Beatitudes

Sixth Beatitude

Blessed are the pure in heart because they will see God

God is promised as a reward to the contemplation of those who have purified themselves in their hearts. "No one has ever seen God" (Jn 1:18) because, as Moses testified, "you cannot see my face, because man cannot see me and live" (Ex 33,20). And Paul confirms this: "the only one who possesses immortality and inhabits an inaccessible light, which no man has ever seen nor can he see"
(1 Tim 6:16)

The promise is so great as to overcome the highest limit of bliss. In the usual use of Sacred Scripture, "seeing" is to be understood with the meaning of "finding", "conquering spiritually"; in the passage "May you see the goods of Jerusalem" (Ps 27: 5), the expression "may you see" stands for "may you find"; and so it is also in the statement "Let the wicked be removed from the midst, that he may not see the glory of God" [Is 26,10], that "not see" means "do not conquer", "have not" the glory of God.

Who has seen God, thanks to this "seeing" has all that is contemplated and promised in the list of the Beatitudes: the infinite life, the eternal incorruptibility, the immortal bliss, the endless reign, the incessant joy, the true light , the sweet voice of the Spirit, the inaccessible glory, the perpetual exultation; in short, every good.

A necessary and unavoidable condition for the conquest of "seeing" God is the purity of the heart, a dizzying goal for man, which seems impossible to achieve, especially in a world like today, pervaded by every kind of message and solicitude, far from bringing us or making us seek purity of heart. Perhaps the Lord exhorts us to something that is beyond the reach of our nature and transcends the measure of human faculties? The divine nature surpasses all understanding, being inaccessible and unattainable to human thoughts: an earthly faculty has not yet been discovered that allows the perception and understanding of the impossible. This is why the apostle Paul called the way that leads to the knowledge of God inscrutable (see Rom 11.33) and which is inaccessible to reasoning.

However it is possible to "see" by conjecture. As in the works created by man, the mind recognizes the creator of the product through the product itself, since inevitably there is the imprint of the inspiration and the artistic vein of the author, thus, observing and contemplating the order of creation, there we form a notion not only of its essence, but also of the wisdom of Who has done all this perfectly. If we then reason about the reasons that led to the creation of our life, we understand that the Creator came to originate man not out of necessity, but out of His magnanimous will. Also in this case, we say we have contemplated God, having understood not His essence, but His goodness. All the considerations that elevate thought to the higher being derive from God himself, since each of these concepts brings us God before the eyes. Power and purity form a divine conceptual representation in the soul. Therefore, the Lord asserts the truth - and it could not be otherwise - when he promises to the pure in heart that they will see God, because He who is invisible by nature, becomes visible through His activity, when He is contemplated in some His property.

The Lord did not say that to be happy and happy is not only to know something of God, but to own God in oneself. With "Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God", does not propose God as a face to face vision, to those who have purified the eye of his soul, but suggests to us what the Logos presents elsewhere more clearly: "The Kingdom of the heavens it is within you"
(Lk 17,21).

Who has purified the heart from corruption and passionate disposition, sees in his own beauty the image of God. The measure granted to you by God's conception is indeed in you: God has impressed the goods of his own nature in your essence; whoever prevents you from seeing them is vice, which obscures or even buries the divine imprint. If you can remove the dirt that is encrusted in your heart, then the divine beauty will shine in you and outside you. You will regain happiness because those who are pure in heart, looking and becoming aware of their own purity, will recognize the archetype, the One from whom it is generated. As is the case for those who look at the sun in a mirror that, although looking fixedly at the sky, sees the sun in the splendor of the mirror at all inferior to those who look directly, so it will happen to you that you will find and recognize in yourself the image of God, in the likeness of which you were created. Divinity is purity, absence of passions and extraneousness to every evil: if therefore all this is in you, God is certainly in you.

When your thought is purified of every vice, free of passion, foreign to every stain, you will be happy for the clarity of sight, because, purified, you will be able to perceive and possess what is invisible to those who are not purified; removed the material obscuration from the eyes of the soul, you will look blissfully in the pure sky of your heart the Blessed vision. Purity, holiness, simplicity and all the luminous reflections of this kind are fruits of the divine nature through which we are allowed to contemplate God himself.

Purification, however, cannot be achieved only with human effort. Virtues are difficult to achieve: they cost a thousand pains and sweats, hardships and hardships. Jesus teaches us with his teachings on how to eradicate the root of vice: putting into practice His precepts, you will discover the purity of the heart. The renunciation of vice cannot therefore be a forcing, an imposition of the Creator towards the creature, but a free choice of the creature who seeks and desires to "see" His Creator.

And the Lord goes beyond the care of sins, committed to satisfy the pleasures of the flesh: it removes the foolish desire of adultery from the heart; it forbids to challenge unjustly, not even admitting self-defense; bans the passion of greed, ordering those robbed of undressing even what is left of them; he takes care of the fear, commanding to be contemptuous of death. The incisive word of the Lord extends, like a plow, the evil roots of sin from the depths of our heart and, through the precepts, allows us to purify ourselves from the evil fruits of vices, bristling with thorns.

The moral conduct of man is always the reflection of a "face": either it is that of the Father, or it is that of the adversary of the Father. If blessed are the pure in heart, wretched without doubt are the spiritless, because they look and are the reflection of the face of his opponent. We lay down the evil mask, summarize the divine image and become pure in heart: we will be so blessed forever because, by the reconquered pure lifestyle, we will be a reflection of the divine image in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God gives the prize to what he sees in your heart. Everything that delights you is inside your heart; therefore, if an unhealthy passion stimulates you, do not consent; and if it is very ardent, pray to God to reject it, so that within you a pure effect will be produced and the heart will come out purified. Sometimes the tongue is silent, but moans the soul: try in every way to pray in your intimate God. You may find yourself in difficulty in purifying your heart: then invoke Who will not refuse to purify a place for himself and will be pleased to live in you. He will be your food himself, since it was He who said: "I am the living bread descended from heaven" (Jn 6:41). Such bread refreshes and does not deteriorate, gives the clarity of discernment between Good and Evil and generously lavishes all the forces necessary to purify the body and heart, to return to being in His image and likeness. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.