Beatitudes

Who then are the mourners?  The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God’s new day, who ache withal their being for that day’s coming, and who break into tears when confronted with its absence.

They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace, there is no one blind and who ache whenever they see someone unseeing.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one hungry and who ache whenever they see someone starving.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one falsely accused, and who ache whenever they see someone imprisoned unjustly.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one who fails to see God, and who aches whenever they see someone unbelieving.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one who suffers oppression, and who ache wherever they see someone beat down.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one without dignity and who ache whenever they see someone treated with indignity.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace there is neither death nor tears, and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death.  The mourners are aching visionaries.

Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he praises them, he salutes them.  And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come.  They will be comforted.

The Stoics of antiquity said:  Be calm.  Disengage yourself.  Neither laugh nor weep.  Jesus says:  Be open to the wounds of the world.  Mourn humanity’s mourning, weep over humanity weeping, be wounded by humanity’s wounds, be in agony over humanity’s agony.  But do so in the good cheer that a day of peace is coming.

[COVENANT, Number 22, January 2006]

Quoted in Daniel Berrigan’s Isaiah:  Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, Fortress Press, 1996