by CCW | 5 November 2023 10:00
Mercy is at the heart of the Beatitudes, the great ethical teaching that belongs to the Communion of Saints in the vision of humanity redeemed. In the sombre greyness of November we are reminded of our end in glory. As such we are more than the divisions and enmities in our hearts that contribute to the miseries of the world; we seek for something more and greater that belongs to grace, to what is given to be our life in Christ. As Dante says about the Divine Comedy, its whole purpose is “to remove those living in this life from the state of misery and to lead them to the state of happiness,” ad statum felicitatis, literally, felicity (Epistle to Can Grande della Scala). This applies to the spiritual pageant of the Trinity season and to our lives in faith.
The Beatitudes are the blessednesses, the principles of grace that define the good of our humanity in relation to God and in our lives with one another; in short, our end in God in the Communion of Saints, is the true vocation of our humanity. This is what Paul alludes to in the Epistle reading from Philippians, “that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgement: that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere, and without offence, till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.” The gradual psalm reminds us of “how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”; it is the blessing of life for evermore that belongs to the creedal profession of our faith. In each and every liturgy we participate and are at one with the Communion of Saints in giving praise and glory to God.
The Gospel illustrates this teaching by way of the negative example of the unforgiving servant who was forgiven a great debt by his lord and king but then refuses to forgive the paltry debt of another owed to him. To be forgiven and not to forgive is to negate mercy and forgiveness. The point is made very clear. “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?”
The Beatitudes always remind me of Portia’s great speech in The Merchant of Venice. “The quality of mercy is not strain’d,” she says, meaning that it can’t be held back and it can’t be forced. It has a necessity of its own as something divine. “It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” This is what the unforgiving servant has denied; the reciprocity of grace, the give and take of mercy. The merciful obtain mercy, like for like. As Portia puts it, “we do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.” This is exactly what the unforgiving servant didn’t do. He prayed for mercy for himself but failed to render the deeds of mercy to another. The story is told to highlight the necessity of the reciprocity of grace, of mercy for mercy. It does so by way of a negative example and one which speaks to the problem of sin; pursuing our own self-interest in denial of the needs of others. The unforgiving servant betrays himself and the community to which he belongs.
The Beatitudes are more than happiness in its ordinary sense – the fleeting, passing moments of emotion and feel-goodism. They speak to something more objective and greater, something everlasting. They are the qualities of the grace of Christ in us and as such they counter our worldly preoccupations and concerns that in themselves lead to division and destruction. Again, as Portia puts it, mercy “is an attribute to God himself;” it is something greater and above the temporal powers of our world and day “and earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.”
This is the great insight which overturns the common notion that pits justice against mercy. It shows that the relation of mercy and justice is complementary; that mercy is really a higher form of justice, the justitia dei is the mercy and truth of God. ”Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springeth out of the earth; and righteousness hath looked down from heaven;” the words of Psalm 85 are like a commentary on the Beatitudes.
Mercy perfects justice. The unforgiving servant was brought to account and found to be owing a great sum of money. For “in the course of justice,” strictly considered, “none of us should see salvation.” Such is the human situation in its incompleteness and its sinfulness. The servant prayed for his lord to have patience to give him time to pay all. “Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.” He was released from a kind of bondage. Mercy belongs to the greater dignity and freedom of our humanity. But what is given to us has to be given to others too because it belongs to the good of all.
Mercy is the underlying principle that shapes the Beatitudes. They are the teachings of Jesus that begin the Sermon on the Mount. They are not about a flight from the world but the re-ordering of our souls in our pilgrimage to God and with God, a journey from misery to felicity in which the hope of heaven is the strength and comfort of our souls.
O quanta qualia, as Abelard’s great 12th century hymn begins:
O what their joy and their glory must be,
Those endless Sabbaths the blessèd ones see:
Crowns for the valiant, to weary ones rest:
God shall be all and in all ever blest.
Truly, “Jerusalem” name we that shore,
City of peace that brings joy evermore:
Wish and fulfillment are not severed there,
Nor do things prayed for come short of the prayer.
And reminds us that:
Now, in the meantime, with hearts raised on high,
We for that country must yearn and must sigh
The Beatitudes are about that true orientation and yearning of our souls in pilgrimage. “Blessed are those whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the pilgrim ways; Who going through the Vale of Misery use it for a well; yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings … O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man that putteth his trust in thee,” as the Psalmist so beautifully says (Ps. 84.5,6 & 13).
Mercy informs all the Beatitudes as the qualities of Christ’s grace in us. The whole point is the reconciliation of opposites but without their negation. “The poor in spirit” are the humble who are exalted, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Those who mourn are “comforted” but that doesn’t deny their grief and sorrow. All Saints is followed by All Souls, our poor attempt to remember by name those who are eternally known and embraced in God’s love. The meek are the gentle ones who “inherit the earth” because they recognise the world as God’s world and care for it as God cares for it and for us. The earth is not negated or denigrated as something evil from which we are to flee.
Everything is gathered to God and finds its place in him. Such is the Communion of Saints. Those who “hunger and thirst after righteousness” seek what ultimately belongs to God. Mercy seasons justice. “The pure in heart shall see God.” This too is what we seek for our divided and unquiet hearts, for our distracted souls. “The peace-makers shall be called the children of God.” There can only be peace-makers because of enmity and division, hatred and hostility. Like Christ in his sacrifice they too seek to effect a reconciliation of opposites but only through the forgiveness and the peace that passes human knowing. That they are called “the children of God” reminds us of our own baptisms in which we are incorporated into Christ’s reconciling love and are made “the child of God.”
And like the poor in spirit, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake are blessed for theirs too is the kingdom of heaven, something more and beyond the kingdoms of this world. This does not lessen or lighten in any way the reality of persecution for standing for what is just and true. No good deed goes unpunished is perhaps one of ways of expressing this idea. Good will be called evil but evil is always a negative, always privative; it depends upon what it denies. Yet, as with the unforgiving servant, we can learn from suffering and evil about what is right and good; in short, the kingdom of heaven which transcends but does not deny the oppositions of our hearts and world.
Jesus then applies the teaching of the Beatitudes to each of us personally and directly. “Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.” How is this a blessing? Because what defines us is nothing less than the love of Christ and our willingness to suffer for that love. It is about who we are in the sight of God, come what may in our world and day.
The Beatitudes are the qualities of Christ in us that belong to our fellowship in the Communion of Saints. They have a compelling power and articulate beautifully the mercy of God which belongs to the perfection and good of our humanity. Mercy seasons justice. We are called to be merciful, forgiving one another even as we are forgiven in contrast to the unforgiving servant who with the words of forgiveness still ringing in his ears denies the mercy which has been shown to him. Such are the teachings that lead us from misery to felicity.
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 22, In the Octave of All Saints’
November 5th, 2023
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