Blessed are the Pure in Heart

All Saints Day is past, but its themes linger in this final month of the church year. On the one side, there is what I would call its earthly aspect, all too familiar to us, of grief and loss, of mortal frailty, and our prayer for God’s mercy. That’s why, when we commemorate all souls of the faithful departed (All Souls Day), the observance is traditionally kept in black or violet vestments, the liturgical colours of mourning and penitence. “In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for thy succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”.

That is the earthly aspect, all too familiar to us; but there is also a heavenly aspect, not of sorrow but of joy, not of death but of life – yet not a this-worldly “celebration of life”, but something unfamiliar and even strange. For in the gospel lesson for All Saints Day, Jesus gives his disciples an assurance of “beatitude” or blessedness, a word which modern translations often render as “happiness”. Beatitude is a strange kind of happiness. When we think of happiness, we think of health and financial security, of family and friends, of pleasure and freedom. But the happiness Jesus speaks of, is the happiness of those who are poor in spirit and pure in heart, of those who show mercy and make peace, of those who mourn and are meek, of those who hunger for righteousness and suffer for it also. What kind of happiness is that? It’s a happiness that exists even in the absence of all worldly goods, because it consists in the enjoyment of God alone. It’s a perspective articulated in some lines of Teresa of Avila (here in the translation of Arthur Symons):

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changed;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

God alone suffices, because he is the absolute goodness, beauty, and truth our hearts desire. That’s what the collect refers to “unspeakable joys” – joys that pass our power to express, because they are the enjoyment of a good that is infinite and inexhaustible.

Though this happiness is the fulfillment of the heart’s deepest desire, it is given only to those who are “pure in heart” – those whose loves are undivided, who will the pure and perfect good above all other goods. (It is Kierkegaard’s pithy saying, “purity of heart is to will one thing”, namely God.) Beatitude is given to those who are willing to surrender all other goods, for the sake of this one – which his why this beatitude is promised to the martyrs and confessors of Christ, to those who suffer for righteousness’ sake. They are the example of faith and obedience for us to follow, because in their own following of Christ they were united to him in his suffering and glory.

We can think of it this way also. God wills us to make us happy by sharing in his own eternal happiness – but first he makes us holy. The Law of Moses indicates that only creatures that are whole and without blemish, pure and undefiled, can be brought near to the Lord. Because we are blemished and defiled by sin, it is only through the forgiveness of sins, and by the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, that we are set apart and consecrated to the service of God. Only as in union with Christ we die to sin and rise again to righteousness and holiness are we made capable of enjoying everlasting happiness, the happiness of God himself. Only by faith in his blood, and sanctification by the Spirit, do we attain purity of heart.

And what of us who are not called to suffer as martyrs and confessors? Suffering indeed comes our way, and in the perspective of faith it’s an opportunity. The old service for the Visitation of the Sick says, “there should be no greater comfort to Christian persons, than to be made like unto Christ, by suffering patiently adversities, troubles, and sicknesses. For he himself went not up to joy, but first he suffered pain; he entered not into his glory before he was crucified. So truly our way to eternal joy is to suffer here with Christ; and our door to enter into eternal life is gladly to die with Christ; that we may rise again from death, and dwell with him in everlasting life”. The more nearly we follow Jesus in patience and hope, the more our faith and love is purified of all worldly lust and ambition, the more completely our hearts are set on God alone. Our own efforts to die to sin and rise to new life (mortification and vivification) are usually weak and half-hearted: but in suffering God grabs us by the scruff of our necks and drags us into the new life. Once we have finished kicking and screaming, we may by his grace find ourselves saying “thy will be done”. That is the purity of heart in which we see God.