Positive Purity
CLASSICAL Catholic morality tends to approach the virtue of purity from a negative point of view. Father Georges de Nantes, thought it better to deal with it from a positive angle. This is what he called positive purity. It is much more than resisting sin: it is a way of loving, which consists in giving oneself generously to God and to one’s neighbour, without seeking to possess them or to make them serve one’s own needs. It is a purity animated by love, of which the Blessed Virgin Mary is the privileged model.
To understand this concept, we must distinguish between the two approaches to purity.
1. Negative purity: fighting against evil
Negative purity consists in struggling against disordered passions, mastering one’s sinful desires and avoiding sin. It is necessary, but according to our Father’s teaching, it is not sufficient.
Why? Because it defines purity essentially in terms of what it rejects. One may be concerned with avoiding sin without one’s heart being entirely turned towards love.
2. Positive purity: loving with a self-giving love
Positive purity does not merely reject evil: it seeks to accomplish good out of love. According to a formulation that our Father uses, Positive purity is “the perfection of Love”.
It involves three fundamental attitudes:
- Loving God for His own sake, contemplating the love that unites the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
- Loving Jesus and Mary, receiving from them the model of a humble, faithful and generous love.
- Loving one’s neighbour for their own good, placing oneself at their service rather than seeking to possess them, dominate them or satisfy one’s own emotional needs.
In this respect, Father de Nantes contrasts self-giving love with the image of pitch: pitch adheres to whatever it comes into contact with. Impure love is thus understood not merely as sexual disorder, but more fundamentally as a tendency to draw everything towards oneself and to make everything serve one’s own interests.
3. The body and sexuality are not evil in themselves
An important point in this teaching is that positive purity must not be confused with fear of the body or contempt for sexuality.
In his teaching our Father gives the example of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Clare: their relationship shows that a man and a woman can love one another deeply with a chaste affection, without their relationship being dominated by the desire to possess. The body can express the beauty of the soul and bear witness to love.
In other words, purity is not simply an absence of sinful desire: it is the orientation of love towards what is truly good.
4. Why is the Blessed Virgin Mary so important?
For our Father, Mary is the privileged model of this purity because she is the Immaculata Who is wholly turned towards God and entirely available to His loving purpose.
To contemplate Her is to learn to love as She does: with gentleness, faithfulness, generosity and self-forgetfulness. Marian devotion is therefore not a secondary element of this spirituality; it is a concrete path towards inner transformation.
This transformation is also Eucharistic: the love of Christ, Who gives Himself in the Eucharist, becomes the model and source of our own self-giving.
5. How can positive purity be lived out in practice?
Several practical applications can be drawn from this teaching:
- In friendship: rejoicing in another person’s good without demanding that they belong to us emotionally.
- In marriage: living tenderness and conjugal union as a mutual gift, rather than as a selfish pursuit of gratification.
- In chastity: going beyond merely avoiding occasions of sin, and educating one’s heart to love with respect and generosity.
- In the spiritual life: praying, participating in Mass and contemplating Jesus and Mary, so that God’s love may gradually transform our intentions and actions.
These examples are practical applications of our Father’s teaching: they express the transition from a purity centred on defending oneself against evil to a purity that actively bears fruit in love.
In summary
The essential distinction could be expressed as follows:
- Negative purity: I reject whatever degrades love.
- Positive purity: I cultivate a love that uplifts, respects and gives itself.
The aim, therefore, is not merely to become someone who commits no wrongdoing, but to become someone who loves in a holy way.
This is what our Father means by teaching us to “love Love itself”: to discover in divine Love, contemplated in Jesus and Mary, the source of a life purified of selfishness and wholly directed towards self-giving.