Longing for Purity of Heart

Here is an amazing quote from Prof. Ronda De Sola Chervin, from her book Prayers of the Women Mystics.

“Longing for Purity of Heart”

“Such close union with God could not be without anguish because of the many imperfections of even a holy soul. But why should someone see seemingly small defects as offenses against God in the first place? We find a clue in our human loves. Don’t we feel worse when we display a weakness in front of someone we especially admire? How much more if the beloved one is hoping that his or her love would heal us of the insecurities revealed in sin. The offense comes when our behavior manifests the fact that some trifle is worth more to us than even love. Such defects include not only addictions of the flesh, but also those virtues themselves can becomes vices if worn with pride”.

Prof. Chervin wrote this in a chapter on St. Catherine of Genoa.  The comment that hit me the most was,  “The offense comes when our behavior manifests the fact that some trifle is worth more to us than even love”.  Some trifle; some insignificant thing which we hold onto for dear life, instead of letting it fall into the sea of love and forgiveness.  We, as a people are very good at holding onto the trifles of life.  We displayed them as ornaments for others to see. “So and so did this to me. Don’t you see it?”  Oh yes, we do.  We can’t help but see them, because we have some of our own trifles.  Trifles cling to us, and we cling to them.  We turned them into golden idols which drain away precious opportunities to dive deeply into the forgiving-truth; the healing truth; the saving truth of a love that is greater than anything.

Can’t we forgive as Christ did, and seek a purity of heart which does not remembers those trifles?

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Romans 8:35 KJV

Let no trifle, or anything else separate you from the love found in Christ.  Abandon the trifles beloved, and long for the purity of heart offered to us.