He who has made his heart pure will not only know the inner essences of what is sequent to God and dependent on Him but, after passing through all of them, he will in some measure see God Himself, which is the supreme consummation of all blessings. When God comes to dwell in such a heart, He honors it by engraving His own letters on it through the Holy Spirit, just as He did on the Mosaic tables (cf Ex 31:18). This He does according to the degree to which the heart, through practice of the virtues and contemplation, has devoted itself to the admonition which bids us, in a mystical sense, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 35:11).
A pure heart is perhaps one which has no natural propulsion towards anything in any manner whatsoever. When in its extreme simplicity such a heart has become like a writing-tablet beautifully smoothed and polished, God come to dwell in it and writes there His own laws.
+St. Maximos the Confessor, from Second Century on Theology, #80-81, in The Philokalia, Volume 2.
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