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Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice

Sunday, 10 November 2013 10:21

What is this justice that is as necessary to our souls as food and drink are to our bodies? Why does Our Lord call blessed those who hunger and thirst after justice? Unfortunately, there are many who confuse justice with vengeance. There are many who see justice as a settling of accounts, or as the fruit of a revolution in society, or as a loss of power on one side and a increase of power on the other. There are those who see justice in terms of a pie divided and distributed to each one and to all in rigorously equal pieces. None of these notions correspond to the justice after which Jesus would have us hunger and thirst.

Readjustment to the Holiness of God

The justice of this beatitude is, rather, the fruit of a radical readjustment to the holiness of God; this readjustment is, essentially, the grace of reconciliation with God as He is and as He has revealed Himself. It is the grace of conversion to the glory of God that shines upon the Face of His Christ. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:6). What is sin if not thoughts, words, and deeds that causes a soul to become maladjusted to the holiness of God? Sin is a state of maladjustment to the Divine Plan; it alienates man from the cause and source of his happiness, and castes him into a downward spiral of restlessness, fear, and vice.

Before Thee in the Sanctuary

Justice is the right relationship of all persons and things to the holiness of God. One who hungers and thirsts after holiness, hungers and thirsts after a real participation by grace in the holiness of God. This is the burning desire of the psalmist that we repeat so often in the Divine Office: “O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day. For thee my soul hath thirsted; for thee my flesh, O how many ways! In a desert land, and where there is no way, and no water: so in the sanctuary have I come before thee, to see thy power and thy glory” (Psalm 62:2–3).

Beholding the Glory of the Lord

There is in every human being a profound yearning for the readjustment of all that one is to the adorable will of the Thrice–Holy God. One who allows himself to be readjusted, by the secret inward action of the Holy Ghost, to the will of God, discovers the glory of the holiness of God and, through Christ, is transfigured into the glory of the holiness he contemplates. “But we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Body and Blood of Christ

Adoration of Our Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is, at the deepest level, an expression of hunger and thirst for justice, of an abiding hunger and thirst for the Bread of life and for the Chalice of Salvation. One who perseveres in gazing upon the Sacred Host in adoration is, in effect, saying to Our Lord: “Adjust me, adjust a multitude of souls, to the glory of Thy holiness; do what Thou must to reconcile souls to that love stronger than death with which Thou has first loved us, and with which Thou hast loved us even to the end.” Jesus,”having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1).

The World Adjusted to the Church

The prayer of adoration promotes justice because it is, in a hidden but real way, the adjustment of souls and of the world to the holiness of God revealed in Christ. Those who think that justice can be brought about by the adjustment of the Church to the world are tragically mistaken; it is not the Church that must adjust herself to the world, but the world to the Church, and this adjustment is not a human achievement, it is the work of grace in the souls of the little, the hidden, the poor, and those whom the world counts as nothing. “The foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong. And the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his sight. But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:27–30).

In View of the Kingdom

Astonishingly, those who hunger and thirst after justice by persevering in adoration of the Hidden God, discover that their hunger and thirst is nothing in comparison to the hunger and thirst of God for souls abandoned to His divine operations. He desires nothing more than to adjust us, gently and mightily, to Himself, and this, in view of eternal life with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Regnum Christi

The God of the Living Makes Us Truly Alive

| SPIRITUAL LIFE | SPIRITUALITY

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Father Alex Yeung, LC

Luke 20: 27-38

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man´s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."

Introductory Prayer: I love you my Lord, because you are love itself. I am sorry for whatever is in me that does not come from your love and does not reflect your love. If I am to become what you want me to be, it will happen only if I allow you to act in me.

Petition: Lord Jesus Christ, help me to be a true child of the resurrection.

1. Our Shallows, His Depth: The encounter in this Gospel passage is somewhat embarrassing to read. It reminds us of so many similar occurrences in which we see shallowness trying to sound deep, but achieving little more than bothersome clatter. We’ve all heard rock stars who take themselves for prophets, or media people who handle issues of the Church, natural law, and other sublime truths without really knowing what they’re talking about. They just can’t see things outside of their pre-conceived notions. Their words grate on our ears and make us cringe. Something similar happens here. The Sadducees confront our Lord on their own terms and with their own agenda, armed with what they believe to be clever wit. Precisely such shallowness is the occasion to reveal God’s depths.

2. Christ More Than Satisfies: Our embarrassment for the Sadducees turns to admiration for Christ. Christ knew full well what was in the hearts of those men, and he patiently explained to them where their thinking failed. The man’s specious reasoning was given an answer that went far beyond the realm of theory. As the Sadducees’ superficiality is revealed, we get a glimpse of God’s mercy. These men were humbled, not humiliated. They were not rejected for being wrong; but were invited to go deeper in the truth. When we allow the Word of God to penetrate our hearts, it opens entirely new vistas and takes us out of the comfortable, predictable world of our own pre-conceived notions. However, for this to happen we need to be open to it. Once the Word of God finds a crevice, it will work its way in and bring new light into our previously darkened hearts.

3. We Are Children of the Resurrection: St. Paul says that whereas Christ is risen, he “has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). This is what the Sadducees had to learn and what we must still learn: to know our true place as “children of the resurrection” who are also members of Christ and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are raised again and again, yet frequently we are unaware of it. God’s word might enter our ears, but it may take a lifetime for its truth finally to sink into our hearts and penetrate every aspect of our lives. We are like people waking from sleep, unable to collect their thoughts quickly. Little by little the truth breaks in upon us and reality comes into focus. Christ’s truth surprises, reveals and invites.

Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus Christ, suddenly I see that I am more like the Sadducees than I had previously thought. Help me to have an open heart, alert to your will and a readiness to adapt to it. Forgive me my rationalism and small-mindedness. I trust in you.

Resolution: I will strive to see others as children of the resurrection.