The GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE [Caritas/Charity]
(You knew that since you were 3 )1st Corinthians 13
You hear this verse at almost every wedding. These are called the "theological virtues" by some. In scripture we are told that we are nothing without the later. Really nothing. We are just clanging gongs, noisy symbols, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Sometimes we can get paid handsomely for being full of sound and fury clanging like gongs, but nevertheless- IT's NOTHING. It's vacuous vanity. Even if there is a huge following for this vacuous vanity, without Love, it's NOTHING.
Even if I am the greatest philanthropist and give away everything I have to the poor and wander the earth in a brown rope-belted robe, if I don't have love I am NOTHING. Zero. Zip. Zilch. So if you did it without love, you lost your clothes and still have nothing. That statement indicates that the Caritas word does not mean Charity in the throw money in the bucket sense, it means Love in a much larger sense. Even if I am martyred, Paul says in 1st Corinthians- and give up my very body, my physical self to be burned at the stake I am NOTHING. Zero. Zip. Zilch, if I do not have LOVE. Love is a state of the Heart and Soul-a State of more than Grace, it is a state of Being that wraps us in the Divine Sacred Heart. It is more far more valuable than Martyrdom. Martyrdom without it means nothing.
Now the folks in robes who did give up everything to the poor or their cousin Vinnie, sometimes mistake that definition of Charitas to exclude Love as we know it or as God means it, and they call it "Charity". This is really lost in basic mistranslation.
The kind of Love that is spoken of here is something that far surpasses even the act of Martyrdom in its State of Heart. It surpasses even martyrdom in its sacrificial giving of one's entire self. It surpasses even Sacrificial Suffering. It is caring but beyond caring. It is giving but beyond giving. It is sacrifice but beyond sacrifice. In the most intimate marital form of it, yes, of course, it involves a complete total giving of one's entire body.
When the Pope talks about the need for "purification" it scares me because it sounds like the way Germans talked about Purification in WWII. That meant just an elimination of all the Jews. Just eliminate them. Purification of Heart spoken of by King David did not mean elimination of all the women who could pose any temptation. He married and stayed married to Bathsheeba even.
Purification of Heart, to create a Clean Heart means much more and something much deeper than abstinence, chastity, or sexual continence. It means purification of everything that stains and hinders LOVE. It means elimination of hatreds, petty ego trips, resentments, thoughts of
harm, selfishness, certainly selfishness bred of fear, thoughts of revenge, self-righteous anger, slander, malice and other things that offend the Sacred Heart, the God who IS Love. Purification is the transforming of everything that takes one away from Love to turn into Love.
Purification of Heart means more than reaching for the highest Love, the heart of God it entails a transformation to become love. It means Loving in a way that provides for the needs of others even when it requires sacrifice. It means oozing the love that you are from your pores in everything you do; putting another's interests ahead of yours. It means serving them. It can mean if necessary even dying for them. It never means demeaning, trashmouthing, slandering, insulting, or humiliating them. It never means putting them down, in their place, assuming them less than God made them or assuming yourself better than they are. The Greatest of all was the Servant of All in a humility that is hard to grasp. God himself became Man for us- took on the fraility of human flesh. Out of his Supreme Love.
The Church has veered away from the Sacred Heart in a very juvenile way in insisting that the only thing God cares about in purification of heart terms has to do with sexual chastity or abstinence to a point where it can be idolotrous. Most people understand that the way to Love is not through sexual expression but that it is a natural form of giving and the most intimate form of effective communication when one is actually in Love and a state of commitment already exists to further manifest that love. They don't call it "making love" for nothing.
Jesus cares much more if your heart is transformed into his compassion in terms of
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, overturning oppression, setting the prisoner free, visiting those in prison, rescuing those who have fallen into despair, restoring people to hope and healing. Jesus spent most of his time on earth healing people and feeding them and casting out demons, only one of which is called "Lust." Another one is called "Envy." There are legions of them that need casting down.
People who are completely sexually abstinent, continent or chaste can have the most IMPURE hearts because they harbor the other aforementioned evils and more. Someone who has no sex but is a vile malicious slandering ego tripper who thinks themselves better than the next guy is really not a person closer to getting to heaven than someone who has sex with someone they love but are not yet married to and who harbors no such evils in their heart. "Slanderer" ranks right up there with Fornicator and Drunkard in the litany of those excluded from Heaven. And don't get me started on "Envy"- one of the top ten is also You Will Not (thou shall not) Covet- your neighbor's wife, his house or anything belonging to him or her-whether her youth, her good looks, her figure her income her standing her profession her great hair. That jealous old -love sabotaging evil-eyed hag is less likely to be greeted by Peter with a smile at the gates than the teenager necking in the back of the movie theatre.
A pure heart cannot look at a homeless person and not want to find him shelter. A pure heart cannot look at a sick person and not want to lay hands on them, pray for them and do whatever else is in their power to make them well and comfort them. A pure heart cannot watch a hungry child and not feed it. A pure heart cannot see the robbed person lying on the side of the road and walk on the other side of the street as the priest did instead of doing what the Samaritan did. A pure heart is one that Loves because Christ is so much more powerfully in them that Christ manifests himself through them by the transformation of their heart.
Jesus defended the woman getting stoned who was caught in the act of Adultery- Adultery even, not just sleeping with her lover outside marriage- she broke one of the top Ten and was caught in the sheets. He calls it a sin and tells her to stop but he doesn't condemn her. Nowhere does he call anyone out for sleeping together when not married and reads them the riot act. You don't see Jesus in scripture yanking any teenagers by the ear and scolding them for necking. Nowhere. Who does he read the riot act to? The money changers at the Temple get a pretty good whipping. The Pharisees who want to use the law of the Sabboth to prevent him from healing someone get a pretty good tongue lashing for perverting scripture against the Heart of God who cares deeply that people are whole and well. He even gently puts Martha right for being envious of the fact that Mary got to do less "work" and just sit and listen to Jesus at his feet while she had to do all the dishes.
A pure heart pours itself out in an abundance of giving, just as Jesus pours his blood and body out for us continually. It doesn't count the costs, it doesn't count the wrongs against it. It doesn't keep track of the many offenses against it- it just takes the licking and keeps on ticking and pours itself out over and over and over again.
The church is more than a bit off the tracks when defining "Purity" in merely sexual terms. The Sacred Heart is so much more Fire than that.
It is a burning Fire like the inextinguishable burning bush.
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