Purity and Meekness for All

There are two beatitudes I think I have had all wrong for a long time. Being 'pure of heart' and being 'meek'.

I made an assumption, conscious or not, that a person is simply born with those natural propensities by temperament and if you didn't have them - well, that was the luck of the draw, so to speak. And if you DID have them, blessed are you.

Jesus is talking to thousands of people in this sermon on a mount - all types, all temperaments, whom he says won't be happy until they have purity of heart and meekness - and above all, Jesus wants us all to be happy. The growling, impatient ones as well as the naturally shy and retiring and gentle. We are all called to those too quiet beatitudes.

I was helped to see this in a striking way over this past year. I know a woman, let's call her G, who is gentle, kind, patient, and has a life completely integrated with her faith. She speaks quite naturally about her faith to young and old alike - never cloying or sentimental or self-righteous - I have seen her and marveled. She is very matter of fact in her beliefs. She doesn't water any of the hard things down, but states them simply. As though it were up to you now to wrestle with them in your own soul if you needed to, and not with her personally. She was, quite simply, only the messenger.

There is not one ounce of guile in her . She doesn't brag, but most impressively - she does not depreciate herself. She is an artist by trade. She will tell you when she did a good job and when she did not. Quite simply. She is sure of the difference. She has a voice like I would suppose Our Lady's voice to be. Steady and naturally measured.

My first instinct, when I met her, was to protect her from this nasty, jaded world! She seemed so innocent and vulnerable somehow. As though too fragilely shining to navigate this world of murky intentions lurking all around her. To my growing surprise, however, I surmised quite wrongly that she needed my or anyone’s protection.

For purity of heart is a beatitude hard won. If you have it, it presupposes many battles within. Purity is a word that comes from the Greek: Katharos. It is a word that means pure, but a purity gained by, and even presupposing, fire and extensive pruning. Heart comes from the Greek: Kardeeah, the spiritual center of things where you think, love, have a sense of purpose, and where character resides. So, the fire is set to THOSE things - all those things we love more for ourselves than for serving God - our thoughts, our attractions, our love of praise and competing for it in the world, human respect - dross. And the dross is slowly and painfully removed by the fire of grace through suffering. What is left is the heart that loves God - simply and in all things. No duplicity. No frustrating struggles back and forth between Him and the world.

The person at the far end of this firing process is beautiful. I have seen one such person. G is one. I just happened to meet her later in her process.

All her art is for God. He is, as a matter of fact, the subject of her paintings. But she came to this simplicity after many long and winding roads and so many leaps of absolute faith it astounds me she is still so calm. She has children, a husband, a mortgage. She went to college for one degree and found out it was an utter disappointment. She opened her heart to the fine art of oil painting without ever having really painted seriously before. She was filled with conviction that God wanted this gift of her. . That she knew. And it carried her. But surely she struggled. With doubts. With other people's nay saying. Perhaps with others simply trying to attach themselves to her rising star for selfish reasons of their own. She went through childbirth several times for heavens sake, worried about where the money was going to come from if she continued to paint. Surely she fought many many battles with herself. She was no shrinking violet.

But the one obvious thing she seems to have done was to allow God to light her on fire. She had the courage to let the dross be burned away. This is a step many of us are not willing to take - or at least not as radically as she did. But when the fire dies down, there is this gentle human being - simple, integrated, in control of herself and with a right understanding of her gifts and her faults shining with the victory bought by suffering. It is a beauty I have witnessed just by being in the same room with her.

Purity of heart is what I always see. The pure of heart are magnificent to behold. Not in any need of protection. They have fought the beast and ..... won.

Then there is meekness. Meekness is defined as "having the right or the power to do something but refraining for the benefit of someone else." Jesus was the most meek, of course. Meekness is a choice to refrain in order that a greater good be the outcome. Meekness is not weakness. It is a powerful choice to hold back our own opinions, our words, our reactions to being hurt or maligned, not because we are self doubting and self depreciating or afraid of human respect - but because we know who we are before God and we choose to act in love like him. It is not naive to be meek. It is not a virtue that lets people run roughshod all over you because you are too shy to say anything. It chooses always to be calm under fire and to hold its tongue. Try it for about one hour and you will know how very difficult it is to be truly meek - to be silent before injustice or persecution so that love will reign. Having the wisdom to know when to speak up but to speak up quietly and contained. G. had this as well. When armchair artists would give her “pointers”on her paintings of the saints and Our Lady even questioning the Theology of them. She did smile. But quietly, without taking offense. She listened far longer than I ever could without a tart rejoinder, to these obviously lesser intellects and even lesser artists -with an open face and mind. She always said she took away wisdom from everyone who commented on her work. She never defended herself. The humility and self restraint this requires is huge.

I think Thomas Aquinas had that kind of meekness when his fellow monks made fun of him. He was integrated and knew himself. He had the wisdom to refrain from rebuttal in order to love them and lead them to an understanding beyond their thoughtless and jaded mirth.

Purity of Heart and meekness. I will now know better than to want to protect those who have them. For they have no need of my protection - they belong to the mightiest of soldiers in the Church militant. And blessed are they. And blessed are we all called to be.