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Blessed Are They Who
Hunger and Thirst After Justice

THE Sermon on the Mount praises those who “hunger and thirst after justice,” and promises them that “they shall have their fill” (Matt. 5:6). With regard to the state of mind thus glorified, we may distinguish two main types of defective attitudes.

     Indifference

First, there is the attitude of general indifference: the unimpassioned dumbness of the kind of man who lacks intensity in all things. This description applies to a great number of psychological varieties. Consider the type of person who is sunk in a sort of placid inertia or the superficial mind flitting from one object to another with no genuine interest in any one of them; the seeker for shallow pleasures or the philistine established in his smug mediocrity, who shuns all greatness, all heroism, all fervor, and contemplates the world through minimizing glasses, as it were; or again, the anxious man who dreads being seized by any object or inflamed by any overwhelming experience—all these have one trait in common: all spiritual hunger and thirst is alien to them.

They do not really hunger, they do not strongly yearn, either for a true value or even for a subjective pleasure; they evince only a languid and conditional interest in anything. It is to such souls that the Apocalypse of St. John refers in these words: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot. But because thou art lukewarm and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).

Secondly, there are those who do hunger and thirst, not, however, after justice (that is to say, after something valuable in itself), but merely after things that in some way happen to appeal to them personally. Yet these, again, we must divide into two subclasses.

     “Hunger” rooted in pride and concupiscence

The first group consists of those dominated by pride or concupiscence, the slaves of sensual desire, insatiably craving gratification; the avaricious; those engaged in a passionate pursuit of honors and prestige; those covetous of power. All these are not filled: they hunger and thirst for that only, however, which is of a nature to satisfy their pride or their concupiscence and yet fails to satisfy them when they possess it, but stirs up their thirst the more and makes them crave for further gains or lusts, so that their lives are comparable to an incessant hunt for gratification.

In certain cases belonging to this category, what the subject so passionately desires is not personal possession or pleasure in the primitive sense of the term but an idol—a fake ideal—for the sake of which he even makes sacrifices and endures privations of all kinds; in other words, he displays an apparently selfless service of “higher” aims.

Yet, the hunger and thirst many people evince for the victory of these idols is again only a product of their pride and concupiscence. This type of person is apparently enthused with selfless zeal for his idol; the idol may be an unrestrained urge-gratification, an idol of anarchy or of master morality, or of nationalism, or one of many others.

I say apparently, for actually his attitude, though formally it can be assimilated to a selfless zeal, yet, intrinsically and as far as its essential roots are concerned, is as much manifestation of pride and concupiscence as are the more unblushing forms of those vices. Nay, to kneel to an idol bom of the spirit of pride may often imply a deeper gratification of pride than the one procured by proud pursuits of a crudely personal kind. The persons in this group, then, are not beneath hunger and thirst, but they do not hunger and thirst after the right thing; they are driven by the zeal of bitterness, the zelus amaritudinis “which separates from God and leads to hell” (Rule of St. Benedict, c. 72).

     Egocentric hungering after one’s own happiness

The second group under this division is made up of persons revealing a subtler kind of defect. These are filled with a thirst for genuine and noble gifts of fortune. They long for success in their work, for health and wealth, for freedom and the enjoyment of all beautiful things, for the bliss of loving and being loved, for conjugal happiness: in short, for whatever blessings life may offer. They are not dull and inert, not smug and sated; they know hunger and thirst; nor do they chase illegitimate joys or crave for specious goods.

Still, what they hunger and thirst for is not justice; what keeps them in tension is not value as such; not that aspect of creaturely goods by which they glorify God. Persons of this kind interpret happiness in terms of true and valid goods; yet in their exclusive longing for happiness—the mark of their basic egocentrism—they are ultimately incapable of fully understanding the high goods of life or, in turn, of bringing true happiness to others.

This is easiest to see with reference to the good constituted by a community of love. He alone who does not primarily seek for his happiness, as such, but forgets himself in his value-response to the beloved person—in other words, he alone who is able to give himself—can love in the full and genuine sense of that term. He alone, therefore, can experience the integral happiness of loving and of being loved—the unique mutual vision implied in a deep love-relationship. Yet, in fact the same thing is true, though less strikingly obvious, perhaps, of all high goods of life: our possession of truth, our penetration of the world of beauty (in nature and in art), and of the world of value in general.

He who is dominated by his thirst for happiness bars himself from access to true and deep happiness. In his possession and enjoyment of any good, he fails to reach the level of depth where that good reflects the light of God and reveals its ties with eternity. He always remains stuck on the plane of the perishable. The possession of no gift of fortune can ever bring him genuine satisfaction. It is as though every good he has secured spoke to him in the end only words of disappointment: “I am not what thou seekest”; and his hunger and thirst drives him, as it did Faust, further and further across the limitless plains of breadth rather than down the deep paths that converge in the Center, where alone peace and consummate happiness can be found.

     Respect for justice without hunger for it

To these two classes of men—the souls that hunger and thirst either not at all, or not after justice—the standard antithesis, intelligible even on a purely natural level, is embodied by the type of man filled with hunger and thirst for that which is important in itself, objectively valuable, and pleasing to God.

They are not very frequently to be met with—the persons belonging to this category, who in the context of every situation attend above all to the question of what is objectively valuable and what is not; who consider everything sub specie of this question, instead of concentrating on the gratification of their subjective needs. Now here, again, we shall have to distinguish various grades of perfection. The lowest degree of this high-minded minority of mankind is found in that class of persons, still comparatively numerous, who do take account of the demands implied in objective value and of the commandments of God inasmuch as they are anxious to avoid any conflict with His will—so far as their own conduct is concerned.

Strictly speaking, it is still the goods of this earth that constitute the object of their longing and striving; they are guided by the purpose of achieving a fine career, of increasing their possessions, of acquiring honors and consideration; they envisage marriage or friendship in the light of the happiness it may provide for them.

But their pursuit of such aims stops short wherever it might involve a transgression of the commandments of God. They display a real interest in justice, accepting it as a corrective, that is, a check placed upon their primary and proper interests. As a loyal citizen respects the laws of the State and seeks to realize his wishes strictly within the limits of legality, so these men are ready to respect the commandments of God and to confine their pursuit of happiness to the limits prescribed by them. They respect justice, but they do not hunger and thirst after justice.

Furthermore, justice merely plays the part of a corrective for one’s own conduct. Whether others, too, love justice is not a question that would deeply stir such minds; they are firmly intent on safeguarding only their own peace of conscience. Certainly they accord ultimate sovereignty to the commandments of God; but they are hardly devoured with zeal for the triumph of justice as justice. To a person of this kind we may not apply the Psalmist’s words: “His will is in the law of the Lord: and on his law he shall meditate day and night” (Ps. 1:2).

In his respect for the commandments of God and for the obligations ensuing from values, an element of egoism is still perceptible; it is, after all, for the sake of his own peace that he endeavors to preserve his conscience intact and to remain in accord with God. We miss in him an eagerness for value as such, an enthusiasm for the beautiful and the good in themselves, the ardent desire to glorify God solely for His own sake. He does not deeply love God, for he does not regard Him as an incarnation of all value but merely as an omnipotent Master, whose will it would be foolish to defy.

Admittedly, such a person considers the moral order of the universe as an evident and unchallengeable rule. But it interests him predominantly with reference to the question, “What is forbidden; where are the limits of my good pleasure?”; not with reference to the question, “What can I do in order to glorify God; what is in conformity with the will of God; what is implied in my vocation; given a choice between two things, which is the objectively better one and related to a higher value?”

     Hunger for justice (among other ends)

Accordingly, an entirely new level is attained whenever one’s interest is engaged by the valuable and the significant as such: whenever, that is, justice no longer holds the place of a mere secondary corrective but attracts man in a primary and thematic capacity and is sought for its own sake.

This is the case with persons who are deeply moved and influenced by the fact alone that something good or beautiful in itself exists; who are not concerned solely with their own profit or happiness but evince a passionate interest in things that have no reference whatsoever to their personal prosperity; who can be inflamed with the desire of preventing an injustice or ensuring the victory of the good.

They look upon the moral order of the universe not merely as an insurmountable legal barrier to some of their personal cupidities, but as a positive higher good, which they not only respect but cherish. An act of generous forgiveness, a manifestation of indestructible fidelity or selfless love can evoke their enthusiasm.

The criterion of objective value holds their attention, therefore, not only in ruling their own behavior but in considering that of others, too. Any wrong done by others pains them, no matter whether or not it involves any personal disadvantage for them. Any injustice, impurity, unfaithfulness or falseness they experience as an evil, whether they notice it in themselves or in strangers.

Persons of this kind we may rightly credit with a basic, if imperfect, hunger and thirst after justice. For they know the happiness derived from the victory of the good as such—happiness of a quality that no advantage, no success, no accumulation of gifts of fortune can ever procure or equal. Still, their interest in justice is only one among others; in spite of its essential primacy, it has not yet blossomed out into a devouring passion of the soul that would obscure all other desires or concerns.

     Passionate, unconditional supernatural zeal for the kingdom of God and His justice

From these, again, we must distinguish those rare personalities which, like Socrates, are wholly possessed by their preoccupation with value—who consider everything primarily from this point of view and let all other points of view fade into insignificance. Here we have a true and perfect hunger and thirst after justice on the natural plane.

With persons of this category, the passion for the victory of the good has acquired an unconditional and actual primacy over all other concerns; it has become, as it were, the form of their lives. What is the objectively right, the morally good, the valuable thing?—this query controls their orientation in all situations, relegating all desire for earthly goods and advantages into the background. It constitutes the self-evident rule of their attitude in regard to all objects; and it alone can evoke a passionate interest on their part. In a more permanent and universal sense, they suffer from the ocean of injustices and wrongs that fill the world. No personal success or happiness can dull the edge of their interest in the victory of justice or soften their pain at the triumph of evil.

Men and women of this kind are in constant danger of being misjudged; they are apt to scandalize many of their fellow beings. The reason is that their emphasis on the primacy of value tends to interfere with the quest of happiness that is natural to others. Their passion for the victory of the good constitutes a virtual menace to the framework of ordinary people’s lives. Their ardent pursuit of justice cannot but be misinterpreted by those enfolded in the tissue of their ego-interests.

Ordinary men will mostly try to construe the behavior of such persons of exceptional nobility in terms of some hidden ressentiments or other motives of disguised self-seeking—there being no other explanation for such a passionate “taking sides” that they can conceive of.

Yet, those whom the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount calls blessed are not such as hunger and thirst after justice in the sense of natural morality only, but such as hunger and thirst after the kingdom of God; such as “seek first the kingdom of God and His justice.” What they seek is not merely whatever is naturally valuable and as such glorifies God: it is (beyond that) the supernatural life, the victory of the God-Man Christ, the salvation of souls, the growth of the Mystical Body of Christ, and man’s transformation in Christ. Socrates, so nobly obsessed by his eternal quest for the naturally good, is still a far cry from St. Francis of Assisi with his insatiable hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God.

It is not enough for us to seek also for the kingdom of God, to labor among other things for the consummation of that kingdom, or to take interest in the problem of the kingdom of God occasionally only, that is, whenever it happens to carry with it a close reference to problems of our personal life. We must seek first the kingdom of God. Our search for the kingdom of God and His justice must be the consuming passion of our souls. The empire of Christ over our souls, as well as in all other souls, must become the paramount theme of our lives. Day and night we must be swayed by the burning desire that God be glorified in all things.

For such has been the way of life of the saints. They, indeed, hunger and thirst after the kingdom of God, postponing all other concerns to the one thing necessary. Theirs is not a limited and conditional interest in the kingdom of God, like that of the rich young man of the Gospel, who would not decide to follow Christ; they are consumed with an unlimited and unreserved longing for Him. They live up to the rule of St. Benedict, “To prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ”; they are undivided in the sense of St. Paul (1 Cor. 7:33).

An ardor for the cause of God that knows no defeat is what meets our eyes again and again in the lives of the saints. Take, for example, an episode in the life of St. John of God. Seeing a young man engaged in conversation with a harlot, presumably with a sinful intention in mind, the saint knelt down before him and besought him in Jesus’ name to abstain from the sin he was contemplating. Indignant at such an interference with his private affairs, the lad struck him in the face, exclaiming: “Mind your own affairs!” Imperturbably, the saint tendered him his other cheek and said: “Strike me as often as you like, only do not offend God.” Such was the force emanating from this serene contempt of self, this unflinching love for God and an erring fellow creature, that the young man not only abandoned his sinful project but was converted and became a disciple of the saint.

Or again, think of this scene from the life of another saint, Don Bosco. On his journey through a forest he was attacked by a robber shouting, “Your purse or your life!” He recognized the bandit’s voice as that of a former pupil of his, and spoke to him, deeply pained:

“Tonio, what a dangerous path you have chosen! You must change your life; you must confess your sins.” No fear for his life, no thought of himself is present in the saint’s mind; he is possessed by his zeal for the salvation of his fellow man’s soul and for the kingdom of God. In this case, too, the force of a holy hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God prevailed upon the sinner. A few seconds later he was kneeling at the feet of the saint, and making his confession.

Hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God is the very stigma of the saints. They all are devoured with zeal for the honor of God and filled with an unquenchable thirst to win men’s souls for God. But this, let it be clearly understood, is a supernatural zeal, not the enthusiasm and buoyancy of natural man—a zeal that is not merely directed towards God but grounded and anchored in Him, and informed by His Spirit.

     Natural enthusiasm for the kingdom of God

For there is also such a thing as a natural zeal for the kingdom of God. The fact that our aim is supernatural does not by itself imply that our attitude is supernatural, too. For one thing, a kind of natural enthusiasm about the kingdom of God is sometimes to be met with, which is likely to flare up impetuously in certain moments but will not stand any hard test. It is deficient in constancy; whenever it encounters defeat or entails the necessity of a heavy personal sacrifice, it is apt to dwindle away. It lacks both ultimate earnestness and sterling solidity.

This kind of zeal is not rare in converts, some of whom have no sooner embraced the Faith than they are busy forming grand projects about extending the kingdom of God. Such short-lived fits of pious zeal, as contrasted with that fire which Our Lord came down to kindle on earth, are also recognizable by the fact that they are devoid of the virtue of discretion. These enthusiasts forget that no one is qualified to labor fruitfully in the vineyard of the Lord who is not also ready to drink the chalice; they have not pondered the parable of the man who wanted to build a tower.

     Aggressive, destructive natural zeal for God

Apart from that, however, we know examples of a deep and persevering zeal for the kingdom of God which is still essentially on the natural level. There have been ardent fighters for the cause of God, enduring heavy sacrifices for the kingdom of God and continuing the struggle in the midst of all adversities, yet doing so in a mood of natural pugnacity, in a hard and rigid attitude—men who have failed to grasp the parable of the wheat and the chaff.

Think, for example, of the tragic figure of Pope Paul IV (Caraffa), who was burning with zeal for the house of God, who led a life of austere poverty amidst an environment reeking with worldliness, who would not have hesitated a moment to give his life for the reform of the Church, and yet, whose pontificate was to be so unsuccessful owing to his fanaticism, his asperity, and his lack of trust, that on his death bed he declared it to have been the most unfortunate since St. Peter’s. A world’s distance separates his ethos from that of his gentle, patient fellow friar, St. Cajetan.

Paul IV’s zeal was of the kind that is not anointed with the holy oil of patience; that is not transfigured by discretio; that is apt to degenerate into an angry zealotry devoid of all kindness and trustfulness, and to dash forward with an impetuous fury stemming entirely from the natural man.

A person inspired by this kind of zeal, though his fervor is not deprived of charity towards God and his fellow men, will hardly escape the danger of becoming a fanatic and sinning against charity. For it is rather his great passionate nature as such than a full and unreserved surrender to God that feeds the flame of his struggle for the kingdom of God. True, his entire robust power is put into the service of God; but the aspect of dying unto one’s self is absent. A life thus devoted to God falls short of being a life really and truly based on God.

Very different in character is the gentle, radiant, peaceful flame, the wholly spiritualized ardor that burns in him rich in patience and loving kindness, who may say of himself, “I live, now not I: but Christ liveth in me.” Of such men alone can we predicate, in the fully adequate sense of those words, that “they hunger and thirst after justice,” and “seek first the kingdom of God.”

As regards the above-described cruder type of ardent souls, they too are in a certain sense warriors of God; but they are bent on changing the face of the earth by violence, on forcing the victory of the cause of God, on determining “the day and the hour” according to their own counsel; hence, the havoc they work often outweighs their constructive achievements. In a sense, they undoubtedly hunger and thirst for the kingdom of God; but that hunger and thirst is warped, to a greater or lesser degree, by its all too natural motivation and style.

     Humble, supernatural ardor for the kingdom of God

Contrast therewith the zeal of a St. Dominic as, on one occasion, he meets an Albigensian innkeeper who is swearing and blaspheming; instead of expostulating with the unhappy fellow, the saint kneels down beside him and starts praying, and keeps on praying throughout the night, until at dawn he finds the heretic on his knees and sunk in prayer, too. What strikes us here is the wonderful way in which patience and a tireless zeal for God and the fellow man’s soul interpenetrate each other. We see a blend of discretion and ardor, calm meekness doubled with implacable strength—in a word, that coincidentia oppositorum which is the mark of supernatural life.

The saint is so dead unto himself that his solicitude is altogether borne and guided by God, who “maketh his sun to rise upon the good and bad” (Matt. 5:45), and woos our souls with inconceivable forbearance.

The fervor of the saint reveals a rhythm that can no longer be measured by natural standards. He borrows, so to speak, the rule of his being from God; and may speak with St. Paul: “Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:9).

No longer do we face here the massive impetus of a powerful nature—its place is taken by a soaring tranquillity; we discern an attitude completely embedded in the peace of God; an awareness (uniting the utmost devotion to detached serenity) of being nothing but an instrument of God, who also disposes of ways other than those which this particular servant of His has devised or is pursuing, nay, who “is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9), and who therefore never depends necessarily on himself. Such a man is as though he had cast all earthly weight from him. He irradiates a mild and yet resistless energy which makes all natural impetus appear as impotent weakness.

In all our search and struggle for the kingdom of God, we must again and again examine ourselves as to whether we have reached the stage of such a supernatural hunger and thirst. It is not enough that we should burn: it must be the light, serene flame rising from a heart penetrated and lit up by the love of Christ. We must examine whether our zeal is tempered with holy patience; whether we are inspired by that tender, sensitive, attentive charity which is molded by the longanimity of God.

We must question if we are proof against the temptation of endeavoring to establish the kingdom of God by assault, by trampling on our fellow men. We must keep on our guard against the delusion that the paths we have chosen shall infallibly lead us to our goal. We must bear in mind the advice St. Ambrose gave to St. Monica, at a time when her son Augustine was still unconverted, that she should speak more with God about her son than with her son about God. To that advice she conformed; and we know what was to be the reward of her holy patience.

Our hunger and thirst for justice and the kingdom of God is a necessary condition of our transformation in Christ. The glow that pervades it, however, must have its source not in our nature but in Christ. “For the charity of Christ presseth us,” says St. Paul (2 Cor. 5:14): meaning that it is not merely his love for Christ but Christ active in his love that fills him and urges him on—not a natural love but one that issues from his participation in Christ, and that bears a quality entirely new and sui generis.

     We must hunger and thirst for Christ Himself

But the justice referred to in the Sermon on the Mount does not mean the kingdom of God only; in the deepest sense, it means Christ Himself. After Him, whom the Church (Litany of the Most. Holy Name of Jesus) names Sol Justitiae (the Sun of justice), must we hunger and thirst. When our heart says with St. Thomas Aquinas, “No other reward do we desire, O Lord, than Thee Thyself,” and with St. Bonaventure, “May my heart ever hunger for Thee and be nourished by Thee, whose sight the angels desire; may my innermost soul be filled by the sweetness of Thy savor and ever thirst for Thee, the fount of life, the fount of wisdom and science, the fount of eternal life, the torrent of joy, the plenitude of the house of God”—then only do we hunger and thirst for true justice.

It is, then, Christ after whom we must hunger and thirst above all, yearning for the vision of His face and saying with the Psalmist, “Thy face have I sought, O Lord, Thy face will I seek” (Introit of Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension). A thirst no earthly good may quench should burn within us for the “water, springing up into life everlasting” (John 4:14); an insatiable hunger should be alive within us for “the Bread of Life.”

To all created things we must address the question of the Bride of the Canticle of Canticles: “Have you seen him whom my soul loveth?” “Our loins girt and lamps burning in our hands” (Luke 12:35), we must await the Lord. May our whole life be impregnated and ordered by the holy desire that glows in St. Thomas Aquinas’ words:

     Jesus! whom for the present veiled I see

     What I so thirst for, oh vouchsafe to me:

     That I may see Thy countenance unfolding,

     And may be blest Thy glory in beholding.