to Him who loves us dearly and wants to guide us along this journey of ours. An in faith, once we have done our best, we know that we can leave the results to Him, that in His hands all will always be for the best.
Meekness is about putting ego a side. We often can think of this as an instruction to ‘stay within our own lane’. But in some ways it’s actually the opposite. It’s about fully realizing that this grand plan of God goes way beyond us and that He’s fully in control, regardless of our limitations.
When we see people out there doing some pretty amazing things we can be tempted to think ‘what an ego maniac’, but how about the person who pulls back and doesn’t follow through on what God is putting in their heart because of not wanting to be seen as foolish? Isn’t the ego way more at work there?
716The People of the “poor”87 – those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God’s mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah – are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit’s hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ’s coming. It is this quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit is making ready “a people prepared for the Lord.”88
We have somehow lost sense of the social aspect of sin. We may be quite familiar with the personal effects, but may have with time forgotten that we are part of the Body of Christ. It is with this in mind that I approach The Daniel Fast. Just as our sinfulness effects others, fortunately our acts of obedience can as well.
On day 1 of the fast, it is suggested that we confess our sins. Let us be clear on what we are still clinging to, what idols are we still holding up in our lives.
We are to release anything that is tempting to take the Lord’s place in our hearts. Only through purity of heart can we then truly love others the way God loves us. Sinfulness distorts our view of the world like dirt on our glasses, Confession wipes them clean.
When we take on fasting… we attempt with God’s Grace to hand to Him those idols that we been clinging to as we Offer it up to Him and allow Him to bless us and the entire Church according to His will and not our own.
This past week I’ve been focusing on Step 1…self. I like to think of step 1 as a vertical beam, connecting you to heaven…to Jesus Himself! You can’t discover what you need and what your soul craves without consulting the One that created you and then allow yourself to gently be lead forward…by stepping out in obedience.
This initial step is all about discovering yourself. There are of course many layers to ‘self’…mind, body, spirit. This week I focused on the body. My health in the past has been all over the place, nothing really serious but enough wrong to mess with God’s plans for me. It greatly effects my emotional well being, and I’m often plagued with depression and anxiety. Something needed to be done. This is when the Whole 30 plan fell into my lap. I’ve been attempting to do Paleo for a while. Coming from an attempt with GAPS for my son’s sake (who has Autism)…and knowing without a doubt that those principles work, but being completely unable to ‘step into it’.
This time, feeling a personal call to do this and then making sure that I had the support in place that I would need, I feel hopeful. I also discovered the TTapp exercise program, which I’ve been doing faithfully all week. I feel a renewed sense of energy and power.
I need the Sacraments to see me through anything that the Lord asks of me…including something that may seem trivial in someone else’s eyes…such as this. So…tomorrow…my plan is to go to Confession. In order to be able to clearly see the guidance that the Lord sends our way…we need to keep debris out of the way. Sin acts very much like trash…muddying the waters to a point that we can no longer see truth and beauty if it were to bite us in the face.
If you are following me on Facebook, I have started adding has tags to some of my posts to categorize which ‘step’ it conforms to. So this for example would be #steppingintoit1
For those that don’t know, ‘gotcha day’ is a term that we in the adoption world use. It comes from the words ‘got you’ and it refers to that special day that our children come home to us or in some cases, when the adoption was finalized.
On this day 12 years ago, I received the gift of a life time. 😀
I have added the entire adoption story below if you are interested. Although many of you who follow me have already read it many times…so feel free to skip. 😉
July 14th, 1999
This is the day that my journey began in earnest.
It started out like any other day…at least those in most recent memory. Since the death of my mother on December 30, 1997…my world had been blown apart and nothing was as it should have been. This was her birthday and instead of celebrating it by throwing a party for her as I had done in the past…this year I had only her memories and deep depression to keep me company. Yes, I still had people that loved me in my life…I had my husband, my father, my brothers and their families all close by …but the pain and isolation I felt was so intense that none of that mattered…all I could feel and tried desperately to hang on to was what I had lost and not what I still had. In an attempt to ease the pain I asked my husband Roy to drive me to the cemetery. She is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge…it’s beauty and peacefulness has a way of soothing me…but on this day even that didn’t help much…there was no consolation to be had.
I got home that day and my soul kept struggling to find something, anything that would set me at peace…I thirsted but there was no way that I knew of to satiate this thirst…it came from my soul. Since my mother’s death one thing that had become very clear to me was my desire to have a family. In my heart I felt that I had been left as a child without a mother and as a mother without a child. My husband and I had been married for 13 years by this point and had tried fertility treatments to try to ‘fix’ things and did all we could think of to try to amend our situation…I read so many books on the subject that I think I can qualify as an expert on fertility issues. However nothing worked and to add insult to injury I got proof this same day that another cycle had been blown. Each monthly cycle always started with such hope and elation and month after month always ended the same way in utter desperation…it is amazing what your mind can dredge up and how much you can grieve for a child that never was.
All of this brought me to my knees…literaly. I remember lying on the bathroom floor sobbing uncontrollably, in total desperation I cried out to God. I shook my fist at Him and told Him that if He wanted me to get back up He was going to have to do something…my strength had all been spent…there was no more that I could do…I surrender! It was as if I could hear God speaking softly to my heart and saying ‘Finally’…’I’ve waited a long time for this’.
This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. From that moment on, I started listening…there was nothing else that I could do. His voice is soothing but yet assertive…His directives were very clear…no, I didn’t Hear His voice audibly…I heard it in my heart, in the depths of my spirit. I heard Him in the books I read, the music I listened to, even in bill boards as I was driving down the street…it was unmistakable. The first thing He showed me was about obedience, and through a long track in the desert He kept calling me closer and closer to Him and His Church…this eventually led me to Carmel. But for the moment I had to learn to walk with Him one baby step at a time.
My first act of obedience was to get in touch with Catholic Charities about looking into adoption. This was something that had been burning in our hearts for ages…I think even before we were married…I remember reading ‘The Family Nobody Wanted’, which is about a couple who adopts several children from different races, when I was in Junior High and fell in love with the possibility of having that sort of family (amazing what kinds of seeds are sown early on and when they come to bloom). Anyway, that August when we met with them we were extremely cautious as we added our name to their waiting list…which by the way was going to be three years. We played it very safe with the ‘type of child’ that we would accept (yep, isn’t the adoption world interesting) so we were only willing to accept a child of our own race with no medical issues in their background. A couple of months later we received a letter from Catholic Charities that we were # 71 on the list…so wait we did.
God however was not asleep during this waiting phase…He was busy preparing us for what was to come. We went through a complete upheaval…new job for me, new home etc. We had to be constantly saying, yes Lord…may your will be done. Until one day in August of 2001 things had really started to fall into place, we were settled into our four bedroom home (try explaining that one to people…LOL) and He started prodding our hearts again. This time we felt Him leading us to open up our very strict requirement…and again we said ‘yes Lord’. That very same month we received confirmation of our request from Catholic Charities and a notice that our home study would begin…we were ecstatic…who knew it would be that quick. We went through our training the end of that year and then waited patiently through Christmas wanting so desperately a child to share in our abundance of not only material things but of love and God’s graces. Christmas and other holidays were always hard for me since my mom’s passing…it was just such a lonely time but somehow the world expects you to be cheerful no matter what.
Skip forward several months and my friend Karen asks me if we’d be interested in doing a Cursillo…my husband Roy was going through an upheaval in his job and with all the adoption stress, we decided to accept. Roy went first in May of 2002…which happened to be Mother’s day weekend. Which happened to be one of the most difficult for me…no mom, no kids and now hubby not home…I didn’t even have the courage to make it to church. Anyway, during the Lectio Divina portion …the reading that he was asked to meditate on was John 16:20 -24…
“Amen, Amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices: you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world…”
That spoke to him as you can imagine and one of the phrases that he underlined was ‘a child has been born’.
On that following Tuesday we get a call from Catholic Charities saying that a baby girl had been born on Mother’s Day (May 12th) and if we were interested in being considered as adoptive parents. Our home study had not even been completed at this point. I asked what name they were using for her and was told that the foster family that had her were calling her Teresa…as a Carmelite, I felt sure that this was God’s sign that she was meant to be ours.
After what seemed like an eternity the birth family finally chose us and we prepared to pick up our daughter on June 22th. We couldn’t sleep at all, we were so excited…so up we were at 4AM (yep…a little taste of things to come…LOL)…we made it to Dunkin Donuts at 5 AM and to Mass by 8AM (we weren’t scheduled to pick her up until that afternoon mind you). Anyway the first reading for the day really spoke to us again…it was 2 Corinthians 8: 10 -14…here’s a little bit of what grabbed my attention.
“And I am giving counsel in this matter, for it is appropriate for you who began not only to act but act willingly last year: complete it now…” (We were like…woohooo….praise God, He’s definitely in this). Then it went on to say “Your surplus at the present time should supply their needs, so that their surplus may also supply your needs, that there may be equality.” I had always interpreted this passage in the past to be about material goods…but now I saw that it is about any of God’s gifts. It opened my eyes specifically about adoption, I had always wondered how God could allow pregnancies in certain situations or to certain women that weren’t ready for it, but not to others that desperately wanted to be a mom. This explained it to me.
That afternoon as they placed my daughter in my arms and I looked into her little face, I knew that she had been meant for me from the beginning of time and was well worth the wait. We named her Sarah after the Old Testament woman who had her much desired child at an old age (I was 39 at the time and thought I qualified…LOL) and for her middle name we chose Therese in honor of the Little Flower and also a derivative of the name that she was known by during her first weeks.
Now let’s skip ahead a bit again and it is now December 1’st 2003. Sarah is now 18 months old and the light of our lives. I just can’t imagine loving another child like this even though the thought of giving her a sibling was bearing heavy in our minds so we had placed a call to an international agency the week before to discuss the possibility of adopting right from Vietnam, which is Sarah’s heritage. Anyway, mid morning I get a call from the social worker at Catholic Charities that had helped us with Sarah’s adoption…she’s asking me if we had considered the possibility of adding another child to our family. I was kind of shocked at the question and wanted to know how she knew…LOL. She goes on to tell me that she had a baby boy in her office at that very moment that needed to be placed right away. He was not yet free for adoption and would be a legal risk but they didn’t want to keep moving him from foster home to foster home and would prefer to have him placed with a family that would stick by him until the outcome of the court hearings was known. I called Roy right away…I told him to sit down…LOL…and proceeded to tell him
the rest of the story. He surprised me with his eager yes and I called her right back and said sure. We didn’t know very much about the baby at this point other then that his name was Christian Adam which to me was another sign from God since here we were heading into Christmas…this was my little baby Jesus given to me to protect and love regardless of the outcome. The social worker came to drop him off that evening and Sarah took to him instantly…he was her ‘be-be’ and when the social worker were getting ready to leave, she started crying because she didn’t want ‘be-be’ to go. Of course, he wasn’t going anywhere…
Those first few months were very hard, as we all grew in our attachment to him and him to us…we loved him so much and yet the possibility of him being taken away was very real. One song that I would sing to him all the time was ‘you are my sunshine’ and even to this day cannot get by the verse that says ‘please don’t take my sunshine away’ without breaking down.
He was still having family visits at this point and it just broke my heart every time that the DSS social worker came by to take him and Sarah just screamed not wanting to let him go either. When our first Christmas together came around we decided to go away for a few days, we just wanted to cherish every single moment with him, we really didn’t know how much time we had together. That was a big lesson for me…to just live in the moment.
We kept going from one court date to the next until finally early in 2005 the birth mother’s parental rights were terminated and he was finally free for adoption. His adoption day was a great day of rejoicing for us and we quickly made plans for his Baptism too.
It’s been an incredible journey and I’m sure God is not done with us yet. I feel so blessed for the gifts that He has bestowed on me…my beautiful children, my husband, my family and friends but most importantly for the graces that He has provided to help me live His life abundantly.
Please read this beautiful homily by Father Mario Esposito, O. Carm.
It targets my questioning and disquiet these past couple of years and what I’m still struggling to answer. “Why have you come here.” Here…to this community…to this marriage…to this life. Why are YOU here? Once that has been answered we can no longer sit back and play small. We can choose self giving, obedience and submission, only when we have something to actually give.
“People submerged in their work and other pursuits who begin to lose the meaning of their lives, to feel lost, overwhelmed, angry and frustrated, have to stop and breathe and re-orient themselves to ask what is really important, and what really matters.” Yes, if we don’t ask it of ourselves…life will do it for us and usually in the harshest of tones.
“Why are you here? I am most zealous for the Lord of hosts, for the service of God’s people, in purity and with love.”
www.essydphoto.com
Puritas Cordis June 9, 2012
Purity of Heart, one of the charisms of our Carmelite Spirituality. But what does it really mean, and how does it apply to the lay person.
When we speak of purity of heart to the average Catholic, the message of sexual purity is inferred. However, Puritas Cordis goes way beyond that. Think of Our Blessed Mother. Yes, she was pure in the context stated above…but her freedom from sin was total and complete. Her heart burned wholly for God and His will…and grace abounded.
We are all created with a God-shaped hole in our soul. It is so deep and profound and like St. Augustine said “we are restless until we rest in thee”. This realization of what we are craving comes to the soul of an individual at different stages of the journey. Often times some ‘desert time’ is required. This path can be extremely painful, because it is only through the detachment process that we see that only He is enough, and truly what our heart is desiring in the first place. You cannot feel hunger if you keep yourself stationed at the buffet table.
There is an old country song that whines about ‘looking for love in too many faces’. That is exactly what a heart that is searching for God goes through. We hunger for fulfillment, and completeness, for meaning and purpose, to be told that we are worthy and beautiful. We turn to our idols, our self made golden calves and ask them to supply these things. Their answer at first is intoxicating, it appears to supply all of our needs and we keep going back for more. What started out as a choice now becomes a compulsion! We thirst and these idols keep us thirsty. It doesn’t matter what your particular drug of choice is…we humans are so ingenious, we can create idols out of anything. It is that thing that we keep going back to, time and time again…expecting that this time finally our heart will be content. For some it is food, for others alcohol, drugs, sex, money, power…you get the picture.
It is the apple in the garden of Eden all over again. That’s what the ultimate temptation was about…yes, it was about disobedience…but it was also about seeking answers to life separate from God. His rules are set up for our own protection. They are not there to punish us, but to insure that we get the very best. When I make rules for my kids to not eat junk food, it’s not because I am mean and want to see them suffer. I merely want them to be nourished properly. I want the very best for them. I know that the junk food will take away their appetite for what is good and healthy.
Created things are not bad in and of them selves; it is the distortion in our heart that causes harm. We become greedy with a ‘give me’ attitude. We seek His Hand and stop seeking His Face. It causes harm in the sense that it becomes a distraction from loving God and in turn our brothers fully, and keeps us from receiving all that He wants to give to us. We set ourselves up as our own God, seeking pleasures outside of His boundaries and His Providence. We see everything and everyone as a vessel to fulfill these needs.
One of my favorite stories is about a little girl who so desperately wanted a plastic pearl necklace. She saw just the one in a store window for 25 cents and saved up her pennies to acquire it. She treasured that necklace and held on tight to it. Every night her daddy would tuck her in to bed and ask her for the necklace. Every night the response was the same…oh no daddy, why don’t you take my dolly, or any of my other toys…but not my necklace. The loving daddy would just give her a kiss on the forehead and wish her good night. This played out the same way for a while, until one night the child finally gave in. In tears she took off the old fake pearls which were turning her neck black my now and handed them to her loving daddy. He held her close and as he took her fake pearls with one hand, he was extending the other to deliver to her a beautiful necklace of real pearls that he had been saving for her.
My brothers and sisters in Carmel, the Lord loves us so much that He isn’t satisfied until we are fully partaking in all that He has in store for us…and we shouldn’t be either. This is only accomplished with a pure heart. He gladly takes all of our ‘fake pearls’, and wants so desperately to bejewel us with the real thing, true love!
This isn’t accomplished simply by trying harder or doing better…but by being still and letting it sink in how much our Heavenly Father loves us and how much He has already given and still wants to give to us. We need to be able to live simply in the present moment with a heart filled with appreciation for what is. This is why the track through the desert becomes indispensible; it helps us to focus and removes our blinders.
The path to holiness is not easy but the good news is that He has left us with His Holy Catholic Church which provides the Sacraments that we need for true nourishment…especially that of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. He also sends His angels to minister to us; the importance of community is undeniable…our families, holy friendships and our spiritual communities are all there to support us in this sacred journey towards Holiness.
I just downloaded this free book on to my iPad kindle, and am choosing to encounter God and His will for me through it. Because it is a choice…right? It’s not so much about the ‘tool’, in this case the book…as it is our willingness to be reached.
Lent is two weeks away and I’m very antsy to get started…so who says that you have to wait for a designated time to walk in obedience? Hopefully no one.
“If we want to live in true freedom from the power of sin and Satan, then our ‘house’ – our mind and heart and whatever we allow to control our appetites and desires – must be occupied and ruled by Jesus Christ where he is enthroned as Lord and Savior. Do you know the peace and security of a life submitted to God and his word?”
