The heart is the seat of moral personality: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication….”1 The struggle against carnal covetousness entails purifying the heart and practicing temperance:
Remain simple and innocent, and you will be like little children who do not know the evil that destroys man’s life.2
The sixth beatitude proclaims, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”3 “Pure in heart” refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity;4 chastity or sexual rectitude;5 love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.6 There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith:
The faithful must believe the articles of the Creed “so that by believing they may obey God, by obeying may live well, by living well may purify their hearts, and with pure hearts may understand what they believe.”7
The “pure in heart” are promised that they will see God face to face and be like him.8 Purity of heart is the precondition of the vision of God. Even now it enables us to see according to God, to accept others as “neighbors”; it lets us perceive the human body—ours and our neighbor’s—as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty.
Mt 15:19.
Pastor Hermae, Mandate 2, 1: PG 2, 916.
Mt 5:8.
Cf. I Tim 4:3-9; II Tim 2:22.
Cf. I Thess 4:7; Col 3:5; Eph 4:19.
Cf. Titus 1:15; I Tim 1:3-4; II Tim 2:23-26.
St. Augustine, Defide et symbolo 10, 25: PL 40, 196.
Cf. I Cor 13:12; I Jn 3:2.