Reflections on the Beatitudes – Part Six

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

A new baby is a clean slate for God and the world to imprint a message. Her mind and spirit is pure, like a sterile ball of cotton, released from its protective wrapping for the first time. 

When she was born, her mother and caregivers made sure she was clean, comfortable, and surrounded by peace and a loving embrace. Her father watched in awe, and held the bundle like a soap bubble, fearing that she would break with the slightest touch.

But she did not break, and she would prove that a pure heart would conquer all adversity as she grew and developed and flourished. She learned simplicity from her parents, family, and community – she did not need fancy clothes, fancy food, and fancy words. All she needed was purity – purity of thought, purity of intention, purity of spirit, wrapped in a structure of guidelines and consequences.

Along the way, she was tempted. Her schoolmates tempted her with drugs, cigarettes, the latest telephone, a fast car, parties that would last past her curfew. Sometimes she strayed from the lessons of purity, but in each instance, the seeds that had been planted in her early life sprouted new growth and with such reminders, she asked for and accepted forgiveness.

As she became an adult, the lessons were so much more subtle: moments of boredom in her job for which she could be tempted into laziness; a lavish buffet that could make her body sick from overindulgence; a call from her elderly mother that could require more emotional energy than she thought she could muster. Again, the perennial seeds of purity would re-sprout and she would choose wisely.

At the end of each day, her last thoughts before sleep were prayers of gratitude for the day’s blessings. She was grateful for the wisdom and discernment, and for the purity of her prayers.

 “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.”