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Purity of Heart:Creating Love
By: Matthew Nichols
“O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth,” says the woman to her lover in the Song of Songs. Pope John Paul II reflected deeply on these beautiful and provocative words and the erotic dialogue that follows (in his “Theology of the Body”). The Song of Songs is erotic love poetry, an intimate and passionate dialogue between a man and a woman deeply immersed in sexual love. In his reflection, John Paul II highlighted the couple’s awareness of their perfect closeness (“my beloved is mine and I am is”), their incredible yearning for each other, the spiritual-and-sensual nature of their intimacy and affection, and above all the purity of their love – because it is purity of heart that makes this kind of perfect intimacy possible.
John Paul II thinks of sexual purity of heart as a capacity. A capacity is something which makes things possible – it allows me to act in a certain way and to do certain things that I would otherwise not be capable of doing. A capacity enables me to generate an effect, to create something, to change the direction of my life and that of others, to alter this world and the course of history – even if only in some small way. What is it that purity of heart creates within a sexual relationship? The answer, of course, is love – real love. Real sexual love that is rich, beautiful, strong, fulfilling, sensual, intimate and blessed. Sexual love that responds to our deepest desires, needs, hopes, fears, anxieties and dreams – and not only those we are comfortable to talk about with others, but those which lie veiled in the secret and hidden depths of our hearts – those which constitute our ultimate vulnerability, our “interior nakedness.”
This purity of heart, explained the Pope, is both a gift and a task – something we must beg the Holy Spirit for and something we must commit ourselves to and channel our energies towards. It is a liberation that brings freedom from the insecurity, dissatisfaction, limitations and narrowness of lust and which allows us to be truly ourselves. It is a virtue or strength (the basic Latin word from which we get our word “virtue” means “man” or “strength”), a power that allows us to act in ways that were previously not possible, to participate in a way of life that was previously inaccessible, and to enjoy experiences that were previously unimaginable. It is not a “no” but an immense “yes” – yes to love, to beauty, to the body and sexuality, to the full richness and potential that is on offer.
At the centre of this capacity or virtue lies our will which alone can make love “indestructible.” It is our will that allows us to forge intimacy that is permanent, lasting, forever – an intimacy that can truly be called, and enjoyed as, love (for who wants “love” which does not last?). Every day and every night, whether we “feel” love intensely or our emotions are “resting,” we are able to choose love – again and again and again and again and again… - until this pattern becomes so much what I am that everything – feelings included – is shaped and expanded by what I have chosen to become: “a lover: one who loves, is loved and lives in love.”
Pope Benedict summed up the reason for his first encyclical about love – Deus Caritas Est – with these words: “to experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.” By experiencing love we experience the coming of our Creator and Redeemer. God, the source of every good gift, is more present among us when we live in love. Hence the Pope’s enthusiastic and impassioned invitation to the young people of the world at the 22nd World Youth Day in 2007: “My dear young friends…dare to love!”
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