Let us walk in the world like Jesus and make our whole lives a sign of his love for our brothers and sisters, especially the weakest and poorest, building a temple to God in our lives. And in this way, we will make him "encountable" to the many people we meet along our path. If we are witnesses of this living Christ, many people will encounter Jesus in us, in our witness.

But—and we ask ourselves, and each of us can ask ourselves this—does the Lord truly feel at home in my life? Do we allow him to "clean house" in our hearts and drive out the idols, that is, those attitudes of covetousness, jealousy, worldliness, envy, hatred, those habits of gossiping and "skinning" others? Do I allow him to cleanse all the behaviors that go against God, against our neighbor, and against ourselves, as we heard today in the first reading? Each of us can answer this question in silence, in our hearts.

“Do I let Jesus clean up my heart a little?” “Oh, Father, I’m afraid he’ll beat me!” But Jesus never beats. Jesus will clean with tenderness, with mercy, with love. Mercy is his way of cleaning. Let each of us let the Lord enter with his mercy—not with a whip, no, with his mercy—to clean up our hearts. Jesus’ “whip” toward us is his mercy. Let us open the door to him so he can clean up his hearts a little. Every Eucharist we celebrate with faith makes us grow as the living temple of the Lord, through communion with his crucified and risen Body. Jesus knows what is in each of us, and he also knows our deepest desire: to be inhabited by him and him alone. Let us allow Him into our lives, into our families, into our hearts. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the privileged dwelling place of the Son of God, accompany and support us throughout the Lenten journey, so that we may discover the beauty of encountering Christ, who liberates and saves us.

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Pope Francis

Meditation for the Third Sunday of Lent

March 8, 2015

To have a pure heart...

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— Do you know, brother, what purity of heart is?

"It means not having any fault to reproach oneself for," replied Léon without hesitation.

"Then I understand your sadness," said François. "Because we always have something to reproach ourselves for."

— Yes, said Léon, and that is precisely what makes me despair of ever achieving purity of heart.

“Ah, Brother Leo, believe me,” replied Francis. “Don’t worry so much about the purity of your soul. Turn your gaze toward God. Admire Him. Rejoice in what He is, He who is all holiness. Give thanks to Him for His own sake. That, little brother, is what it means to have a pure heart. And when you are thus turned toward God, above all, don’t look back on yourself. Don’t ask yourself where you stand with God. The sadness of not being perfect and of discovering oneself to be a sinner is still a human feeling, all too human. You must raise your gaze higher, much higher. There is God, the immensity of God and His unalterable splendor. The pure heart is the one that never ceases to adore the living and true Lord. It takes a profound interest in the very life of God and is capable, amidst all its miseries, of vibrating with the eternal innocence and the eternal joy of God.” Such a heart is both stripped bare and overflowing. It is enough that God simply be God. In this very act, it finds its peace, its complete delight. And God himself is then its entire holiness. (…) But holiness is not self-fulfillment, nor a fullness one bestows upon oneself. It is first and foremost an emptiness that one discovers and accepts, and that God comes to fill to the extent that one opens oneself to his fullness. Our nothingness (…), if accepted, becomes the free space where God can still create. The Lord allows no one to steal his glory. He is the Lord, the One, the only Holy One. But he takes the poor by the hand, he lifts them from their mire and seats them among the princes of his people so that they may see his glory. God then becomes the azure of their soul. To contemplate the glory of God, (…) to discover that God is God, eternally God, beyond what we are or can be, to rejoice fully in what He is, to marvel at His eternal youth and give thanks to Him for Himself, for His unfailing mercy—this is the deepest demand of the love that the Spirit of the Lord ceaselessly pours into our hearts. This is what it means to have a pure heart. But this purity is not achieved through sheer willpower and striving. It simply requires holding nothing back. Sweeping everything away. Even that acute awareness of our distress. Clearing the way. Accepting poverty. Renouncing all that is burdensome, even the weight of our sins. Seeing only the glory of the Lord and allowing ourselves to be radiant with it. God is; that is enough. The heart then becomes light. He no longer feels like himself, like the lark intoxicated by space and azure. He abandons all worry, all anxiety. His desire for perfection has been transformed into a simple and pure will of God.

Eloi Leclerc ofm

Wisdom of a Poor Man, DDB, 1991