Day 1

You are not to look at a woman with an evil thought — that is, c Blessed are the pure in heart *; and your heart will be pure when you have purged it of all sensual desires. Hence, those are happy who spend their lives in mourning and in a saving sadness rather than in pleasures that intoxicate.

i Swear not . , . let your speech be u yea, yea ; no, no .” 9 This, again, springs naturally from meekness ; for he who is meek is humble, and not too much attached to his own view, so as to be too positive ; he says what he thinks simply, in a sincere and gentle spirit.

When we are filled with that spirit of mercy which shall draw down on us yet more abundant mercy than our own, we easily forgive injuries ; and when we are meek and peaceable we readily yield to others, who may show violence, even more than we have promised.

It is not only because a man is meek, merciful, and peaceable that he loves his friends and his enemies, but because of that hunger after justice spoken of above, which makes him wish to T HE SERMON ON THE MOUNT have it for solid use, not for ostentatious display. We love fasting, too, when we find our chief nourishment in truth and justice ; and fasting purifies the heart and destroys sensuality.

Our heart is pure, moreover, when we keep our good deeds for the eyes of God alone ; when we are content to be seen by Him, and do not make virtue serve as a cloak for deceiving the world and attracting the notice and love of our fellows. A pure heart gives a single eye and a straight aim.

The poor in spirit avoid avarice and the seeking after possessions ; the meek and the peacemakers judge not, because meekness banishes pride.

Purity of heart makes us try to become worthy of the Holy Eucharist, and prevents our receiving this heavenly bread as if we were dogs.

Once more, when we hunger and thirst after justice we ask — we seek — we knock ; for we beg of God to give us the only true goods, and expect them from Him, when we aspire to the Kingdom of Heaven, the Land of the Living, and to nothing else.

Those who count themselves happy at being allowed to suffer poverty, grief, and misfortune for ‘justice sake’ willingly enter in by the FIRST DAT narrow gate ; and those who hunger for justice are not satisfied to say 4 Lord, Lord ! ’ with their lips, but feed their hearts on God’s Truth, and so build their house firmly on a rock.

The Beatitudes, then, form an abridgment of the whole sermon ; but a pleasant abridgment, for in them the command and the reward are always joined. The Kingdom of Heaven, under its divers wonderful names, follows on the possession of righteousness — happiness, on the practice of it.

Second) 2>a> FIRST BEATITUDE To be poor in spirit . — Matt. v. 3.

|E come now to detail ; and Jesus Christ ' begins thus : ‘ Blessed are the poor in spirit .’ He means here not only the poor by choice — those who have left all things to follow Him, and to whom He has promised a hundredfold in this world and life everlasting in the next — but all whose hearts are detached from earthly goods. He means both those who are bearing actual poverty without murmuring or impatience, and the rich who hold their possessions without the spirit of riches : — that is, without the love of display, the pride, the injustice, and the insatiable craving to get everything for themselves which constitute this spirit. Eternal happiness, under the majestic title of c kingdom,’ belongs to all these — and for a special reason. The particular evil of poverty on earth is to make people con-