Purity of Heart

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Every Catholic child learns that prayer from birth; he hears it in church and at home, if the family prays the rosary together.  The prayer could not be more simple and automatic -- so simple and automatic that we never hear it; we just "say" it.  But this one prayer is the path to purity of heart, if we could only really pray it.

When Mary first began appearing in Medjugore in 1981 (I think it was), the world was waiting for a dramatic message.  With every previous appearance, although her message was very simple, war broke out some years later in the area.  Of course, that was also true in Yugoslavia, with the genocide to follow in the 1980's reign of Sloban Milosovich.  The country was bombed all around Medjugore and finally divided; now Medjurore is part of Bosnia-Herzogovinia.  Yugoslavia no longer exists.  Yet, Mary still appears daily to the visionaries.  One of them, Marjia, often comes to Alabama, and Mary appears to her there.  During her last appearance in Alabama in July, I believe there were over 15,000 people in attendance. 

Mary's messages are always so simple that few people (comparatively) take them seriously.  She is there not to dramatize events, but to teach people to pray.  First, she taught the children visionaries to pray by leading them in prayer daily:  Pray until prayer becomes joy for you, she told them.  Then, others gathered around the children to pray with them.  Some of them led prayer groups for years, and are still doing so.  Others taught their children at home to pray.  There are no 'scary' and dramatic visions taking place -- just simple invitations to prayer and gratitude from the heart of Mary for listening to her call.  There are "secrets" not yet revealed, but they remain secrets to the visionaries.  Mary's mission is to call people to the heart of God, to teach them to trust Him, to teach them to turn to Him in faith and confidence, to prepare them for whatever comes by hiding them under the care of the Most High. 

That is "purity of heart"  -- to desire only that people we know turn to God, know God, love God, trust God.  Moses had to learn purity of heart before he could lead his people out of Egypt.  It took him 40 years on the back side of the desert to give up his fiery temperament and to rely on God's way instead of his ways.  He was extraordinarily well-learned in Egyptian ways; he was in line to inherit the throne of Egypt and to become a 'god' to the Egyptians.  But Yahweh had to teach Moses that nothing would set his people free except reliance on and trust in Him.  Moses had to learn the one thing that could free his people-- total trust in Yahweh, not in himself.  That's a very hard lesson.  In fact, when Yahweh commissioned Moses for the task, Moses had no confidence at all in his own ability to speak to Pharoah or, for that matter, to his own people.  He went with his trust that the Yahweh who revealed Himself to Moses would also be present to work out the details.

When Mary calls us to pray daily, her trust in God is like that of Moses.  She knows that the one who prays daily will begin to desire nothing else but "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit."  We begin to desire not our kingdom come, but His.  Until we are there (or at least on the way), we do not have purity of heart.  If we desire anything else but His kingdom come, we will remain on the back side of the desert, helpless.  Once we desire that God act in His way, in His time, on His terms, we will have gained purity of heart.  Only then will we be fit instruments for His use.

St. Therese of Liseux used to picture herself as the toy of the child Jesus, like a small rubber ball.  If he wanted to pick her up and play with her, it delighted her.  But if he allowed her to remain unnoticed for months and even years, lying unused in a dark corner, that also delighted her.  She wanted nothing else but to allow Him to do whatever He chose with her.  Now that's purity of heart -- not a desire to be strong and powerful, not a desire to change the world or to fix things we don't like, not a desire to be loved or even noticed -- but the desire for God to use us (or not) as He chooses.