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When Purify our heart of love for this world, we are promised to see, experience the Love of God, ultimately Christ Himself.
What follows are quotes from the Philokalia on a pure heart.
This truth of seeing God is better experienced than expressed. We live in a world that craves to see if God is real. Thinking materially, they cannot accept His existence.
As Jesus said, “the world cannot receive the Spirit because it sees Him not nor knows Him.” Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It cannot be seen with human eyes, at least in our present state.
The source of our blindness to God are the passions. The passions cover the eye like dirt on a mirror, so it can no longer reflect the light of God. When the heart is cleansed by turning away from material love it is able to receive the divine light.
To go further, the source of the passions is self love. We want to please ourselves instead of God or our neighbor and so find out ways to gratify ourselves, beginning with fairly inocuous things to truly debased desires.
The spiritual warfare then is a return to our original state of pure love for God without any motive but to please God. It is not even motivated by a love for God’s presence. This itself can be an addiction, and we end up serving Him for His gifts.
The Philokalia on seeing God. The Orthodox Church has a spiritual treasury called the Philokalia, the love of the beautiful. It is an assorted collection of monastic texts describing the inner life, and how we can attain to divine dispassion and unity with the Lord. I chose to use this collection of texts for our study on the Lord’s beatitude, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” because it has some pithy ways of expressing this truth. Afterward I will look at this text from the scriptural standpoint.
The references are to volume number and page number in the faber collection.
[VI] 162
St Hesychios the Priest
On Watchfulness and HoHness
Written for Theodoulos
1. Watchfulness is a spiritual method which, if sedulously practiced over a long period, completely frees us: with
God's help from impassioned thoughts, impassioned words and evil actions. It leads, in so far as this is possible, to a
sure knowledge of the inapprehensible God, and helps us to penetrate the divine and hidden mysteries. It enables us
to fulfill every divine commandment in the Old and New Testaments and bestows upon us every blessing of the age
to come. It is, in the true sense, purity of heart, a state blessed by Christ when He says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8); and one which, because of its spiritual nobility and beauty - or, rather, because of
our negligence - is now extremely rare among monks. Because this is its nature, watchfulness is to be bought only at
a great price. But once established in us, it guides us to a true and holy way of life. It teaches us how to activate the
three aspects of our soul correctly, and how to keep a firm guard over the senses.
[VI] 174
St Hesychios the Priest
67. Dispassion and humility lead to spiritual knowledge. Without them, no one can see God.
{VI} 175
75. Humility and ascetic hardship free a man from all sin, for the one cuts out the passions of the soul, the other
those of the body. It is for this reason that the Lord says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matt.
5:8). They shall see God and the riches that are in Him when they have purified themselves through love and self-
control; and the greater their purity, the more they will see.
[V2] 30
St Theodoros the Great Ascetic
A Century of Spiritual Texts
82. Love has fittingly been called the citadel of the virtues, the sum of the Law and the prophets (cf. Matt.22:40: Rom. 13:10). So let us make every effort until we attain it. Through love we shall shake off the tyranny of the passions and rise to heaven, lifted up on the wings of the virtues; and we shall see God, so far as this is possible for human nature.
[V2] 33
St Theodoros the Great Ascetic
A Century of Spiritual Texts
86. If a man"s heart does not condemn him (cf 1 John 3 :21) for having rejected a commandment of God, or for
negligence, or for accepting a hostile thought, then he is pure in heart and worthy to hear Christ say to him: 'Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8).
[V2] 109
St Maximos the Confessor
Four Hundred Texts on Love
72. It is for this reason that the Savior says, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8) for He
is hidden in the hearts of those who believe in Him. They shall see Him and the riches that are in Him when
they have purified themselves through love and self-control; and the greater their purity, the more they will see.
[V2] 157
St Maximos the Confessor
Two Hundred Texts on Theology
and the
Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God
Written for Thalassios
Second Century
72. It is for this reason that the Savior says, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8) for He
is hidden in the hearts of those who believe in Him. They shall see Him and the riches that are in Him when
they have purified themselves through love and self-control; and the greater their purity, the more they will see.
[V2] 199
St Maximos the Confessor
Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice
Second Century
58. When through self-control you have straightened the crooked paths of the passions in which you deliberately
indulged - that is to say, the impulses of sensual pleasure - and when, by enduring patiently the harsh and
painful afflictions produced by trials and temptations suffered against your will, you have made the rough ways
smooth and even, then you may expect to see God's salvation, for you will have become pure in heart. In this
state of purity, through the virtues and through holy contemplation, you will at the end of your contest behold
God, in accordance with Christ's words: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8). And
because of the sufferings you have endured for the sake of virtue you will receive the gift of dispassion. To
those who possess this gift there is nothing which reveals God more fully.
[V2] 367
St Theognostos
On the Practice of the Virtues, Contemplation and the Priesthood
38. Let no one deceive you, brother: without holiness, as the apostle says, no one can see God (cf. Heb. 12: 14). For
the Lord, who is more than holy and beyond all purity, will not appear to an impure person. Just as he who loves father or mother, daughter or son (of. Matt. 10:37) more than the Lord is unworthy of Him, so is he wholoves anything transient and material. Even more unworthy is the person who chooses foul and fetid sin to preference to love for the Lord: for God rejects whoever does not repudiate all filthiness: 'Corruption does not inherit incorruption' (1 Cor. 15:50).
[V3] 60
Ilias the Presbyter
A Gnomic Anthology
103. God sees all men, but only those see God who perceive nothing during prayer. God listens to those who see
Him, while those to whom He does not listen do not see Him. Blessed is the man who believes that he is seen by
God; for his foot will not slip (cf. Ps. 73:2) unless this is God's will.
[V3] 285
St Symeon Metaphrastis
Paraphrase of the Homihes
of
St Makarios of Egypt
Spiritual Perfection
2. What is the will of God that St Paul urges and invites each of us to attain (cf. 1 Thess. 4:3)? It is total cleansing
from sin, freedom from the shameful passions and the acquisition of the highest virtue. In other words, it is the
purification and sanctification of the heart that comes about through fully experienced and conscious participation in
the perfect and divine Spirit. 'Blessed are the pure in heart," it is said, 'for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8); and again:
'Become perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). And the psalmist says: 'Let my heart be unerring
in Thy statutes, so that I am not ashamed" (Ps. 1 19:80); and again: 'When I pay attention to all Thy commandments,
then I will not be ashamed" (Ps. 1 19:6). And to the person that asked, "Who will ascend the Lord's hill, or who will
stand in His holy place?" The psalmist replied: "He that has clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24:3-4), that is to say,
he who has completely destroyed sin in act and thought.
3. The Holy Spirit, knowing that the unseen and secret passions are hard to get rid of - for they are as it were
rooted in the soul - shows us through the psalmist how we can purify ourselves from
[V3] 286
them. 'Cleanse me from my secret faults', writes the psalmist (Ps. 19: 12), as though to say that through much prayer
and faith, and by turning completely to God, we are able, with the help of the Spirit, to conquer them. But this is on
condition that we too strive against them and keep strict watch over our heart (cf Prov. 4:23).
[V4] 39
St Symeon the New Theologian
One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts
73. 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' says God, 'for they shall see God' (Matt. 5:8). But purity of heart cannot be
realized through one virtue alone, or through two, or ten; it can only be realized through all of them together, as if
they formed but a single virtue brought to perfection. Even so the virtues cannot by themselves purify the heart
without the presence and inner working of the Spirit. For just as the bronzesmith demonstrates his skill through his
tools, but cannot make anything without the activity of fire, so a man using the virtues as tools
[V4] 40
can do everything, given the presence of the fire of the Spirit; but without this presence these took remain useless
and ineffective, not removing the stain that befouls the soul.
[V4] 72
St Symeon the New Theologian
The Three Methods of Prayer
In short, if you do not guard your intellect you cannot attain purity of heart, so as to be counted worthy to see God
(cf. Matt. 5:18). Without such watchfulness you cannot become poor in spirit, or grieve, or hunger and thirst after
righteousness, or be truly merciful, or pure in heart, or a peacemaker, or be persecuted for the sake of justice (cf.
Matt. 5:3-10). To speak generally, it is impossible to acquire all the other virtues except through watchfulness. For
this reason you must pursue it more diligently than anything else, so as to learn from experience these things,
unknown to others, that I am speaking to you about.
[V4] 84
Nikitas Stithatos
On the Practice of the Virtues:
One Hundred Texts
19. So long as we have the raw material of the passions within ourselves and, instead of repudiating it,
deliberately nurture it, the passions will prevail over us, deriving their strength from us. But when we cast this raw
material out, cleansing our hearts with the tears of repentance and abhorring the deceitfulness of visible things, then
we share in the presence of the Paraclete: we see God in eternal light and are seen by Him.
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