Am I pure of heart?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

1 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village, Kansas

AMDG

Am I pure of heart?

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!

If you experience just one thing at today's Mass, I pray you will experience the mercy of Jesus cleansing and purifying your heart.  When we regard the heart of Mary, we name it Immaculate, or pure, or clean.  Our Lady is happy, and blessed, because she sees God from a pure heart.  Jesus came that your heart too might be cleansed from the stains that darken, and dull and harden our hearts.

Jesus' heart breaks for me often when He sees how scared I am to live from the heart.  When I speak about the heart, I don't just mean my feelings.  Jesus regards the heart as the inner core and soul of a person, where our senses, thoughts, will, memory and imagination coalesce.  The heart is where a person has a chance to become fully alive, spiritually, so much so that one can see God!  

Jesus sees, however, when I am a dead man walking.  He weeps when my heart is dull or gross or stubborn.  He knows how hard it really is for me to live from the inside out, with great honesty, integrity, vulnerability and courage.  He is always trying to write the laws of his love on my heart, so that I am free to love God and neighbor in purity of heart, just as He has first loved me.  

I broke my mom's heart once when I was afraid to live in purity of heart.  After my first year of seminary, at age 26, I was home for the summer since my mom's cancer had relapsed.  Yet when she most needed me to live from the heart, I got into a funk.  My heart grew cold.  I stopped going to daily Mass, and felt sorry for myself, wanting to go back to my old life before seminary.  Even though my mom would die nine months later, my heart wasn't there for her.  She had to tell me that if my heart wasn't in the priesthood, then don't do it!

Jesus has to say the same thing to us often.  If your heart isn't in it, then don't do it.  Don't pretend. Don't settle.  Don't let your fears get the best of you, so that you cope with life through sins that make your hearts dull, and gross and stubborn.

Though we have hundreds of rules that govern our common worship of God, as did the Pharisees, our Church has distilled them into just five precepts that free us to live from the heart together.  These are the minimum for a practicing Catholic.  Go to Mass together. Fast and abstain together.  Be reconciled to God and each other through confession.  Receive the Eucharist in purity of heart at least once a year during Easter.  Be a giver not a taker, or as St. James says today, be doers of the word not just hearers.  These five precepts suffice for reconciling us, that we can go through life together as Christ's body, in purity of heart.

These five precepts are easy, but because it's easier to live with pretense, from the outside-in, judging by appearances, I can struggle to fulfill them.  Because I am scared to let Jesus speak to my heart, and look into my heart, I can avoid them.  

Yet these five precepts save us from obsessing and judging about lesser things, so that our hearts are far from God. These five precepts save us from the twelve deadly sins Jesus lists in today's Gospel, that truly defile our hearts.

Go to Mass.  Fast and abstain together.  Confess your sins.  Receive the Eucharist in purity of heart at least once a year.  Be givers, not takers.

Blessed are we if we do these things.  For they will allow us to live together in purity of heart.

Happy are the pure of heart, for they will see God!

Am I pure of heart?

+mj