The purity which God cares about the most is obtained by forgiveness. As I teach theology to high school juniors, I can get their attention by telling them that Jesus only underlined one verse of the Our Father after he gave us this prayer: forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Forgiveness is still the Christian act that makes me marvel. Recently, I had the privilege of joining a Kairos retreat for the Jesuit High School at which I’m missioned. An integral part of the retreat is the student leaders and the talks they give to their peers. The student leaders model the vulnerability and self-reflection we hope the retreat facilitates. So many of the talks I heard from these seventeen or eighteen year olds involve a great hurt from someone dear to them. That they would share about this painful event is already deeply moving.
However, what made me marvel was hearing these students recollect these wounds with no trace of bitterness. Where I struggle to let past hurts go, these students, some of whom I teach, demonstrated with purity of heart which could only come from having chosen to forgive.
One collect we hear during Lent calls God the one “who delight[s] in innocence and restore[s] it.” In other words, innocence is not something irretrievably lost. Christ gives it back to us, most fully when we say the Our Father with a heart purified by mercy.