Purity

Blest are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.

Matthew 5: 5

It is not only that these (Celtic) scribes and anchorites lived by the destiny of their dedication in an environment of wood and sea; it was because they brought into that environment an eye washed miraculously clear by continuous spiritual exercise that they, the first in Europe, had that strange vision of natural things in an almost unnatural purity.

Robin Flower in Irish Tradition

As the eye is a sense faculty of the body, so is the healthy imagination a sense organ of the spiritual mind. It can receive spiritual truths from the material world But purity of heart is required for such a healthy functioning of the imagination. Without this purity, the ever active mind and imagination construct disjointed thoughts and representations that bear little resemblance to reality. Such images debase rather than dignify.

Brother Aidan, an Orthodox monk and iconographer

Alas that no stream reaching every part flows over my breast to be a cleansing tonight for my heart and body.

Early Irish Lyrics

• Mary beloved! Mother of the White Lamb
• pure virgin of nobleness.

Carmina Gadelica

My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Make and keep me pure within.

Charles Wesley

• From the unreal, lead me to the real
• from the impure lead me to the pure
• From darkness, lead me to light
• And from what passes away
• lead me to what is eternal.