Blessed are the pure in heart

This beatitude is one of the blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.

The first thing we learn from this beatitude is that Jesus is concerned with our heart. The word “pure” means to be free from sin. We can ask God to help us be pure and
do the right thing. When we do wrong things, we can ask God to forgive us and give us a pure heart to do the right things.

When we let Jesus purify our hearts, we can to come into God’s presence and spend all of forever with him.

To be pure in heart is to be from contamination. It is to have one focus, one goal as you go about your life, and that goal is to please God. Maybe something is hindering you from living up to your fullest potential in Christ. Always check your intentions. You may be doing good things for the Kingdom of Heaven, but is there any part of you that is serving God for selfish reasons? Or is your service, or any work you do, negatively affecting the quality and quantity of your relationship with your family? This week, do a heart check and ask God to purify you so you may see Him clearly.

The way people and the world look at people is different to how God looks at people. People tend to judge others on how they look, what they do, how they act, and what they say. But God doesn’t judge us based on what we do or what we look like on the outside. God goes much deeper in His relationship than that. He goes right into our hearts. Right into the deepest, darkest, most sinful places in our lives. He knows the secrets that we don’t tell anyone. He knows our greatest fears and what embarrasses us the most. He knows how we do good things for wrong reasons and how we do bad things while we think we have a good reason.

God knows us better that we know ourselves. 

We want to follow God, but we get distracted by our homework, or sports, or arguing with friends or family, or grumbling about doing our chores. Our hearts can become impure even by good things, if we let those good things become more important to us than God is. Doing homework and sports are good things, for example, but if they become more important to us than our relationship with God, then our hearts are just as impure as if we were not doing our homework or being a poor sport when we lose a game. The only thing that should be permanently in our hearts is God. In order to see God and spend all of forever with him, we must become pure in heart and free from distraction by following Jesus.

We would encourage families to go through this thought-provoking resource shared by our wonderful diocese and engage in the topics of discussion: Blessed are the pure in heart

Saint Maria Goretti is one saint that can teach us God’s message.

She is also known as the patron saint of forgiveness. Although Saint Maria Gorett was confronted with violence and had mortal wounds inflicted upon her by her attacker, she was able to forgive him before she took her last breath. St. Maria Goretti at the age of eleven years old chose to forgive her attacker and not allow hate to harden her heart. Her final words before her death were, “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli…and I want him in heaven with me forever”. 

St Maria Goretti (please click on this link to learn more about Saint Maria Goretti)

We hope these resources will be useful to you and your families.

God bless you all,
Mrs Avdiu