Purity of Soul

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28).

On many occasions, Our Lord pointed out how the source of human acts lies in the heart, in the interior of a person, in the depths of his or her spirit.

This inner life needs to be kept clean and pure, undefiled by disordered affections, jealousy, or spite. Whatever good is done by anyone has its origin in the heart.

There, with God's grace, sincere piety towards God can grow and develop, as can pure love, understanding, and respect for our neighbor.

Purity of heart increases our capacity for love, whereas ‘bourgeois’ attitudes, selfishness, and spiritual blindness can result from an inner life which is stained.

It's a very good thing to try and develop a refined conscience in relation to the Ninth Commandment.

It’s one of the reasons why it's a good thing to ask children occasionally, and even ask ourselves occasionally, to go through the Ten Commandments. Often people can remember one to seven or eight, but eight, nine, and ten can be a bit fuzzy.

We're told, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19).

And the Book of Proverbs says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). The heart symbolizes what is most intimate to the human person.

“But I say to you,” said Our Lord in Matthew, “that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).

Our Lord lays down the essential meaning of the Ninth Commandment, which forbids internal actions against the virtue of chastity—thoughts, desires, imaginations.

Every disordered affection, although it might seem pure and disinterested, goes against this precept if it's not in accordance with the will of God in the light of one's personal circumstances.

We have to try and live this commandment in a positive way, which is essential if we are to learn to love.

We need, in the first place, a deep friendship with God, so that His love can fill our hearts. And we must avoid what can give rise to any temptations against purity.

These can sometimes come when there's a lack of prudence in guarding our senses, when we don't mortify our imagination, or if we allow it to entertain dreams and fantasies which withdraw us from reality and the fulfillment of our duties.

Or they can come when we seek compensations of an affective nature, or give in to vanity, or dwell on useless memories of the past.

If we don't reject those internal temptations promptly once we’ve noticed their presence, if we don't use the means available to rid ourselves of them, we create a confused inner attitude, not responding as we ought to God's grace.

A person can become accustomed to not being generous with God. If we play around with temptation, walking a tightrope between consent and rejection, this lack of interior mortification may lead to internal sins against the virtue of chastity.

With such an attitude, it's difficult, not to say impossible, to make real spiritual progress.

On the other hand, when a person is resolved to lead a clean life with the help of God's grace, when he uses the means, and especially that of humble and trusting prayer, and puts things right whenever there's been a mistake, then the Holy Spirit, the Sweet Guest of our soul, gives more and more grace.

Joy, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22), takes deeper root in the soul of the person who puts the Holy Spirit before all others and renounces silly compensations that leave a sad and bitter mark on the soul.

By the Ninth Commandment, not only does God ask that we avoid unchaste thoughts and desires, but also that we guard our heart, defending it against what makes true love impossible.

One spiritual writer says, “To keep our soul clean entails guarding our own integrity and affections, being prudent so that we don't squander tenderness where and when we ought not to; it means accepting fully at every moment the consequences of our vocation and state in life” (cf. Jose Luis Soria, Loving and Living Chastity).

Those who have been called to marriage must guard and give their heart only to their own spouse, as much at the beginning of their married life as at the end. To do so, they must constantly control their heart, not letting it become enmeshed in real or imaginary compensations.

St. Josemaría says that married people “mustn't forget that the secret of married happiness lies in everyday things, not in daydreams.

“It lies in finding the hidden joy of coming home in the evening; in affectionate relations with their children; in everyday work in which the whole family cooperates; in good humor in the face of difficulties that should be met with a sporting spirit; in making the best use of all the advances that civilization offers to help us bring up children; it lies in making the house pleasant and life more simple” (Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations, Point 91).

Those for whom God has asked their whole heart, not wishing it to be shared with any other, have even higher reasons for keeping their soul clean and free from attachments.

It would be awfully deceitful if we were to allow our hearts to become entangled in small attachments which would choke—as thorns did the seed sown by the sower—the infinite law of God, who has called us from all eternity.

“Do you think,” asks St. Jerome, “that you have reached the height of virtue because you have offered a part of the whole? God wants you to be a living host, one pleasing to himself” (St. Jerome, Epistle 118).

And God always gives His grace to keep the heart intact, to keep it for Him alone and for all souls through Him; to keep it without compensations, free of the threads or chains which would prevent it from reaching the heights to which it is called.

Courage is needed to cut away what binds a person down or to rectify a misdirected affection.

To guard our heart, we must first guard our love, because if we are lacking in human love and are lukewarm in our friendship with God, it will be easy for unruly desires and compensations to enter our soul.

I heard that the Scottish crown jewels are kept in Edinburgh Castle. They're kept in a glass case that's electrified, outside of which there are guards. In the next room, there are more guards and more alarms, and then more guards and more alarms.

In the courtyard of the castle, the dog's room at night, there are big high walls, and outside the walls there's a moat. If anybody comes to try and steal the crown jewels, they’d have a difficult time.

If that's the way human treasures are guarded in this world, how must we guard the treasure of our heart?

St. Josemaría liked to say we have to try and keep it locked with seven bolts (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 834; The Way, Point 161). And if one of those bolts ever becomes a bit loose, we have to jam it closed again.

The heart was made to love, and it's not satisfied with what is dry and loathsome. We need to examine our hearts and see what care we put into those times that are dedicated especially to God: the reception of Holy Communion, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, moments set aside for prayer during the day and before bedtime.

We have to see if our relationship with Our Lord is a really personal one, such as it should be between friends. We need to be sure to avoid routine and half-heartedness in this friendship.

We need to direct the affections of our heart in accordance with the wishes of God, rejecting promptly any thoughts which might cloud or twist our relationship with God.

The guard of our heart often begins with the guard of the eyes. Common sense and supernatural sense are like filters placed in front of our eyes to enable us not to fix our gaze on what we ought not to look at.

We need to do this with naturalness and simplicity, without having to do anything unusual, but we need to do so also with fortitude, in the street, and in the workplace, and when socializing.

To get to know and love other people, we need to have contact with them. But to prevent our heart from becoming wrongly attached to people to whom it might easily become attached, and to whom God does not want it attached, we need to be prudent in keeping our distance.

This means a moral, affective, and spiritual distance. It means avoiding the unwarranted placing of confidences in other people, speaking to them unnecessarily of our sorrows and sufferings. At times, prudence will dictate that we even keep physically distant.

If we are upright in our conscience, an attentive and sincere examination of our motives will enable us to measure our behavior, judging correctly between what we seem to be seeking and what we're actually seeking in our social and professional relationships.

To prevent our affections from spilling over unduly, we don't need to suppress them, which in any case is impossible, but to guide and control them according to God's will.

Our heart needs to be strengthened by a clean love which will protect it against affections which are not pleasing to God.

The guard of the heart is connected with the control of our memory, with rejecting images and interior dialogues which can inflame an attachment or sidetrack our heart.

Taking refuge in a hyperactive imagination and opening the door to foolish dreams prevents us from being open to everyday reality.

When we give in to this kind of temptation—and we can easily do so in moments of tiredness or interior dryness, as a way of seeking compensation for the ordinary faults and failings of normal life—there arises a lack of unity in life.

In parallel there exists an inner world where our vanity is always on top, yet another hard, real world where we must achieve our personal sanctification, doing the good that God expects of each of us, man or woman.

Those who are unhappy with their situation are prone to escape into that unreal, imaginary inner world and may find it very difficult to face up generously and realistically to what they must do at any given moment if they are to grow in virtue.

How is it possible to live in a dream world and still do one's duty?

How can we struggle against a particular defect if instead of facing up to it we withdraw into our imagination and overcome it there?

How can we be joyful in the face of sacrifice when we are accustomed to hide ourselves in a make-believe world of hallucinatory happiness?

Our heart could even become attached to persons we might have seen in a movie, or come across in a novel, or even in real life, although they are people with whom we have no real contact. A heart tied down in this way, and perhaps stained, cannot find its way to God.

We can examine ourselves and see where our heart is during the day. What do we think about? Who occupies the foremost place in our thoughts?

St. Augustine states that mercy is the “showpiece of the soul” since it makes it appear good and beautiful (Augustine in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, VI) and “covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).”

“He who begins,” says St. Augustine, “to suffer over the miseries of others begins to abandon sin” (Ibid.).

For this very same reason, when we go to visit the sick, we should bring along a friend. This should be a natural part of our apostolate. The soul that partakes of another's sufferings is rewarded with a richer understanding of the love of God.

St. Augustine points out that by loving one's neighbor we purify the sight of our eyes in such a way as to be able to see God (Augustine, Commentary on St. John’s Gospel).

Our vision is sharpened in the perception of divine goods. Egoism hardens the heart, while the exercise of charity enables us to rejoice in God. Hence charity is a foretaste of eternal life (1 John 3:14).

Eternal life may be understood as an uninterrupted act of charity (cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Question 114).

What better reward could Our Lord give us than the gift of Himself? What better prize than for Christ to increase our ability to love others?

St. Josemaría says, “No matter how much you may love, you will never love enough. The human heart is endowed with an enormous coefficient of expansion. When it loves, it opens out in a crescendo of affection that overcomes all barriers. If you love Our Lord, there will not be a single creature that does not find a place in your heart” (J. Escrivá, The Way of the Cross, Eighth Station).

The virtue of purity is so important to every apostolate in the middle of the world that we can think of it as the guardian of love.

It is precisely here that this holy virtue is nourished and acquires meaning. It protects and defends both human and divine love.

If our love were to die out, it would be very difficult, even impossible, to live the virtue in all of its youthful fullness.

This virtue is accompanied by others which don’t attract much attention, but which do add up to a general comportment which is always attractive: details of modesty in dress, in neatness, in sports and recreation.

It could also include the refusal to listen to or engage in conversations that are beneath the dignity of a Christian or of any decent person, the planning of vacations, and, above all, the cheerful example of our own life, optimism in the face of ups and downs, and a genuine love of life.

We can ask Our Lady that Jesus might be the real center of our life; that the clean and noble love, one ready for sacrifice, which He wishes each and every person to live, may be lived with Him in accordance with our own vocation.

In the Furrow, Point 849, St. Josemaría said, “May I give you some advice for you to put into practice daily? When your heart makes you feel those low cravings, say slowly to the Immaculate Virgin: Look on me with compassion. Don't abandon me, my Mother! —And recommend this prayer to others.”

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

UI