The one gift that gives all other gifts

Book 2, Chapter 1

-Part 8-

What, indeed, is the key to a fulfilled spiritual life?

Truly, even those who seek God and find him will still thirst for more of him. The joy of journeying in the presence of God is not something that the earnest believer will ever want to abandon. If we were smart – or as Father C says, “pure of heart” – we would never take for granted this exceptional and amazing truth that God is for us, with us and within us; that he exerts his good and perfect will toward us at every moment and not for a second does he abandon his fatherhood, his protection and his sustenance of us.

However, like the Prodigal Son (Luke 18), it is possible for us to forsake our heavenly inheritance, step away from our awareness of the Father – either momentarily to address ourselves to some outburst selfish distraction, or for a longer span of time filled with chronic denial, anger and blame; or simply a preference to avoid the demands of a meaningful attachment to God. We can turn away from God’s fatherhood. The angels must marvel at the callous and capricious manner in which we, the adopted sons and daughters, sometimes abuse the love that God has for us.

What must we ask for in order to find everything in God? What will keep us from hesitating or resisting?

“As for me,” Caussade says, “I will ask one gift only, and I have only this one prayer to make to Thee. Give me a pure heart” (Page 52). (See Psalm 51:10.) This is the key. “The pure heart, the good will: This is the sole foundation of all spiritual states” (Page 53).

And again, “It is from purity of heart that [all souls] draw all their beauty and charm. The wonderful fruits of grace and all sorts of virtues, so nutritious for the soul and bursting into blossom on all sides, are the results of purity of heart.” (Ibid.)

It seems natural, does it not, that after warning us against contamination of spirit, the good father would enjoin us to pursue a pure heart with all our might; to return again and again to God’s loving embrace to further refine our own love for him, which William of St. Thierry said was “planted in us” (The Nature and Dignity of Love, Prologue).

Purity of heart, we may dare to discover, is not an end in itself but a means for a further-on life with God – a life marked by love for Him. We must give God ample workspace in our inner life to bring about this new creation. In the same way that He spoke over the darkness, “Let there be light,” so must He speak over our murky souls, “Let there be love.”

Caussade considers a pure heart and a good will to be a singular unit – a pure heart serving as a resource to form in us a will to follow the guidance of God as would a child at play: “What greater happiness than to possess God and be possessed by him! The soul sleeps peacefully on the breast of Providence playing with the divine wisdom like an innocent child without anxiety about the journey” (Page 52).

No wonder Jesus said the pure in heart would be “blessed,” and that “they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). Yes, they will see God when all are gathered into Heaven, but, the pure in heart will perceive God today with an awareness that comes from the Holy Spirit having free sway in a heart sprinkled clean by the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:22).

Purity of heart is a gift from God over which we are to act as stewards. We do not make our hearts pure. God does that. But we are to guard our hearts and keep ourselves from drifting into shallows, from wandering into dark places or from exchanging our reliance upon God for anything else. When we, by blunder or by weakness, stray from our watch, the pure heart is contaminated. What are we to then do but seek forgiveness through confession and reconciliation?

Christians, if they are to be good stewards of this pure heart, will have to bathe it regularly with penitential tears to restore a clear conscience, a clean heart and an unobstructed view, as it were, of God’s presence.