Pure desire

Exactly a week ago I went for my first secondary school reunion and it was an enlightening and affirming experience.

I was not sure initially if I wanted to go for memories of feeling bad about school were as clear as if it were yesterday.

As a teen, I was insecure and most unprepossessing, awkward in my own skin even as I was invisible.

I also felt inferior and would envy the confidence of the "cool" girls even as I detested them for their youthful insouciance.

So why would I want to see people who made me feel bad about myself?

And that was precisely why I decided to go - to challenge myself and to see whether I have grown beyond being Ms. FadeIntoTheWalls.

I had a blast for I managed to meet classmates who had made me laugh and brought back memories of fun, schoolgirl high jinks and endearing naivete.  

By Singaporean standards, I had every reason to feel inferior for my recent career choices have been unconventional and do not grant me great financial gains, power or status and, let me tell ya,  there were some very successful and accomplished women in the room.

I was instead glad that I could appreciate and celebrate their successes, while I was secure enough in my own worth as a woman who was living a life of integrity and authenticity, brimming with abundance.

It was nice to know that I have become an adult, no longer a slave to her childish distortions and neuroses. A woman with a distinctive identity, spirituality and feminine genius.

This afternoon I shared the above experience during the panel discussion of an ICPE-led event called Man. Woman. Celebrating Our Sexuality* for this story illustrates the difference between the love-hungry teen that I was and the fulfilled woman that I am now.

I am grateful for all that I have become and that I am, as Anna Capello put it, "living in purity for I am able to accept and receive my sexuality from God, the truth of who I am". What a lovely way to look at purity - thank you, Anna.    

Purity matters greatly to me for one of my earliest memories of God comes from the pure, innocent love that I felt for God, as a seven-year-old, and how in that moment He was extremely real to me.

When I lost that purity, I mourned and missed it and spent years looking for it. When I regained it, I was determined never to lose it again. It is, incidentally, the beatitude that resonates most strongly with me - to be pure of heart.

Purity is not easy to achieve for we live in a world of temptation and it was clearly established by Fr. David Garcia that we are only free of sexual temptation 10 minutes after we are dead. 

Levity aside, I know that the only chance I have to ensure my desire for purity is attained is to stay close to the source. So that when I am tempted, I will have the strength of the Spirit to help me overcome it.

Anna's husband, Mario, proposed that sexual salvation is for one and all and he gave everyone present a few more suggestions like:

* Availing yourself of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist regularly
* Giving your heart over to the Lord (Proverbs 23:26)
* Re-symbolize the places that lead you away from God's plan
* Making small daily choices that demonstrate self-mastery (as Terence Anthony put it during the discussion if we cannot be faithful in small ways then we will not be able to be faithful in big ones and his way of making a choice is to fast on Wednesdays)
* Taking a stand of being a protector and not a predator
* Cultivating healthy relationships with men and women
* Accountability of your conduct to a few trusted friends
* "Nip it in the bud!"
* When you fail, get back on your feet and run to Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI has this to say about the pure heart in Jesus of Nazareth:

"The pure heart is the loving heart that enters into communion of service and obedience with Jesus Christ. Love is the fire that purifies and unifies intellect, will and emotion, thereby making man one with himself, inasmuch as it makes him one in God's eyes."

So if I remain open to God's love for me, I will always be able to see and hear Him. And doing His will would be clear, although not all that easy when temptation rears its pesky and dangerous head.

So Lord, grant that my desire for purity, to be pure of heart, will always outweigh all other desires.

* Anna and Mario Capello shared the vision of John Paul II's Theology of the Body. In TOB, the late pope gave us a new language of sexuality that enables us to understand our desires and order them such that  we can live fulfilled lives of freedom.