The Wisdom of St. Peter: 3 Ways to Purify Your Soul
“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).
The link that St. Peter makes between truth, purity, and love got my attention recently:
Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a pure heart. You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:22-23).
Wow! We all want that “sincere mutual love”—but how do we get there?
Glad you asked! Here are three ways you can cultivate truth and purity, which lead to love, the ultimate goal.
1. Be Obedient to the Truth
Do your best to seek out the Truth and love it above all else. It’s so easy to keep plowing ahead, doing the same thing over and over—but is what you’re doing from day to day really making you more loving? More generous? Are your priorities grounded in the Truth of who you are as a child of God?
Go on your own treasure hunt for Truth by:
Reading Holy Scripture and stopping to ponder it when it gives you an insight, writing down the insight if possible.
Asking God for guidance and then sitting silently to listen for that gentle nudge.
Asking for a trusted friend’s take on what you could add or subtract from your to-do list to be more responsive to the Truth you glimpsed in your quiet time with God.
2. Purify Your Soul
Sometimes, the day just seems like a series of fires to put out. It helps to notice what pulls us away from what’s important. Were you solving other people’s problems while neglecting your priorities? Were you fixing what wasn’t really broken? Were you causing conflict when you meant to solve it?
Write down your top three priorities in life, and ask whether what you did today furthers them. If your day-to-day choices are out of alignment, that awareness is a gift—you can always realign.
Realigning can mean changing what you do, like spending less time on social media and more time reading with your children, or changing your attitude about everyday duties that you don’t like very much. Either way leads to greater purity of intention, because your actions will mirror your greatest goals.
3. Love Sincerely
It’s pretty daunting, but if Peter said it, it must be possible! Sincere love follows naturally (or supernaturally!) from aligning our priorities with how we actually spend our time. Real love means that my love overflows from my love of God, who is infinite love. If the source of “love” is only myself or other people, I’ll probably run dry the first time I don’t get what I want.
A good look at the less-than-loving (read: fearful) places in your own heart can help clean out resentments and prejudices you may not have noticed before. Are outdated patterns of thought keeping you from loving sincerely?
Peter says to live out the power of your Baptism. He calls it “new birth.” We may feel old and worn out some days, but our souls are still “fresh and green” (Psalm 92:15) in Christ, the abundant source of life and love. Our Baptism is always vital and new, because it unites us with Him who is “the same, yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
Don’t feel the freshness right now? Try acting as if you do—you’ll be amazed how the decision to be enthusiastic ignites real enthusiasm. And, it’s contagious!
Lean on Me
Call to mind often that God is living and eternal. Peter says “living,” which means God’s advice and crisis line is open 24/7. It means the Doctor is in—and he makes house calls.
Too often, God seems to be just standing by (or floating “way up there”), out of reach and inert. Guess what? It’s we who have let our spiritual battery run down. If we plug into the Divine charger and make it a priority to ask Him for guidance and strength during the day, His life will flow into us. We’ll be living our little bit of Heaven right now—even when a toddler melts down, a meeting goes badly, or we’re stuck in traffic (or all of the above!). God’s love turns even the most frustrating experiences into “the small stuff.”
We began with Peter, and we’ll call on Paul to finish up—because he knows a thing or two about keeping purity of soul in tough times:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).
Rose Folsom, a convert and Lay Dominican, helps Catholic professionals have a closer connection with God that brings clarity and peace to their leadership and life. If you’re ready to ditch imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and impatience to become the leader you know you can be, sign up here for a chat with Rose. We’ll discern your next best step to confidence the world can’t take away. After building up her prayer life from zero years ago, she now helps others to discover a joyful connection with God that gives a holy power to their presence.