The pure heart

We have arrived at the fifth heart, the Pure Heart. Each of these five presentations helps us to understand our experience of God in the context of Carmelite spirituality. It starts with a basic hunger, the Longing Heart. Then we confront the reality of our sinfulness and brokenness in The Enslaved Heart. In The Listening Heart we are given a way out as we begin the road to freedom in prayer. In The Troubled Heart we see that the difficulties and burdens of life hold the potential to draw us into the Mystery of Love. Now, in The Pure Heart, we experience significant progress on our journey. We see our goal, to be one with God in our personal transformation, as both possible and as an approaching reality.

The Transformation of Desire

Carmelite spirituality sees the Christian life as a process of transformation and purification. One moves steadily toward focusing on what God wants. This is a journey away from shallow self-absorption into the center of our being where God dwells.

The vehicle of this journey is prayer evolving into contemplation. Contemplation, as a deeper and gifted expression of prayer, brings the love of God to a new and practical maturity in our life. We start to consistently eliminate the limited and selfish patterns of living. Our thinking, our believing, our trust and our actions are transformed. Now we want what God wants and gradually live out the consequences in new patterns of behavior.

As this contemplative relationship with God matures, we pray more and we pray more quietly. Listening grows and words diminish. The biggest change, however, transpires in our daily lives. Love becomes the operative mode of action in things large and small. Most of all we get more real which ultimately means being free in God’s love.

Passage of Purification

In this switch to contemplation we experience a deep sense of being loved by God. This helps us accept ourselves in both our brokenness and giftedness. We are more patient in our listening to God. We are more open to be taught by God. The desire to control God continues to lessen. Now our prayer is that God will set us free to love with a pure heart.

This passage of purification is both simple and intricate. Distractions and noises develop within the heart and disturb the quiet voice of God. All the events of one’s life, the valleys of darkness and the plains of sunshine, all lead into the action of God that purifies the person of faith. The struggle is to diminish the interior noises and distractions and enter more deeply into our quiet zone. This is where we hear the voice of God in the sound of the gentle breeze of our personal silence.

To Want What God Wants

This journey is not easy because getting closer to God comes at a price. Teresa says the life of prayer and the comfortable life are not compatible. Our lifestyle, which held sway in an unchallenged way, now faces new demands of conversion. Large areas of negotiation in our personal, social and cultural life come into play. While we usually change only one step at a time, we never imagined the price tag on this new journey to God. This all means change on the way to deep personal transformation.

When change does happen, we begin to see beyond the external, beyond our illusions. Our comfortable little world, held in place by the power of our culture and prejudices, begins to crumble. The center of gravity switches. Our awareness begins to recognize and accept what has always been the reality. God is our center. Things get clearer and more real.

Teresa is clear. The purpose of prayer is to find and embrace God’s will in this process of personal transformation. As we progress on the pilgrimage to God, we grow in our desire to want what God wants. This changes how we live. We do not accomplish this by our own determination. God’s love frees us gradually to enter into the desire for God’s will.

Progress on this journey helps us to see that our strength is in our weakness. We are losing control and God is taking over. We must surrender. This submission holds true both in prayer and in life.
We begin to experience things in a new and fascinating way. Our relationships experience a fresh independence. We let people be free. Our clinging and controlling of others begins to decline. We recognize that others are quite capable of directing their lives without our guidance. This happens “because being closer to the center room, the eyes of the soul begin to see the self and others through the eyes of God.” (Interior Castle. 4,2.5-6)

The basic shift to place God in the center of our awareness leads to new perception never possible before. Situations that were locked into a rigid either/or choice now open to several reasonable options. Barriers of race, sexual orientation and culture melt into insignificance. A less self-centered focus lights up the world in all manner of ways that shatters the former darkness. The new mindfulness opens up both the grandeur of God and discloses the consequences of our dependence on God. God’s mercy becomes front and center.

What Teresa means when she tells us to get real is the process of personal transformation. Love is what we seek. We need to be purified to experience love in its truest expression. When it comes to love, only God can offer the real deal. All other authentic love is only a degree of participation in the divine love.

We need to change a lot of things to accept the consequences of the call to transformation and union. Jesus is God’s invitation for us. Teresa insists that we place our eyes on Jesus who is the symbol of God’s passionate love for each of us. He is God’s continuing invitation to loving intimacy. In this context, we learn that all of life is of concern for us. There is no separation of the holy and the ordinary. Everything that happens can help us or hurt us in the quest that is union with God. Life is the greatest grace.