III. Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted (Mt 5:5)
December 8, 2006
We can mourn the loss of many things: friends who die, vanished health and vigor, opportunities missed, and treasures lost or stolen. To mourn the loss of such things is natural. But those who mourn the loss of such human and earthly things are not the ones Our Lord calls blessed.
He is speaking of those who mourn what should be mourned - evil.
We should mourn our sins and the evil our sins have unleashed into the lives of others. We should be aware of the unfair burdens our laziness imposes on others. We should regret and make amends for the strains our unkindness, criticism and obstinacy have placed on our human relationships. We should also bemoan our self-indulgence and short temper and the harm we do when our passions cloud our judgment and we do what we should not.
If we do not mourn our sinfulness, the reason can only be that we have lost sight of the one goal Our Lord has put before us: “Be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect”
(Mt 5:48). For when we keep our eye fixed on that goal, we can see clearly any deviation from it. But if the goal is not kept in mind, we do not see when we go astray and our sins do not bother us.
We should also mourn the presence of evil in the world - injustice, cruelty, violence, greed, oppression. For it is easy to become accustomed to social evils because they are so prevalent in the world around us. We become inured to them. We take them for granted. We hardly give them a second thought. We see the hungry and the homeless and pass by. We hear about the victims of violence and oppression but do nothing. We find excuses for not getting involved in efforts to solve these problems. We do not mourn because we do not care deeply enough about the human consequences of evil. The saints do.
Mother Theresa, for example, was appalled at the sight of poor people dying of hunger and disease on the streets of Calcutta, and alone, counting only on the Lord’s help, she began to take care of them. Her example touched the conscience of the world and inspired thousands to join her in her work.
Mother Jugan, Founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor, began by taking poor and abandoned old people into her home. She begged food from townspeople to feed them. Her Little Sisters still carry on her work.
How many organizations have been founded within and without the Church by people who mourned what should be mourned and used their talents and their energies to change what needed to be changed. These are the mourners Christ calls blessed.
Our Lord tells us that those who do mourn the evils they see around them are blessed because they are faithful to the Gospel and have not been overcome by evil but are determined to overcome evil by good (Rm 12:21). They are blessed because they have not let their conscience be dulled by the evils around them. They have not closed their ears to the cry of the poor.
But how are they comforted?
“Comfort” comes from the Latin “to strengthen, to make strong.” Those who mourn evil within themselves and society - are strengthened by the battles they wage against it. They grow stronger in their commitment. They understand better the mind of God Our Father, who wants the best for all his children. They are the ones who will have Our Lord tell them at the last judgment “Come ye blessed of my Father. Receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world... For whatever you did for the least of my brothers, you did to me.”
Those who mourn in this way join with Christ to establish the kingdom of God on earth and having done God’s will on earth enter the kingdom of heaven. They are blessed indeed.
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