Of mercy and judgment I will sing; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise. I will persevere in the way of integrity; when will you come to me? I will walk with blameless heart, within my house. // Psalm 102:1-3a

My heart stopped when I heard Sister say, “There is nothing as beautiful as being single-hearted.” That night when I attended a talk on beauty at the Nashville Dominican Motherhouse, I expected the general Thomistic analysis of beauty and was quite excited to be encouraged by a talk of that sort. But what I did not expect was to encounter hope for beauty in my own heart. 

The last year had been nothing short of purifying. It had felt as if all of my weaknesses and failures had been placed under a magnifying glass, and what I found under that exposure was that my heart stood divided. I had a sincere love for God but also a sincere attachment to sin and to self. My heart was in fact not single-hearted and unlike today’s Psalm, I was not walking with a “blameless heart”’ (Psalm 101:3).

That night I went home wondering what sort of remedy would allow me to live single-heartedly. Over time, what I have come to find is that in order to live with a pure heart I desperately need to encounter His own blameless, beautiful, pure, and single-hearted Heart. 

Sister, our messy and often divided hearts are longing to be purified into hearts that will walk blamelessly and fearlessly towards one Love and one Love only: Jesus Christ.

May we, with confident and hopeful hearts, turn to the Shepherd to lead and guide us “in the way of integrity” to walk “with a blameless heart” (Psalm 101:2-2) and begin to shine with a hint of the beauty of which He has created us from all time.