THE
BEATITUDES
1.
Blessed are the meek.
2.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
3.
Blessed are the pure of heart.
4.
Blessed are the mercyful, for they shall find mercy.
1.
Blessed are the meek.
When we speak of meekness, it is necessary
to be clear and precise so as to avoid the misunderstanding of an overlay
saccharine interpretation. This is not what Jesus and Padre Pio signify
by meekness. When Jesus gave us Himself as an example to imitate, He said:
“Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of Heart, and you will find
rest for your souls”. By which He means: His yoke (contrary to mistaken
belief) will not be heavy, but light. This is how Jesus incarnates in
Himself the beatitude of meekness.
But who are the meek? The meek are those who
comply to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, to the movement of Divine
grace; who are benevolent and amiable, always ready to do good and speak
well of others; who are understanding and merciful in judging people and
circumstances; who are serene and calm in life’s storms; who can
temperate in the use of goods; who are kindhearted and friendly towards
everyone they encounter in life, and who are ready to help and listen.
How can one ignore the smile and warmth of the
meek? Meekness is a happy mixture of every good quality and virtue. In
fact it presupposes a great strength of will to regulate one’s inclinations
of nature and to direct them to do good; it requires self control and
a high level of maturity. This is a bitter fruit, not sweet! It inclines
one to patience with oneself and one’s neighbour, to forgiveness;
it disposes one to faith. It opens one to hope; it encourages solidarity,
understanding and mercy; it permits an easier and better resignation to
the cross; and it is expressed in gentle behaviour, good manners, and
education; all distiguished by sincerity and not false formality. Meekness,
therefore, is not feebleness, romantic languor, cold apathy, and it is
the opposite to every form of egoism, pride, violence, arrogance, and
hardness of heart.
Where does meekness come from? Meekness (not
the temperament, which is a gift of nature) springs from love and suffering.
Those who love deeply and totally are meek. Jesus, significantly, specifies
that He is meek of Heart. Those who are able to write a ‘love story’
of their lives, as popularly expressed, who have loved and love very much,
are meek, good and gentle. I think of a mother’s love, a girl’s
timid love, the effusive love of a saint, of Padre Pio! Our passions,
our egoism do not make us meek! Love is the sun that ripens and sweetens
the fruit! Suffering, in its turn, is a most bitter portion that makes,
however, a man rich, sensitive and beautiful interiorly. I have known
embittered, hard and prejudiced men become meek and gentle under the macerating
action of their own and their close ones suffering. At the bedside of
the sufferer, our emotion melts into burning tears, which in vain we seek
to hide from the patient so as not to upset them! And upon the bed of
our own suffering, which has become an altar, the sufferer is purified,
transformed, and becomes meek, like the lamb ready for sacrifice. In this
darkness we see stars, and our tears refresh the soul. Why are the meek
blessed? Jesus answered: “For they shall inherit the earth”.
We encounter here again the same paradoxical logic of those other affirmations
of the Gospel: “He who humbles himself shall be exalted. He who
exalts himself shall be humbled. The last shall be first, and the first
shall be last”. The Lord has scattered the proud to the thoughts
of their own hearts and the humble He has raised. “If you do not
become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
To
the eyes of the world, meekness is to be feeble, to fear everything and
everyone, to renounce all healthy ambition, to be cowardly, to escape
in a protected niche, in short to be content with little. Nothing is more
false; the meek shall inherit the earth, in other words they will triumph
over the world, mankind and their environment (the family, school) by
the power of truth and justice. Today we are all on the point of war!
Few believe in the power of justice, but rather in the justice of power;
a power that is not moral, synonymous in fact of meekness and interior
equilibrium, but the power of arrogance, animal instinct and presumption.
We are no longer capable of true dialogue, as a serene confrontation of
points of view. Only monologue! He is right who shouts loudest, who is
able to offend best and not exclude blows: everywhere there is increasing
vulgarity, obscene language, intolerance, racism, prejudice, bad education.
So many people have no more grace than a ‘bull in a China shop’
and like storm clouds will burst at the least provocation. Heaven help
you, if you offend someone’s feelings. Everyone is a bundle of nerves;
from the spoilt, tyrannical only child to the youth ready to do anything
to obtain something quickly and easily, from the fickle and affected girl,
to the neurotic, psychopathic, hysterical and arteriosclerotic crowd.
There is so much moral and spiritual weakness that is barely able to conceal
the bottomless interior pit! Where has that gentleness of women, school
teachers, aged priests, and sisters gone? Where is that meekness?
Padre Pio certainly was a good disciple in the
School of Jesus. Padre Pio’s whole life was a continual struggle
to imitate his Divine Master, to become meek. And his ‘rough manners’?
Padre Pio was always aware of having a temperament that was so frank,
and open, and spontaneous, as to appear rough. It was what his mother
had given him, as he was wont to say, and all his life, continuously,
he sought with the ‘help of Jesus and Mary’ to moderate it.
He wrote to his Spiritual Director: “Lady Gentleness seems to be
making progress in me, but I myself am not satisfied on this point. Help
me by your own and other people’s prayers” (Letters, 1). Then
he explaines his impulsiveness: “How is it possible to see God saddened
by evil and not be saddened likewise? To see God on the point of letting
fly his thunderbolts? To parry them restrain his arm and with the other
hand beckon urgently to one’s brothers for a twofold reason: that
they may cast evil aside and move away at once from where they stand,
since the Judge’s hand is about to come down on them” (Letters,
1). But immediately Padre Pio assures: “Please, believe me, though
when I tell you that at such moments I am no means shaken or changed in
the depths of my soul, I feel nothing, except the desire to have, and
to want what God wants. In Him I always feel at rest, at least internally,
while I am sometimes rather uncomfortable externally” (Letters,
1).
One day Padre Pio very serious and almost sad,
stated: “From now on I will be no longer condescending and gentle,
as I have been in the past, and because God wills this, you will see me
severe, harsh and brusque, even to the point of shocking and scandalising;
this is not in my nature, but sometimes, for the love of God, unfortunately
I will make the sacrifice”. By his meekness, Padre Pio inherited
the earth. The crowds that flock to his tomb are the proof. How badly
we desire an abundant inheritance. The earth is at our disposition, if
we are meek, like Jesus and Padre Pio.
2.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Suffering is the centre of man’s experience
in life. “Suffering seems to be and is almost inseparable from man’s
life on earth, and is deeply rooted in humanity itself. In man suffering
is not interpreted in the simple presence of a negative and unpleasant
sensation such as the awareness of an obstruction, or corruption of the
organism, but includes the intuition of this sensation in one’s
very consciousness” (John Paul II).
As well as suffering of the body, there is suffering
of the soul; as well as suffering of the soul, physical suffering. It
is only man who associates his suffering with his destiny. In his suffering
he lives unconsoled, and completely alone, the psychological drama of
the discovery of his uttermost limitations of death. What characterizes
human suffering therefore is the very consciousness of the limits present
in each individual; our tears do not have a physcological function, but
are the expression of an agonizing soul!
Why suffering? Man has asked this question from his
beginnings. Adam and Eve, bemoaning the violent death of their son Able,
asked why. As soon as man begins to be conscious of himself and begins
to reason and reflect, then he asks questions, and one of those in fact
- the first - is: why suffering? The search for the answer may be the
beginning of wisdom, if it comes from a sound curiosity, or it may end
in despair; and even if one seeks to evade the question escaping in the
illusion of the surreal, in futile distractions, in the end comes the
regretted moment of truth, when one can no longer deceive oneself and
hide from the painful scourging question: “Why? Why me?”.
It is clear the question and problem is not about the cause of suffering.
This can be given by medical science, psychology, psychiatry, sociology,
philosophy. Our “why?” contains the meaning, the end, the
value, the utility and fruitfulness of suffering.
What is the purpose of suffering? And if there is a
purpose, what purpose? Who is responsible? Can we avoid it and how? How
many questions and how many different answers! So many attempts to exorcise,
eliminate, defeat, evade or at least alleviate suffering!
Some answer by the passive acceptance of suffering.
Nothing can alter our inescapable fate and cruel destiny. This is the
outlook of paganism, and the existentialists of every age. It is better
to renounce the struggle, and declare defeat. Others suggest domineering
pain, suppressing all desire, every passion, thus obtaining a kind of
absence of feeling. This is called ataraxy, apathy. The superman then
triumphs over pain, by the sheer force of his will. The Pessimist resigns
himself to anxiety and to despair, crushed beneath dumb, naked and cursed
pain. The Philanthropist tries to sublimate his suffering, by nurturing
feelings of compassion for his fellow beings, of human solidarity before
the immanent, common destiny of suffering and death.
The Hedonist deceives himself and tries to obliterate
suffering by immersing himself in the intoxicating waters of pleasure,
in the stupefaction of his senses, continual acquisitons, in the artifical
paradise of drugs, endless weekends, pleasure trips and vacations. The
Philosopher rationalizes suffering and denies its existence. The so called
evil is only implied, an assumption of our ontological limits and are
we not living in the best of all possible worlds?
The Rationalists of the Age of Enlightenment hoped
that the light of reason would have eliminated every cause of suffering,
but that light served to illuminate the horrors of the French Guillotine.
We had deceived ourselves into thinking that the progress of Science would
herald a period of happiness, in which suffering would only become a sad
memory, a misfortune of the past. And yet we still suffer (and how!) and
we die regularly! And there is no lack of charlatans, and fake healers,
and then there is wisdom of ‘Pop’ and Psychiatry: accept yourself,
confront life with a smile, transform reality into a dream, distract yourself
in social involvement, artistic interest. All false, incomplete and non
satisfactory answers, and a far cry from that “Blessed are they
that mourn.”
The only true and consoling answer that resolves the
mystery of suffering is our Saviour’s Cross. It is like a ray of
light that traverses our tears and divides them into iridescent colours
of the pacifier. The cross solves the enigma of suffering, it makes it
an instrument of salvation, redemption. No longer useless, no longer a
condemnation, no longer a curse.
Suffering, especially that of the innocent, becomes
precious, like a particle in which beyond the ‘accidents’
of the sufferer’s cries, tears and blood, we find Jesus. Suffering
offered out of love for Jesus is a most effective contribution to the
growth of sanctity of the Church and for the good of the whole world,
virtue of the Communion of Saints. The small suffering of the individual
shares in alleviating cosmic suffering. And in the meantime suffering
fulfils, matures and enriches one, like love! Does there exist a love
that is not crucified? To love is to live, because to love is to suffer.
St. Paul says: “I complete in me what is lacking in the Passion
of Christ”. Our suffering and tears, therefore, are an excellent
investment towards our salvation and that of humanity. To make oneself
victim, to offer oneself as victim is to make, for all intents and purposes,
the ‘poor’ suffering of man, Christlike. To suffer in full
submission to the will of the Father means to become a Cyrenean who helps
Jesus carry the Cross. It means to assimilate our cross to that of Jesus.
It means to give an infinite magnitude to the limited horizon of our sacrifice.
Contemporary man has forgotten how to suffer, he is
unable to fathom the Beatitude of Mourning. Suffering frightens us! And
in the meantime our sufferings have increased, above all, our moral sufferings,
because our faith has waned and we have lost the significance of suffering.
There are so many pain killers for physical pain, but none for the suffering
of spirit. Here then is the meaning of suffering: to help Jesus save souls.
The folly of the Cross! But is not love ‘divine
folly’? That is why those who mourn are blessed!
3.
Blessed are the pure of heart.
The
pure of heart are those who have ‘fire’ in their hearts. And
fire is light: the pure shine with light that radiates around them, illuminating
their own and their neighbours path; fire is warmth, that is life, enthusiasm,
generosity, optimism, dynamism, a will to live and be joyful. The pure
know how to sing, to give themselves, to hope, to make plans with that
dash of boldness and utopia, that christian utopia full of possibity and
realism; an instrument of purification, the pure consider themselves always
in a state of purification; and a symbol of love; the pure are those who
are able to love, truly and totally, because they are prepared to offer
their lives, which is what love essentially consists of.
And purity? It is not easy to define, as it is not
easy to define all that is sublime and the difficulty increases if we
wish, as we do here, to speak of purity in a broad sense so as to avoid
reducing it simply to an argument of the 6th and 9th commandments. However
I will try.
Purity is: moral excellence that raises and prepares
us for the ultimate heights of the mystical life; a firm foundation to
our life of faith, to abandonment to God, with a humble and boundless
hope; a potential for great sacrifice and heroism; a source of joy and
also aesthetical joy, before the wonder of beauty. As a result only the
pure are comfortable and at peace with themselves.
Purity is: a strength and power that includes prudence,
justice, fortitude, temperance; a candour and clarity of our mind, emotions
and instincts; a just detachment from the passing things of the world
and an anticipation of the realities of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that
we only touch lightly with our eyes and heart all that we encounter on
our path.
Purity teaches us to live everyday the Gospel. It is
consciousness of being temples of God. A generosity and liberality that
is not self seeking, a capacity to be in communion with our neighbour,
as part of the Church participating above all in the evangelical action
of the community of believers, and a pure conscience and absolute honesty
in every human activity, work, commerce, politics.
The impure heart is a heart that is lifeless, cold,
weak, self-centered. Impurity is to have clipped wings, to be no longer
able to fly. A butterfly is beautiful so long as it is able to move freely
in the air, but it is enough that somebody touch it, and it is no longer
able to rise from the ground, so that it dies.
Impurity is a disordered conscience. Our conscience
is the judgement of our reason with regard to the morality, the goodness
or badness of an act. An immoral act is something that goes against the
order of reason, an act not ordered to its proper end.
Impurity is a vile compromise with the principles of
our conscience. It is a shameful deceit and a serious wrong, especially
towards ourselves, a self hatred and an abandonment of our high dignity
as free and rational beings, made in the image of God, redeemed by Jesus
Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. It is a profanation of theological
man!
Impurity is a source of unhapppiness, sadness and anxiety:
the demon of anxiety is essentially a demon of impurity! Impurity is loneliness,
extreme destitution, it is to be shut up within ourselves in an empty
narcissism. It is an intolerance and low esteem of ourselves, and no one
is happy without self esteem; the impure, in moments of truth, even loathe
themselves; impurity is abject slavery, dependance on immediate pleasure,
that pleasure at first so alluring and seductive (like the forbidden fruit)
and finally so bitter and deluding. It is to be aware of our nakedness
and vulnerability, it is to feel ourselves betrayed by the illusion of
evil, the forever repeated tragedy of sin; impurity is diabolical pride,
the betrayal of our faith, the frustration of every hope and the weakening
of the will. In short falsity! Only the pure can
see God, infinite purity and love; only the pure can see the Face of God,
without being blinded and annihilated. “In your light we shall see
the light,” recites the Psalm. The pure shall see Jesus, the perennial
nostalgia and ultimate desire of every virginal affection. The pure shall
see the Immaculate Virgin Mary, who drew to Herself, by Her lily white
candour, the Holy Spirit, the God of love.
The religious in their purity will see God. The incarnation
of a vocation of unlimited love is an everlasting betrothal with the Spouse.
The religious pervade time and the ordinary things of everyday life with
the eternal through the zeal of their chaste hearts.
The priest in his purity will see God. He sees Him,
and makes Him present in the reality of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
The believer in his purity will see God, if he lives
coherently the duties of his baptism, and purifies himself in the Sacrament
of Confession, and thus always giving a precise purpose to his days, in
short to see God.
It seems that the characteristic and origin of
so much evil in our society is impurity. Why do we see so many sad and
unhappy and weary people? Because there is no purity of heart. Why does
there exist so much violence on children, on the weak and on women? Because
we are incapable of dominating our instincts and our body has lost its
sacredness. Why so much egoism? Because egoism is the fruit of impurity,
of an embittered hedonism.
Our very young are violated, innocent souls raped,
killed. There is no longer any love that is sincere, true and pure, because
there remains little to give after the gratification of the senses. A
giving without love is prostitution! What limits will a person not go
to, to attain success? The obscenity and evil of television, literature
and the cinema, show us. There is too much liberty and too little autonomy
with the young. It is the lack of purity which is the true cause of sexual
aberrations, drug addiction and the crisis of Aids. Impurity encourages
every sort of infamy against self and others. The mad rush for pleasure
makes us forget that man is responsible for his actions, that he is gifted
with freedom. Sexual freedom certainly did not bring in an era of happiness.
4.
Blessed are the mercyful, for they shall find mercy.
What is mercy? It is not necessary to look beyond
the term. Mercy, from the Latin ‘miseris cor dare,’ literally
signifes ‘to give our hearts to the miserable’. St Augustine
defines mercy ‘as the heartfelt sympathy for another’s distress,
impelling us to succour them if we can’. To be merciful therefore
requires a heart, a heart that is open to give those in distress. The
merciful must have an interior wealth, something to give those in need.
The faint hearted, the empty, the miserly, all those in short who are
spiritually destitute, who have no ‘heart’ or even, if they
have, it is closed, inaccessible, because of moral avarice, are not in
a condition to be merciful, to use mercy.
No one can give what they do not have: mercy is the
expression of true, sincere love. Love performs a double function: that
of enlarging and that of opening the heart, so its wealth may spread and
reach those in need. Love is the key to the heart: if there is mercy,
the key opens the heart; if there is no mercy, the key closes it. When
we speak of the law of love, we speak of the law of mercy; love and mercy
are almost synonymous.
Mercy also means forgiveness, it spreads and is sustained
by forgiveness. Mercy bears no malice for wrongs received. Mercy is a
sign of nobility of soul, of great sensitivity. A magnanimous heart knows
in its mercy its superiority and vantage. Mercy is the awareness and practice
of accord, of sharing, of giving ouselves. There is no gift more beautiful
or precious than the gift of the heart, the essential centre of man. The
Apostle St. Paul tells us we must “rejoice with them that rejoice,
weep with them that weep”.
Mercy is the preparation for every merciful action,
we cannot act according to evangelical charity, wihout the movement of
mercy, that impels and draws us to do good. Mercy is an indispensable
element, because a good deed towards those in need becomes meritorious,
it serves to increase our grace and holiness. If we are not moved by mercy,
all our great deeds for our neighbour remain mere social work.
Mercy is light that comes from above, through our human
and supernatural reality and illuminates our life. Mercy makes us like
alabaster, capable, that is, in our human capacity, to filter light! It
is a typical Christian and evangelical virtue; mercy, in substance, is
a way of being that informs a sesitive soul, mercy therefore is not saccharine
sentimentalism, sugary frailty, hazy piety, inert compassion, passive
commiseration; nor is it just giving alms. It is easy to give something,
it is difficult to give our hearts. Who are the miserable? They are: the
poverty stricken, all those in grave financial, moral and spiritual need.
The weak, inert and defenceless before the arrogance and violence of society.
The suffering, the ill, the aged, those who cry in loneliness, even with
the means necessary for someone to take care of them, and yet have nobody!
Our children in need of affection and education. The enslaved to bad habits.
The desperate, those who do not know how to love, who no longer are able
to believe in God, in life and providence. And all those who have no-one
to love them, really love them!
However the greatest misery of all is sin! The most
miserable of the miserable are sinners|! Jesus tells us the merciful are
blessed because they will, in their turn, find mercy. By their mercy they
make God merciful towards them. I hear the echo of the Lord’s prayer:
“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us”. They are blessed because they recognize their own misery
and need, like those towards whom they are merciful, and this opens Gods
heart towards them; they are blessed because it likens them to God, who
is a merciful Father. And mercy is better than other aspects of human
spirituality (our intelligence reason, will and freedom) in order to effectively
liken us to God. To be merciful is a unique characteristic of God and
it is a capacity, possibility and prerogative, exclusively and significantly
human! The growth in our will of mercy is a sign of human and supernatural
perfection, of delicacy of spirit, or interiority, moral weight, civilization.
If I think of Jesus’ earthly life, I see that
it was all a revelation of God’s mercy towards mankind, whether
through His preaching (the parables of divine mercy: the Father of the
Prodigal son, the Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan) or through His crucial
work of Redemption.
Today economical misery has been much alleviated, nevertherless
not altogether gone, particularly in reference to the new and more costly
social needs of modern life. And in the West, affluent and satiated to
the point of nausea, not only are the minimum necessities of life not
lacking, but we even throw out bread which is costly garnishing, which
even the stray dogs despise!
Today the problem for many is one of indigestion! And
there is even a frightening increase of moral misery, spiritual emptiness,
religious indifferentism, social disinterest, dishonesty, arrogance and
unstrained liberalism in commerce. There is so much misery around. The
rich are always more full of haughty emptiness, addicted to drugs, victims
of Aids, venereal disease, violence, desperation, suicide; and the poor,
the homeless, the immigrants, from the third world countries, who are
forced to make their living on our roads, become victims of prostitution.
Today we need so much mercy and yet it seems that the
more misery increases, the more that mercy diminshes!
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