Recently I was asked to speak to a visiting group of sixth form teenagers. In the course of our exchange one of them asked: “What is the purpose of life?” I thought that a jolly good question. You can imagine lots of different answers coming from different people.
Well, I’m a Benedictine monk, so the first answer that came into my head, was: “to give God glory”. Then I thought of another: “to become the person God wants you to be - the person you alone can be - so that you give God glory in the way you alone can”.
Another student then chipped in: “If you believe in God, you’re prevented from doing whatever you want. But I just want to do whatever I like.” That got us onto the subject of happiness, and human flourishing, or fulfilment. I argued that it’s not good to live a completely selfish life, to be a slave to your lowest animal instincts, to treat other people merely as instruments or tools for your own benefit. You’ll land up then hard hearted, unfeeling, inhuman. You’ll be unable to give or receive love: and to give and receive love must surely count as one of the purposes of our life. A wicked person is not admirable, or likable. Above all he’s not happy. Therefore he’s a fool. St. Augustine says that happiness is what everyone most deeply wants. We might define another purpose of our life as the pursuit of happiness. The American Constitution enshrines that as everyone’s inviolable right.
In today’s Gospel Jesus teaches the way to seek and find happiness. Of course it all sounds paradoxical, counter-intuitive, even crazy. But we trust these are words of truth; of divine revelation. We have here a promise, a hope, a blessing. Blessed, happy are the pure in heart, says Jesus, for they shall see God. Jesus speaks out of a heart that’s perfectly pure, and from a vision of God he possesses in its fullness and at every moment. The happiness Jesus speaks about here is no ordinary happiness. This is radical, ultimate happiness. It’s a share in God’s own beatitude. This is the treasure that’s supremely desirable, to gain which we are ready to sell everything we own (Mt 13:44). And with this treasure comes every other most desirable thing: complete personal fulfilment; giving and receiving love to a supreme degree; living in perfect praise of God’s glory.
The monk John Cassian answers our teenager’s question by making a distinction. In his first Conference he says the ultimate end or “telos” of our life is the Kingdom of Heaven - salvation - eternal life - final entry into the joy of the Lord. But to get there, he says, we have an intermediate goal, or “scopos” on which we must set our sights. And that is purity of heart. Because: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
The whole trouble is, our hearts are not pure. They are troubled by anger, greed, lust, envy and the rest. But also, they’re all tangled up with conflicting motives and desires. They are inconstant and confused. And unfortunately, so easily we can separate out certain compartments in our life or behaviour, from which God, and all that is good and holy, is excluded.
We Christians say that without the grace of the Holy Spirit, no one can attain true purity of heart. And also: without the cleansing, reconciling, justifying, sanctifying blood of Jesus, no one can come to the vision of God. As God said to Moses on Mount Sinai: No one can see my face and live (Ex 33:20). The ancient Israelites knew this. Yet still, at their best, they obsessively sought purity, holiness, sinlessness, for the sake of enjoying communion with God. And they never ceased longing to see his face. As the deer yearns for running streams, sang the Psalmist, so my soul longs for you my God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear before the face of God? (Ps 41/42:1) Or again: Make my heart simple, O God, so it may fear your holy name (Ps 85/86:11). Or again: Create a pure heart for me O God; and put a right spirit within me (Ps 50/51:10).
The Pharisees sang these Psalms, but their solution to the problem was an external one. What they aimed for was ritual purity. To achieve that they needed to separate themselves from everything, and from everyone impure. And that naturally tended to make them proud, superior, censorious, self satisfied and hypocritical. All this remains always a temptation for us. But we precisely do not want to be Pharisees! Jesus himself very notably mingled with the impure: the leper, the bleeding woman, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, those possessed by demons. And Jesus teaches the way to purity of heart: through humility; through love without measure; through humble service; through much much prayer; through weeping over our own sins; through ardent love for Himself; through the power of the Holy Spirit flowing into our hearts, transforming, cleansing, enlightening, sanctifying!
The Saints were people in whom all this was achieved. They died in God’s friendship, and went immediately, we believe, to the beatific vision. But surely most people don’t achieve perfect purity of heart before they die. Thank God then for the doctrine, the truth, the reality of purgatory! Those for whom the work of purification remains unaccomplished at death will be purified after it. And then: eternally, blissfully, in the fullness of joy and gratitude, and in perfect communion with all their fellow citizens of heaven: they will be with God.
St. John of the Cross wrote about how we are to be purified on this earth. He speaks of how a bird attached by only a thread to its perch still cannot fly. So we have to break all our disordered appetites and attachments, and be determined to direct our whole life towards God alone. That’s the active phase: what we ourselves must do. But then more effectively, and more painfully, there is the passive phase, where God Himself gets to work on us. John calls this a “Night”. It’s dark, because what’s happening is beyond the range of our sense experience. But also it’s happy, because here already we’re with God. We’re united with Jesus Christ in his Passion. He is with us, and in us, and he is powerfully at work, entirely for our good, sharing his own abundance, drawing us ever closer to union with himself; with his heavenly Father.
No one has ever seen God, says St. John (Jn 1:18; 1 Jn 4:12)... But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him then, as he is (1 Jn 3:2). Now we see dimly, in a mirror, says St. Paul. But then, face to face. Now I can know only imperfectly. But then, I shall know just as fully as I myself am known (1 Cor 13:12).