We continue with our commentary on the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew, which we started a few weeks ago. Today we take a look at the second one, which continues to stress the paradoxical nature of Jesus’ path to happiness.
Statue of Fray Antonio de Montesinos in Santo Domingo: he was
someone who allowed himself to be moved by the suffering of his brothers and sisters.
someone who allowed himself to be moved by the suffering of his brothers and sisters.
«Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted» (Mt 5:4)
How should we understand this statement, which apparently is an absolute contradiction? How can suffering have the key to the door of happiness? How can the afflicted or those who cry be happy?
Here, too, it is necessary to begin by clarifying that it would be very possible to conduct an erroneous reading of the beatitude, according to which Jesus would be glorifying and praising suffering by itself. Someone could, indeed, use this verse to affirm that anguish and sorrow are good in themselves, and that, therefore, Christians must desire and proactively seek their torments. And it is not so: Jesus dedicated his life to alleviate the pain of others, curing the sick, feeding the hungry, restoring sight to the blind, and denouncing those who, with their selfishness, made the weakest suffer... Christianity is not a masochistic religion.
A second thing that Jesus is not saying in this beatitude is that it is necessary to suffer here, on this Earth, in order to be consoled in the afterlife. This does not agree with the spirit and the thinking of Jesus. To say something like, «look, you must agonize in this world, because then you will receive comfort in Heaven» would imply the image of a cruel God, who first needs to see our tears to then open the door to those who will have won their place in Heaven by enduring hardships. It cannot be so, when, first, Jesus never despised this present world (on the contrary, he affirmed that «the reign of God is already in your midst», in Lk 17:21) and, secondly, he said that his merciful Father is always eager to welcome us, to open wide the doors of his house, where there is room for everyone (Jn 14:2): Heaven is not «earned» on the basis of our many tribulations.
How are we, then, to understand this second beatitude? Perhaps in the sense that in this life only those who are not indifferent will be truly happy. That is, those who toil so that their hearts do not harden; those who keep alive their ability to be moved by someone else’s pain.
Certainly, if your heart is made of stone, you do not suffer, nor do you ever cry. But your life is, then, inhuman, and empty. It is much better to experience sorrow and to mourn because you have a human heart—which is moved by the pain of your brothers and sisters―than to live protected by an armor of indifference that, yes, prevents you from suffering, but also stops you from feeling love.
Those who mourn are those who walk around the world without an armor, with empathy towards their neighbors. In the end, this ability to cry with those who cry will give us the certainty—and the comfort— to know that we did not waste our lives, and this will surely bring joy into our hearts.
In this second beatitude Jesus warns us against apathy. This warning is more necessary than ever, because today, overwhelmed as we are by a constant flood of news, which is often very tragic, it would be easy to fall into insensitivity. We read or hear that a jealous husband killed his wife, that once again a group of immigrants died in the desert trying to cross the border, that there have been more innocent deaths in the Ukraine, in Yemen or in the Congo, that Haiti has been devastated by another storm, that in Iran they have executed someone who cried for freedom or that in Uganda someone has been imprisoned simply because he is gay—and we shrug our shoulders, without giving much importance to what we have just read or heard, and we quietly continue to sip our morning coffee, thinking already about something else. That is an unhappy life.
