Of November
SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS
Dom Próspero Gueranger
THE BLESSINGS.—Today the earth is so close to heaven, that the same thought of happiness fills the hearts. The Friend, the Husband, comes to sit in the middle of his own and to talk about his happiness. Come, to me all of you who are tired and overwhelmed, I was singing a moment ago the verse of the Hallelujah, happy echo of the homeland, although it reminded us of our exile. And immediately in the Gospel the grace and kindness of our God and Savior is shown. Let us listen to him as he teaches us the paths of the holy hope, the dignified delights, guarantee and anticipation of the total bliss of the heavens.
God, in Sinai, keeping the Jew at a distance, had for him only precepts and death threats. In what a different way the law of love is promulgated on the summit of that other mountain, where the Son of God sat! The eight Beatitudes have occupied at the beginning of the New Testament the place occupied, as a prologue to the Old, the Decalogue engraved in stone.
It is not that the Beatitudes suppress the commandments; but their super-abundant justice goes beyond all prescriptions. Jesus made them from his Heart to print them in the heart of his people and not on the rock. They are a portrait of the Son of Man, the summary of his redeeming life. Look, then, and work according to the model that has been put in front of you in the mountain.
Poverty was certainly the first note of the God of Bethlehem; and who was more meek than the Son of Mary? Who cried for nobler causes in the manger where he already atoned for our sins and appeased his Father? Those who are hungry for justice, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peaceful, where will they find, if not in Him, the incomparable example, never achieved, always imitable? Even death, which makes Him the august captain of those persecuted by justice is in this world the supreme bliss; in it the Wisdom incarnate is pleased more than in any other, he speaks of it insistently, describes it in detail, until it ends today with it as in a song of ecstasy.
The Church had no other ideal; following the Bridegroom, his history in the various eras was no more than the prolonged echo of the Beatitudes. Let us also understand it; for the happiness of our life on earth waiting for that of heaven, let us follow the Lord and the Church.
The Evangelical Beatitudes make man overcome torments and even death itself, which does not take away peace from the righteous, before consuming it.
Church of the Savior of Toledo at 0:00:00