Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice
MASS Gaudeámus omnes
EPISTLE Apocalypse 7:2–12
GOSPEL St Matthew 5:1–12
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
For six days now the Church has placed before us the same vision of Heaven. We have listened to St John describing that great multitude which no man can number, gathered from every nation and tongue, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb. We have heard Our Lord pronounce the Beatitudes, promising happiness to those whose lives, judged by the standards of this world, might appear anything but happy.
The Church is wise to make us dwell upon these things. We can hear a familiar passage of Scripture, recognise every word, and nevertheless fail to appreciate what it asks of us. An octave affords us time to consider a mystery from more than one aspect, and perhaps to discover something that was there all along.
Today I should like us to consider one promise in particular: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.”
Our Lord does not merely commend those who approve of justice, or who think it a desirable quality in other people. He speaks of hunger and thirst. When a man is truly hungry, food is no longer an incidental consideration. He seeks it because he knows he needs it. Our Lord would have us desire righteousness with something of that urgency.
But what is this justice for which we are to hunger?
We commonly associate justice with fairness, the observance of law, and giving others what is due to them. These are genuine obligations. Yet the justice of which Our Lord speaks concerns the right ordering of our whole lives before God. It begins with acknowledging what we owe to Him, who has given us existence, redeemed us through His Son, and called us to share His own life. To worship Him, to obey Him, to love Him: these are not occasional additions to an otherwise complete life. They belong to the purpose for which we were created.
Here we come to something which I think deserves our careful consideration during this octave. God has endowed us with reason and free will. We possess the extraordinary dignity of being able to recognise the good and choose it. We can tell the truth when a falsehood would be convenient; fulfil an obligation when neglecting it would be easier; forgive an injury when resentment would be more agreeable. Such choices may be hidden from everybody else. They are never insignificant before God.
Of course, our freedom has been wounded by original sin. We cannot, by determination alone, produce the supernatural holiness which brings us to Heaven. Grace must come first. Yet grace does not make our choices for us. It heals and elevates our freedom, enabling us to respond to God with a genuinely human act of love. Our salvation is Christ’s gift, offered to us in mercy and calling for a free and persevering response.
Consider the saints whom we honour this week. They belonged to every conceivable condition of life. Some were learned, others scarcely educated; some ruled kingdoms, others laboured in obscurity; some died in old age, others surrendered their lives as martyrs. Their circumstances were different, but each had to respond to God in the circumstances actually given to them.
We sometimes imagine that sanctity must be accompanied by extraordinary events. Certainly, there have been saints whose lives were marked by miracles or heroic public witness. Yet most of the choices by which a soul grows in holiness are quite ordinary. To pray faithfully; to perform one’s work conscientiously; to speak charitably; to accept an inconvenience without complaint; to fulfil a duty when nobody is watching. These are opportunities to choose the good because it is good, and because God is worthy of our obedience.
It is one thing to know what is right and quite another to hunger to do it. We may sincerely admire patience while finding it difficult to practise. We may know the value of prayer while allowing every lesser occupation to claim our attention. The Christian life involves learning, with God’s help, to bring our desires into conformity with what we already know to be true. That is a lifelong work, and one in which the confessional, the altar and the ordinary practice of virtue have their indispensable place.
Now return to St John’s vision. What do the blessed do as they stand before the throne? They cry out: “Salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb.” They have reached the end of their pilgrimage; yet their song gives the glory to God. In His presence they see perfectly how much they owe to His mercy. Their freely offered fidelity was real, their sacrifices were real, but the grace which sustained them came from Christ.
And what have they received? They possess God Himself. In the Beatific Vision they behold Him as He is. Their wills are established in perfect charity, and nothing can separate them from the happiness for which they were made. All the good things we know here — affection, friendship, beauty, the discovery of truth — give us some faint indication of their source. But we cannot be satisfied forever by what is finite. We were made for the infinite Good, and the saints now possess Him. Their freedom has reached its perfection: they love what is good without any remaining desire to turn away from it.
There is something very consoling in the thought that those who have arrived at this happiness have not forgotten those still travelling towards it. Their charity has been perfected, not diminished. They intercede for us. They desire that we should share the joy they possess. The communion into which we were admitted at baptism reaches its glorious fulfilment in their charity and intercession.
And during November, we remember with particular affection the Holy Souls. They died in God’s friendship and are assured of salvation, but they still undergo the purification necessary for entrance into His presence. We can help them. Our prayers, sacrifices and especially the Holy Mass, offered through the merits of Christ, are acts of charity towards souls whose longing for God will certainly be fulfilled. We should not neglect so precious an opportunity to love those whom death has taken from our sight.
In a few moments the same Lord whom the saints behold in glory will become truly present upon this altar. He gives Himself to us under the appearances of bread and wine. We do not yet see Him as they do, but we are not left without nourishment for the journey. In Holy Communion, worthily received, He strengthens the divine life within us and increases our charity. He who bids us hunger after justice gives us Himself as our food.
Perhaps, then, we might carry one question away from today’s Mass: what do I really desire? We readily make time for the things we want. We arrange our days around them and accept considerable inconvenience to obtain them. Do we give the pursuit of holiness its proper place? Each day offers a new beginning: the next prayer, the next duty, the next occasion to choose what is right. And when we fail, the remedy is not despair, but repentance and a return to the mercy of God.
The Church has shown us the happiness of the saints for six days because she wants that happiness for us. Their lives declare that God’s grace can bear fruit in human freedom; their glory assures us that His promises are true. Let us ask Him to deepen our desire for what is good, strengthen our wills to choose it, and sustain us in charity until our pilgrimage is ended.
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.” May we so hunger for God in this life that, when faith gives way to sight, we may behold Him with all His saints, and find in Him the satisfaction of every holy desire.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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