What is the meaning of the phrase, "Blessed are the poor in spirit?’’ There is one reading of it that I particularly affect. St. Thomas quotes it as a thought of St. John Chrysostom’s; St. Francis de Sales too refers to it; and Cornelius a Lapide dwells on it with satisfaction. Here it is, put briefly:
Happy are the poor (as the Greek text says, the beggars), in spirit; that is to say, happy those who realize, as St. Augustine reflects, that man is only a pauper before one Supreme Possessor. Happy is he, who, filled with an infinite trust in a father’s goodness, looks upon himself as a son who is in want of all things, not having anything of his own, but possesses all through love, through the limitless tenderness of him who loves. Happy the Christian who has this selfsame feeling. He is a child who begs, it is true, but there is no disgrace in begging from a father, especially when that Father is God; he is a child who begs, but that is what love means, to feel of no account before him whom one loves. He is a child who begs; all the better, for it is a quality of mendicancy that it can ask for anything, can beg, can knock, can return and knock again, never taking a final refusal; gaining sometimes by insistence what was at first refused.
So the Gospel says, not that the kingdom of heaven will he his, but that it is his, who is poor in spirit. He possesses the charm that can procure him grace, and light, and strength, and the happiness that is a foretaste of celestial bliss—the dawn of its endless day.
Mgr. Landriat.
The joy of the just is from God, and in God, their rejoicing is of the truth. ~Thomas d Kempis.
Happy are the poor (as the Greek text says, the beggars), in spirit; that is to say, happy those who realize, as St. Augustine reflects, that man is only a pauper before one Supreme Possessor. Happy is he, who, filled with an infinite trust in a father’s goodness, looks upon himself as a son who is in want of all things, not having anything of his own, but possesses all through love, through the limitless tenderness of him who loves. Happy the Christian who has this selfsame feeling. He is a child who begs, it is true, but there is no disgrace in begging from a father, especially when that Father is God; he is a child who begs, but that is what love means, to feel of no account before him whom one loves. He is a child who begs; all the better, for it is a quality of mendicancy that it can ask for anything, can beg, can knock, can return and knock again, never taking a final refusal; gaining sometimes by insistence what was at first refused.
So the Gospel says, not that the kingdom of heaven will he his, but that it is his, who is poor in spirit. He possesses the charm that can procure him grace, and light, and strength, and the happiness that is a foretaste of celestial bliss—the dawn of its endless day.
Mgr. Landriat.
The joy of the just is from God, and in God, their rejoicing is of the truth. ~Thomas d Kempis.
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