XVII — BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER

Presence of God. — Under the impulse of the gift of fortitude, become within me a soul hungry and thirsty for justice.

Meditation

1 — The soul: the gift of fortitude causes to arise in it ever greater desires for justice, virtue, holiness — desires so vivid and urgent that they can truly be called hunger and thirst. Under the impulse of the gift of fortitude, the soul becomes hungry and thirsty for justice. Therefore to this gift corresponds the beatitude: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled” (Mt. 5:6). The word justice here must be understood in its broadest sense: perfection, holiness, total self-giving to God and to souls.

And in this sense the Holy Spirit urges the soul, showing ever wider horizons and inviting it to works ever more perfect, to self-giving ever more generous and profound. This soul can keep nothing back. The Holy Spirit does not permit it. It must give itself wholly: “The charity of Christ presses us” (2 Cor. 5:14), it repeats with St. Paul. In it there is ardent thirst for God’s will, sought as the miser seeks gold; ardent thirst for holiness, so that it tolerates in itself not the least lack of correspondence to grace and thinks it always does too little for the Lord; ardent thirst for souls, for whom it ceaselessly spends itself without reserve; ardent thirst for God’s glory, for which, forgetting its own rest, it is always ready to undertake new sacrifices and labors.

Whence comes such courage and daring? Not from its own strength or energies — it knows this well — but from strength of the Holy Spirit, from confidence in Him, from docility to his action. It can therefore say with full assurance: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

2 — As the hungry person rejoices when he can satisfy himself with bread, so the soul living under influence of the gift of fortitude rejoices when it can satisfy its hunger for justice and holiness. It rejoices when it can immerse itself in God’s will, the only food able to satiate it; it rejoices when it can satisfy thirst for immolation by sacrificing itself for God and for souls; it rejoices when it can satisfy hunger for God by receiving Him in Communion or plunging itself into Him in prayer’s intimacy.

This is a pure joy, not sought for itself, not detached from duty. It is joy of the soul gravitating toward its center, God, and sensing it gives itself ever more to Him and belongs wholly to Him. But to enjoy this joy one must be resolved not to seek or admit others. “Most happy life,” says St. Teresa of Jesus, “is lived by souls that, despising every self-satisfaction, think only of pleasing the Lord” (Way 13, 7).

If we do not taste this joy, it is because we are not hungry enough for justice. Alongside this holy hunger, perhaps we still nourish worldly cravings — hunger for things and joys of here below — which lessen strength of the first and divert our steps in search of human satisfactions. But what can creatures give us? They will never be enough to satisfy our hunger and will always leave us unsatisfied.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit, then, to extinguish in us every appetite for earthly things and make our hunger for holiness grow. This hunger is still weak in us and above all inconstant. How many times, after making great resolutions, have we fallen again and stayed there discouraged, perhaps resigned to being unable to do more? The Holy Spirit, through the gift of fortitude, wants to make our hunger for holiness stronger and more persevering so that it never dies — not to leave us to die of hunger, but to satiate us with imperishable goods: God’s will, justice, holiness.

He who has power to arouse this hunger in us also has power to satisfy it abundantly, so that by this satisfaction we are eternally blessed.

Colloquy

“O God, ocean of holy love and sweetness, come and give Yourself to my soul! Grant that with all my heart, with absolute desire, with burning love, I may continually aspire to You and breathe sweetly in You. O my true and supreme joy, may I prefer You to every creature; for You may I renounce every passing pleasure!

“Feed, O Lord, this hungry beggar. With the influx of your divinity gladden me by the desired presence of your grace. This I ask and desire, that vehement love may penetrate me, fill me, transform me into You.

“Grant, O sweetest Redeemer, that I burn with your love, that I may fail to myself, delight in You alone, and know and feel only You. O abyss overflowing with divinity, draw me, immerse me in You! Tear every other love from my heart, attach it to You so that I become as one lifeless to all other things.

“I invoke You in my soul, I invoke and seek You with immense affection, O delight of intimate embraces! Come, Beloved, come most desired One, that I may possess You within and clasp You with arms of my soul!

“Enter my soul, O supreme sweetness, that I may taste sweet things and rejoice and rest in You alone.

“O my Beloved, Beloved of my vows, let Yourself be found and, found, may I hold You and clasp You most tightly in my spiritual arms. I desire You; I long for You, eternal beatitude. Oh, give Yourself to me, unite me intimately to You, and inebriate me with the sole wine of your love” (Bl. Louis of Blois).