Purity of Heart and Presence (S10, EP04)

Why is it so hard to maintain spiritual focus in our distracting world? Drawing on the wisdom of St. John Cassian, this episode offers a powerful solution: treat purity of heart not as the ultimate goal, but as the essential path toward union with God. Discover how even well-intentioned spiritual practices can become obstacles if our virtue of charity doesn't guide them.

In a world filled with constant distractions, it's easy for our spiritual life to feel scattered and unfocused. This episode dives into the ancient wisdom of St. John Cassian to find a clear path forward. We explore his powerful teaching on the necessity of having a "fixed point" to return to. Learn the crucial distinction between our final goal—the kingdom of God—and the immediate, actionable goal that gets us there: purity of heart. You'll understand why this isn't just about avoiding sin, but about actively cultivating charity in every moment, turning every interruption and obligation into an opportunity for grace.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Two Goals: Understand the difference between the final end of our spiritual journey (union with God) and the immediate end we must aim for daily (purity of heart).
• Charity is Key: Learn why Cassian identifies purity of heart with charity, and how this insight can transform your approach to prayer, devotions, and daily duties.
• When Good Becomes Bad: Discover how to identify when good spiritual practices, like fasting or praying the rosary, might be subtly turned into obstacles that hinder your growth in virtue.
• Active Focus: Get practical advice on how to stop the "wandering" of the mind by actively cutting out distractions and focusing your heart on what truly matters.

TRANSCRIPT

(NOTE: This transcription has been automatically generated through an AI program. Consequently, this transcript may not match everything you hear in the podcast episode, and it may contain errors such as spelling, grammar, word choice, etc., due to the limitations of current AI technology.)

Introduction to Presence and Focus

Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Midnight Carmelite. As you know, I am generally doing these releases when I feel like it's necessary. There may be some breaks in the season now, where you'll have a bunch of episodes and then a break. There are two reasons for that. The first reason is just what I would like to release; I like to release things as I feel fit, frankly, for the subject of the season. But also, things may change, I may want to adjust, or sometimes I just like to let things sit and give people time to really digest. With that said, let's begin today.

I'm going to read a quote from St. John Cassian's Conferences, chapter five. This is available online if you want to find it. It says here, "for the mind which has no fixed point, to which it may return and on which it may chiefly fasten, is sure to rove about from hour to hour and minute to minute in all sorts of wandering thoughts and from those things which come to it from outside to be constantly changed into that state which first offers itself to it¹."

I kind of want to unpack this in the light of presence. We talk a lot about presence. For the mind which has no fixed point to which it may return... anyone knows this: we are easily distracted today. Multitasking, in my opinion, can work, but you're not giving the task your full focus. If multitasking is an end, not a means to an end, then it could be problematic. The point is that we need to remember that we want to have a way to deal with how we understand our journey to the kingdom of God. In other words, we want to make sure that our sole focus is union with God in our spiritual sanctification, right? Theosis. How do we approach this? Cassian here seems to be saying that we need a fixed point. Well, what is the fixed point? I was really struck when I was reading it, and this is why I'm podcasting about it: Cassian makes the point that if you're going to have the kingdom of God as your life's point, you need an intermediate point to get there. For example, if I'm driving to the grocery store, there are intermediate points I need to pass to get there. Those are not the goal; my goal is the grocery store. But I need to aim at those intermediate points, arrive at them, go past them, and keep going. The overarching intermediate point is the act of driving itself. So, what does that mean? It means we need to have "driving" be the intermediate goal, while the final goal is "driving to the grocery store." For Cassian, the final goal is the kingdom of God, and the intermediate goal—the driving force—is purity of heart.

The Journey to the Kingdom of God

In other words, the activity is constantly purifying your heart. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." It's this idea of removing the passions so that you can see God's presence in your life. And that's where it relates to presence. Too often, we will focus a lot on what we want rather than what God wants for us. Now again, this isn't to say that it's not a cooperative activity. God puts desires into our hearts; no one's denying that. What I'm saying is that those desires that come from God do not have their origin in us so as to be selfish. If I say, "I desire this," but it's contrary to what God wants, it's a selfish desire, and that's pride. So how do we know our desires are aligned with God?

Purity of Heart and Charity

That's a big discussion, but one place to start in relation to purity of heart is to identify things Cassian calls of "secondary importance" that you might be focusing on too much, creating an excess or a defect such that you're not being charitable. For example, Cassian mentions fasting, vigils, meditations on scripture, and devotions like the rosary. Let's say you're having trouble praying your rosary because your kids need you. Some people would get angry at that, thinking, "I need to pray my rosary; this is my spiritual food." And they're right, the rosary is good. But Cassian would say, "Notice how you're angry about it. You're not worried about your primary obligation of charity, which is to your kids." He would say you're probably looking at the rosary as an end rather than a means to the kingdom of God. If your customary rosary is interrupted by the needs of charity, it doesn't mean you need to get worked up. You were interrupted by virtue, and that's what's going to keep you pure at heart, because purity of heart is charity.

So Cassian's point here I think is powerful, and I was very impacted by this. St. John of the Cross talks about this as well. He talks about being detached from everything but God. Union with God is two wills becoming one, where your soul acts out of divine operation when you reach spiritual marriage. They're aligned. Cassian just shows that cleaning your heart of these passions is the way to work through the purgation of the active nights of the sense and the spirit that St. John of the Cross described. I think this is really important, something we need to think about.

So how does purity of heart relate to God's presence? I just want to make one more point before I conclude. Cassian says we need to chiefly fasten on the immediate end (purity of heart) and the final end (kingdom of God) so we're sure not to rove from hour to hour in wandering thoughts. We're all guilty of this. How many times are we wandering around checking the news, social media, seeing what's over here? We're wandering, not focused on God. And I think that's so important to remember—to stop and ask, "Am I keeping my eye on my purity of heart? Am I getting distracted by news or images or things going into my heart that are causing anger, lust, greed, or envy?" We can be careless about it. Purity of heart is not simply sitting around and being passive. You have to be active in cutting things out and stopping the wandering in order to focus. I think this is a good place to stop for now. I will see you next week.