Purifying Ourselves


PURIFYING OURSELVES

Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB

            In the book of Exodus, we see Moses encountering God in the form of a burning bush. On looking at the burning bush, he wanted to go (out of curiosity) forward by his own powers in order to comprehend the exterior ‘why’ of God though his reasoning powers. But he learned that the first step to receive God’s ultimate revelation of Himself was to be stripped, unencumbered by his own self. Moses became God’s prophet when he was completely purified in his heart having taken off his shoes, leaving behind all of his securities and protection. Purity of heart is an attitude of the Christian of constant conversion, of turning to the indwelling Trinity abiding within him and crying out constantly that every past memory, every experience of yesterday, last year or at the beginning of consciousness be brought under Jesus Christ, just as it is rightly written in the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “Cast down the imaginations and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
            In John 9:39-41, the Pharisees protest that they see and therefore are not blind. Jesus agrees that they do see, but by their own light and therefore they are guilty. The Pharisees did not want to understand deeply enough. They were concerned with self-righteous seeing. What does this mean?
            To see the darkness within ourselves is itself a gift. It is an opportunity for those of us without sight to see, to be grieved that we are blind. By doing this, we allow Jesus to remove our guilt and give us His Truth, that Truth which will set us free. What a delightful experience it is to give ourselves over to the light of Jesus that reveals the darkness of our hearts! What joy we experience when we consider what we have been saved from, “If the light inside you is darkness, what darkness that will be!” (Matthew 6:23). There is even greater joy in considering what we have been saved for, “Happy the pure in heart, they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). All this is by the power of His love!
            What we mean by the heart is the center of our emotions. Purity of heart is a metaphor for the removal of the inner defilement, the very source of sin within us, our inner disposition. What is to be cleansed is that deep impurity which is man’s pride. 

Popular posts from this blog

In the world yet not of the world

Image
  IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF THE WORLD MARIO D’COUTO           Being in the world and yet not of it is something that can be a struggle, at least for me and what I mean by that is in as much as we desire to be good and to do good, God is not going to put a glass jar over us and say that just because we choose to love Him and follow Him more closely, that He is going to shield us from the temptations of this world. To make things clear though, this is not to say that the world in itself is bad or evil nor are the things found in the world either but how we deal with it is what will make us or break us. We all have responsibilities and important things that need our attention. If we are not careful though, our hearts and minds can be consumed with the task of keeping them afloat. Rather than centering ourselves in Christ and letting the other elements of our lives take their rightful place around that center, we can end up shifting our attention fr...
Read more

The Gift of Life

  THE GIFT OF LIFE  Mario D’Couto  The above video may seem to put human existence in a rather pessimistic way as if to say that our lives did not really matter and while no doubt there is some element of truth in it, I still feel that if lived well, there is meaning and purpose to our lives and that none of our lives is some sort of haphazard creation.  As I celebrate my gift of life tomorrow, I suddenly began to think that if we compare ourselves to the vastness of the universe and everything else that exists in it, we may perhaps be nothing more than a tiny dot floating on the surface of the earth and yet in as much as such a thing may appear insignificant, the One who created everything chooses to have a personal relationship with that tiny dot, that is, ourselves. This is something truly uplifting, which gives meaning and purpose to our lives and our existence. At the same time, it is also a reminder for us to stay grounded especially in those moments when w...
Read more

Are you creative?

Image
  ARE YOU CREATIVE? Mario D’Couto                         Can you imagine a world without creativity? What would the world look like if there was no creativity? Well, for all we can expect, it would be pretty boring and dull. There would be no speech, no songs, no tools, no ideas such as love, freedom or democracy. It would be an existence so mechanical and impoverished that none of us would want to be a part of.             To achieve the kind of world we consider human, some people had to dare to break the thrall of tradition. Next, they had to find ways of recording those new ideas or procedures that improved on what went on before. Finally, they had to find ways of transmitting the new knowledge to the generation to come. Those who were involved in this process we call creative. What we call culture or those parts of our selves that we internalized from the social...
Read more