“Blessed are the sorrowing: they shall be consoled.” “’Women, there is your son;’ then he said to the disciple, ‘There is your mother’” (Matthew 5:5; John 19:26).
The Lord will console anyone who grieves because of the wretchedness of this earthly exile, or who mourns for his own or his brothers’ sins. Even close to his own death, Christ did not forget his mother, but consoled her with the words: “Woman, there is your son.”
The consolation of the Lord is promised through the mouths of his prophets Nahum and Zechariah: “The Lord is good, a refuge in the day of distress. He takes care of those who have recourse to him (1:7); ‘I will be for her an encircling wall of fire says the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst’” (2:9). Christ is this encircling wall of fire, destroying all our enemies, yet preserving and refreshing us with his glory.
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, they shall have their fill”. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 5:6; 27:46)?
Those who hunger and thirst for justice render to each person his proper due. In fulfillment of the law, they have God and their brothers and sisters, and in justice they grieve about the sins they have committed. Notice that Christ cried out the words “My God” twice, as if to indicate the twofold love of God and man; the words “forsaken me” emphasize our need for repentance. The Son says to the Father: “Why have you exposed me to so much suffering?”
The Lord speaks of this threefold obligation to justice through the mouth of the prophet Habakkuk: “The just man, because of his faith, shall live” (2:4). A man “just” to himself, has “faith” in God, and has an obligation to “live” with his neighbour. A just man lives with faith in God, loving his neighbour, and judging and condemning only himself. “The man who does not love,” says St. John, “is among the living dead” (3:14).
St. Anthony of Padua, Seek First the Kingdom of God. Ed. Fr. Livio Poloniato OFMConv. (Padua: Edizioni Messaggero Padova, 1996), 60-1.
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