Purity is a singleness, when the head and the heart work together allowing us to see wholeness, to see from our True Self. Purity is also about appropriate boundaries, protecting the sacred character of intimacy. Sadly, we have misunderstood purity and passion and their necessity. We have mistrusted passion and the abandonment, excitement, joy, freedom, playfulness, and enthusiasm that human love can inspire.
Passion is an energy, a drive from within. It is a thirst for union and for more of true life. Passion constantly creates within us a void that longs to be filled. In the Christian tradition, we call such implanted longing the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Spirit keeps yearning in us for union with more—with ourselves and thus with God.
Human love (eros) and divine love (agape) are on a continuum, with human love and passion preparing us for and leading us to divine love. The great secret of erotic love—which all true lovers instinctively know and which Jesus also knew—is that agape is in essence transfigured desire. Agape is what emerges from the refiner’s fire when that surging desire to cling, possess, and consume the object of one’s adoring is subjected to the discipline of kenosis, self-giving love.
As Paul so beautifully put it…
Galatians 2:20 “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
