Purity of Heart — Fr. Dominic O'Connor

Living in the Divine Will — Ongoing Series

Purity of Heart

Speaker Fr. Dominic O'Connor

Date March 5, 2026

Series Living in the Divine Will

Summary

This session is part of Fr. Dominic's ongoing series of classes on purification within the context of the Gift of Living in the Divine Will. Drawing on the Beatitude "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8), Fr. Dominic teaches that purification is fundamentally relational — rooted in the Trinitarian understanding that relationship is the very essence of persons. Because we are created for relationship with God, self, and neighbour, and are therefore responsible for all souls, every act done in the Divine Will carries infinite, cosmic weight.

The session uses St. John's Gospel, Chapter 9 — the man born blind — as an extended type for the Church's, and each soul's, journey from spiritual blindness through original sin to restored sight through encounter with Christ. St. Irenaeus's reading of Jesus's clay-and-spittle healing as a new creation of Adam is explored at length.

Fr. Dominic draws on Pope Benedict XVI's Spe Salvi (§47) to explain how purification happens: through the gaze of Christ, which burns, transforms, and frees us to become truly ourselves and totally of God. This is directly connected to what Jesus teaches Luisa about the obliteration of the human will as the precondition for the Divine Will to operate. Three diary entries from the Book of Heaven are expounded in this light.

The session closes with practical guidance on cooperating with the Holy Spirit in inner healing — not rushing for easy solutions, identifying areas still withheld from Christ's light, addressing attachments and unforgiveness — and a substantial Q&A covering the proper disposition for Divine Acts, the relationship between healing and entry into the Divine Will, and the distinction between forgiveness and the restoration of a broken relationship.

Topics

Divine Will Luisa Piccarreta Purification Purity of Heart Spiritual Sight Detachment Relationship Healing Suffering

Reference Index

Book of Heaven — Luisa Piccarreta

Vol. 22 — Oct. 2, 1926 Kingdom of the Fiat vs. Kingdom of Redemption

The great difference between miracles of restoration and the preserving nourishment of the Kingdom of the Supreme Fiat — sight, healing, and life given and sustained.

Vol. 33 — Jun. 29, 1934 Attention is the Eye of the Soul

God gives the faculty of sight first to those who wish to enter the Divine Will; knowing and seeing the gift is the precondition for receiving it.

Vol. 5 — Mar. 19, 1903 Divine vs. Human Suffering

Jesus on the Feast of St. Joseph: each suffering ignites the heart toward another. The sign of participation in divine suffering is joy and ardent desire, not weariness.

Vol. 1 — Various Detachment of Luisa from Creatures

Jesus's ongoing work of detaching Luisa from creatures throughout the opening volumes — the same movement enacted in the expulsion of the blind man from the synagogue.

Virgin Mary in the Kingdom — Day 28 Voluntary Suffering and Joy

Mary's testimony that so much did the Divine Will operate in their sufferings with seas of joy that she and Jesus voluntarily undertook further suffering.

Scripture

Mt 5:8

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" — the governing Beatitude of the session.

Jn 9:1–39

The Man Born Blind — extended type for the human race's blindness through original sin and its restoration through Christ, the journey of detachment and faith, and the parallel journey to spiritual sight.

Jn 8:57–59

"Before Abraham was, I am" — the immediate context for Jesus's encounter with the blind man; the claim of divinity that precedes the act of recreation.

Gen 2:7

Creation of Adam from the dust of the earth — echoed in Jesus's clay and spittle as a sign of the new creation of humanity through the Incarnation.

Mt 9:9

The call of St. Matthew — the merciful gaze of Christ as the instrument of purification, cited by Pope Francis following St. Bede.

Rev 1:17

John prostrate before Christ — the overwhelming encounter with the divine gaze that purification entails.

Lk 22:61

Jesus looks at Peter after the denial — the gaze of mercy that saves where Judas's path led to despair.

Jn 6 · Jn 4

Bread of Life discourse and the Samaritan Woman — the mistaken expectation that Christ came to remove hardship rather than transform it.

Heb 5:9

"Once he had been perfected" — Jesus's own human nature underwent a journey of perfection, establishing the pattern for ours.

Mt 18:22 · Mt 19:16–22

Seventy times seven; the Rich Young Man — forgiveness as an act of the will; the distinction between forgiving and the restoration of relationship.

External Sources

Spe Salvi §47

Pope Benedict XVI. The decisive framework: purification through the encounter with Christ's gaze, which burns, transforms, and frees — applicable to purgatory and to every stage of the spiritual life.

Jesus of Nazareth

Pope Benedict XVI. "Purification and healing is a fundamental dimension of the entire apostolic mission."

Theology of the Body

Pope John Paul II, Angelus Addresses. The relational complementarity of Adam and Eve as the stamp of the Trinitarian image in human nature.

Against the Heresies

St. Irenaeus. The clay-and-spittle healing in Jn 9 read as the recreation of Adam — Christ joining the human and divine to restore what was lost in the Fall.

The Rule of Saint Benedict

St. Benedict of Nursia. Lenten penances undertaken by monks require the abbot's permission — the principle that divine suffering comes by inspiration, not self-will.

The Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis. The subtle trap of obsessive attachment to trivial routines as a spiritual danger no less serious than gross vice.

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky. "All is like an ocean, all flows and connects. Touch it in one place, and it echoes at the other end of the world."

Council of Florence

The only distinction among the Persons of the Trinity is relational — the doctrinal foundation for the claim that relationship is constitutive of the human person.