CowPi Journal

In Back to Virtue, Peter Kreeft links the virtues of the Beatitudes with the vices of the Seven Deadly Sins. The Beatitudes are the antidote to the Seven Deadly Sins, leading to life, not to death.

Pride vs. Poverty of Spirit (Humility)
“Pride is self-assertion, selfishness; poverty of spirit is humility, selflessness.”

Avarice vs. Mercy
“Avarice is greed, the centrifugal reach to grab and keep the world’s goods for oneself; mercy is the centripetal reach to to give, to share the world’s goods with others, even the undeserving.”

Envy vs. Mourning
“Envy resents another’s happiness; mourning shares another’s unhappiness.”

Wrath vs. Meekness and Peacemaking
“Wrath wills harm and destruction [separation]; meekness refuses harm and peacemaking prevents destruction [coming together].”

Sloth vs. Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness
“Sloth refuses to exert the will toward the good, toward the ideal; hunger and thrist for righteousness does just that.”

Lust vs. Purity of Heart
Lust dissipates and divides the soul, desiring every attractive body [and thing]; purity of heart centers and unifies the soul, desiring God alone [the one thing necessary].”

Gluttony vs. Bearing Persecution
“Gluttony needs to consume an inordinate amount of worldly goods; being persecuted is being deprived of even ordinate necessities.”

The Beatitudes are linked together. They do not stand separately.

The poor in spirit, those detached from the desire for worldly goods, must necessarily also be the pure in heart, since their heart is not split and set on many things of this world, but purely on the “one thing necessary”. They love God and therefore they shall see God. These pure in heart, in turn, are meek, the holy and harmless and humble, because that is the character of the God their hearts are set on. The meek, in turn, are persecuted by the world and made to mourn; they are taken advantage of. Yet by their very act of suffering persecution, they are peacemakers. They make peace by the same method Christ did on the Cross: by draining off the bloody mess of human history into their own broken hearts. The peacemakers are also the merciful, for war is caused by the insistence on justice almost as much as by injustice. The cure for war and the way to peace is not justice but mercy, forgiveness. Yet the merciful hunger and thirst for justice even as they go beyond it to mercy, for they realize that in God’s spiritual economic recovery program for our fallen world the only way to justice is not from below, from force, from something less than justice (like bombs), but from above, from something more than justice, from mercy, from the character of God himself as revealed in Christ. It is Christ’s mercy in dying for us that satisfies justice. Mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other on the Cross.

— Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

There are, of course, other ways to string these pearls together. This is just one way.

Recently I read someone say that old secular mantra about Jesus—he was a wise and great teacher, but not God. I wonder how they explain, or even try to live, the Beatitudes? These people contradict themselves in the same sentence. Even though the Beatitudes are the exact opposite of the wisdom of the world, they are completely and totally dependent on Christ, on God.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux asked Jesus what was His greatest unrecorded suffering. The Lord answered, “I had on My Shoulder, while I bore My Cross on the Way of Sorrows, a grievous Wound, which was more painful than the others, and which is not recorded by men.” Saint Bernard composed this prayer:

O Loving Jesus, Meek Lamb of God,
I miserable sinner, salute and worship
the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder
on which Thou didst bear Thy heavy Cross,
which so tore Thy Flesh and laid bare Thy Bones
as to inflict on Thee an anguish
greater than any other wound
of Thy Most Blessed Body.
I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful;
I praise and glorify Thee and give Thee thanks
for this most sacred and painful Wound,
beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain
and by the crushing burden of Thy heavy Cross,
to be merciful to me, a sinner,
to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins
and to lead me on towards Heaven
along the Way of Thy Cross.
Amen.

We cannot know whether or not we love God, although there are strong indications for recognizing that we do love Him; but we can know whether we love our neighbor. And be certain that the more advanced you see you are in love for your neighbor, the more advanced you will be in the love of God

— Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle