Pure In Heart

Quotes Without Comment

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8.

“The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“God is such a stickler about morality, not because he wants to control our behavior, but because he wants us to become the kind of people who can see him and thus experience infinite joy.” Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

“Sex is a wonderful symbol of intimacy. But as we know, symbols can be empty of real meaning.” Kathleen R. Fischer and Thomas N. Hart, Promises to Keep

“Marital love is more than eros. It has to do with how you treat each other when dishes need to be washed or garbage taken out, when misunderstandings arise and when one has transgressed against the other. Love is not the desire to be united with the other, but action on behalf of the other, and constancy in pursuit of his or her well-being.”
Miroslav Volf, in The Christian Century

“Do not imagine that you will overwhelm the demon of fornication by entering into an argument with him. Nature is on his side and he has the best of the argument. So the man who decides to struggle against his flesh and to overcome it by his own efforts is fighting in vain. . . .Offer up to the Lord the weakness of your nature. Admit your incapacity and, without your knowing it, you will win for yourself the gift of chastity.” John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

“The reality isthen that sex must not be depended upon to initiate intimacy. It can only grow out of it.” Elaine Storkey, The Search for Intimacy

“Purer in heart, O God, help me to be; that I Thy holy face one day may see. Keep me from secret sin, reign thou my soul within; purer in heart, help me to be.” Fannie Davison, Purer In Heart, O God

— Bob Clark

2/18/2003