XXIV — BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

Presence of God. — Grant me, O Lord, to shed only tears acceptable to You and helping me grow in your love.

Meditation

1 — To the gift of knowledge corresponds beatitude: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mt. 5:5). Blessed first are those who, deeply enlightened by Holy Spirit on nothingness of creatures, weep over time spent seeking them, energies and affections wasted in world’s vanities.

These are burning tears of St. Augustine who in his Confessions never ceases to lament: “Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new, late have I loved You ... You were with me and I was not with You; creatures kept me far from You.” These are tears of penitent Magdalene and of St. Peter weeping over his fault. Blessed tears, washing souls from sin and disposing them for friendship with God.

They are tears of souls already resolved to seek God above all creatures and yet, because of fragility, must reproach themselves each day for some weakness, some little return to futile earthly satisfactions. Gift of knowledge does not permit us to close eyes to infidelities, though slight, but urges us to detest and bewail them, if not with material tears, with tears of compunction.

A soul living under influence of this gift will never be easygoing or superficial in examinations of conscience; and its confessions, though serene, will always be sorrowful, always accompanied by deep contrition. Such were confessions of saints who accused themselves with keen sorrow of smallest imperfections.

The Holy Spirit does not want to make us scrupulous, but very delicate in fidelity to God. Therefore He is not content that we despise worldliness in a general way, but wants us to despise it also in subtler manifestations: little revenges of self-love, slightest complacency in self, little searches for others’ affection and esteem. Blessed soul able to recognize and weep over all its miseries, not with tears of discouragement or disturbance, but with tears of deep contrition that, instead of narrowing it in fear, enlarge it in penitential love and throw it into God’s arms with a heart renewed in love and sorrow.

2 — Gift of knowledge, by making us experience deeply vanity of creatures, convinces us of their inconsistency and fragility and thus urges us to place all hopes in God. In this sense this gift perfects and strengthens virtue of hope so that, without hesitating any longer, our heart anchors itself in God, recognizing in Him our only support and foundation, and our only happiness.

The more soul hopes in God and in beatifying possession of Him awaiting it in eternal life, the more disposed it is not only to renounce happiness and satisfactions creatures can offer, but also to embrace all sacrifices necessary for reaching eternal life. Sacrifices are many because it is impossible to go to God except by following same path Son of God took to lead us there: way of Cross.

Yet while suffering, soul living by hope can repeat with St. Paul: “We do not lose heart ... for our present light tribulation works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:16-17). Gift of knowledge makes us judge present sorrows light compared with eternal beatitude, and in view of this it urges us to bless them even if they cost us blood. That is why Apostle rejoices and glories in tribulations (cf. Rom. 5:3-5), and St. Francis of Assisi sings: “So great is good I await that every pain is delight to me.”

Precisely thus, under influence of gift of knowledge, soul understands beatitude of tears — that is, beatitude of sufferings embraced for love of God. This gift does not make us insensitive to physical and moral pains; indeed beatitude speaks explicitly of “tears.” But though it does not prevent us from weeping, it sanctifies our weeping and renders it weeping resigned to God’s will, esteemed as means of assimilation to Christ Crucified, preferred to vain joys of world.

What difference between these tears and those shed from pride, from refusal to submit to divine will, or from capricious resentments of self-love!

When soul has reached point of preferring holy tears shed at foot of Cross to earthly enjoyments, it may hope for beatitude promised by Jesus: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Colloquy

“O Lord, peace You give us in this world is full of anxieties, tribulations, and persecutions; but then You lead us to tranquil and quiet peace. Indeed, more than this: amid same anxieties You give us your peace, because finally Spirit bears witness in some way that we are your children. This means: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ Not only will You console us in future, but You make our very weeping our consolation, and war itself our peace. Whoever loves You, O Lord, in hottest fire of tribulations finds cool wind and dew of heavenly consolation” (St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi).

“My God, blessed be You, who have not asked from us for price of your Kingdom a long waiting, but a very brief one, brief as life, one moment before eternity of beatitude! And certainly, if it had been necessary for love of You to endure for hundreds of thousands of years pains a thousand times harsher and harder, we still would have had to accept such decree with immense joy and desire, and give You thanks with folded hands and bent knees.

“How much more, then, must we thank You now that in your mercy You granted us shortest suffering possible, suffering brief as life! Brief, that is, as an instant, as a nothing. Nothing is life before eternity.

“Come then, come, O children of God, and let us run to Christ’s Cross, to pain, contempt, poverty! Grant, O Lord, that I may love You as You have loved me, with absolute fidelity, with absolute purity, with absolute love that keeps nothing for itself, gives all, and therefore launches itself toward pains and sufferings, and in all things sees and feels only love” (Blessed Angela of Foligno).