For they shall see God

On Sunday we celebrated All Saints, the great feast with which we always begin November. In the Gospel for this feast Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12), offering us a roadmap to holiness and true blessedness, through 'ordinary', simple virtues, such as gentleness, peacemaking, mercy... And whilst over the years, different beatitudes have challenged or spoken to me especially, on Sunday I immediately remembered when I prayed with this Gospel during my thirty day retreat in 2003, shortly before making my perpetual vows. Choose one for yourself, I heard. I looked at them all, and, to my astonishment, the beatitude which shone out at me was one I had rarely done more than glance at before, let alone considered to be 'mine': Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I recall how I spent time reflecting on that word, pure... How we use it to mean complete, entire, unalloyed, or un-watered down: pure gold, for example, which is 100% gold with not a speck of any other metal; pure joy; pure water from a mountain stream, which has not been treated with any chemicals... Or simply, how often we use the word purely, and mean completely... And thus a call to be purely of and for God: entirely, completely, totally, unalloyed and 100% God's, with not a speck of anything else. 

Blessed are the pure in heart... That beatitude, and that call, have stayed with me over the past twenty-two years, even though I invariably fail to live up to them. But on Sunday, as if for the first time, I heard the other half... for they shall see God. And in a moment I knew this was not about the promise of heaven, and the beatific vision, gazing on God, face to face: no; this was about now. This was about seeing God in the ordinary and the everyday; in people and in situations, in ugliness and sadness as much as in loveliness and joy. Seeing Love in pain and in tears, and in encouragement and promised prayer. Ignatius' 'finding God in all things', as a being able to see God in all things, in everywhere.

Blessed are the ones who are totally, entirely God's, for they will find and see God everywhere, and in everything.

And as I near the end of a week which has been tiring and heavy, with more of this awaiting me next week, I can look back, and know that beyond my weariness, I have seen, can see, God in it all...