(Audio)
Blessed are those with hearts like the heart of Jesus.
Jesus was able to rely on his Father in all things and so he did not need worldly riches. It was this poverty that revealed the Father and brought the Kingdom wherever he went. Jesus himself wept over Lazarus and over Jerusalem. He mourned for them and for all sinners. His mourning merited the comfort of the resurrection, not just for himself, but for us as well.
Jesus was meek. He could have summoned legions of angels but he kept his strength under control. He did not give into the temptation of the devil to inherit the kingdoms of the land in the wrong way.
Jesus himself was righteous precisely because he hungered for the will of the Father to such an extent that to do it was something he could call hidden food. He did hunger and thirst for righteousness in the world around him, but not in such a way as to enforce it tyrannically, or even to rely on himself for it apart from the Father. He did not create the righteousness he desired by conquering opposition to it, but rather by sustaining his hunger and thirst for it even when he was the most opposed for it, even from the cross.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” (see John 19:28)
The cross itself was the ultimate act of mercy, and it merited all the mercy unleashed upon the world, first to the good thief, and eventually to us. The mercy of Christ opened the floodgates of mercy for the world.
The heart of Christ is the only heart pure enough to see God as he is. But in Christ our hearts are made like his own and we are given the hope of seeing what he sees.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure (see First John 3:1-3).
Jesus made peace, not just when he told Peter to put away his sword, but by his cross he made peace between men and each other and especially between men and God.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross (see Colossians 1:20).
Jesus was persecuted for the sake of righteousness. He was the very righteous one whom our sins put to death.
But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you (see Acts 3:14).
He was insulted and persecuted for the sake of his Father's will, because God so loved the world that he gave his Son over to this abuse for our own sakes.
Jesus did it precisely for the reward set before him, the reward that will be great in heaven for all who follow after him and let there hearts be made like his.
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (see Hebrews 12:2).
The beatitudes sometimes seem abstract or impractical. But when we realize the ways in which they are the ingredients of a call to become like Christ they become nourishment for us. The become the stream from which the Holy Spirit leads us to drink, and the ravens he commands to feed us. They can nourish us even in the most difficult times. Just as Elijah was able to rely on God and not circumstance, and just as Jesus was able to rely on the hidden bread of his Father, so too can we be nourished even when cut off from the earthly things we think we need. We learn to say with the psalmist that our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. This enables us to live dynamically for the kingdom, not insisting on our comfort, but able to risk much so that the heart of Christ might be more loved in the world.
"Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love."
- Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque
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