Devotion for today: Who are “those who mourn”?

Today we resume our study of the Beatitudes in this, the Year of Faith. We look at the second beatitude.

Scripture for meditation: Matthew 5:4

“Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us: Article 3: Man’s Freedom: I. Freedom and Responsibility

1732: As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil,  and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach. 1733: The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to “the slavery of sin.” (Romans 6:17)

We learn in the Navarre Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew: “Those who mourn”: here our Lord is saying that those are blessed who suffer from any kind of affliction – particularly those who are genuinely sorry for their sins, or are pained by the offences which others offer God, and who bear their suffering with love and in a spirit of atonement. “You are crying? Don’t be ashamed of it. Yes, cry: men also cry like you, when they are alone and before God. Each night, says King David, I soak my bed with tears. With those tears, those burning manly tears, you can purify your past and supernaturalize your present life” (Bl. J. Escriva, The Way, 216). The Spirit of God will console with peace and joy, even in this life, those who weep for their sins, and later will give them a share in the fullness of happiness and glory in heaven: these are the blessed. (The Navarre Bible, Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Four Courts Press, 1988).

My thoughts: If you remember our former lesson on the Beatitudes, we learned that no other beatitude is possible in our lives unless we obtain the first: to be poor in spirit. We must be so empty of every attachment in our lives that only the will of God can enter and lead us in life. It follows then, that when we are empty, we mourn. How sad we are to think about the wasted time in our lives we have spent in sin! How mournful we become when we think we freely chose the work of Satan in our lives over the Word of the Lord! When emptied of our attachment to pleasure, riches, fame, recognition, selfishness, and the like, we are left with the knowledge that those things took up the space and time God wanted in our lives. That is true sorrow. Blessed are those who see the sin in their lives, and mourn, for they now know that making excuses for themselves and others only causes slavery and not freedom, and that is truly sad. We grieve our sins, and those of our loved ones, and those of our nations, for they lead only to death and isolation, yet we are comforted by the knowledge that once we have reached this level of attachment to God and God alone, we will be comforted.

Prayer:
Psalm 23:  THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the
Lord forever.