St. Isaac the Syrian: “But lo, the majority of men do not attain to such innocency [purity of heart], yet we hope that for their good deeds a portion is reserved for them in the Kingdom of the Heavens.  This can be ascertained from the understanding of the Beatitudes of the Gospel, which He stated differently in order to make known to us the many variations in the diverse modes of life…

Beginning with Jacob in the Old Testament, the ladder has been used as a picture of human transformation. This metaphor is helpful, as we have seen applying it to the Beatitudes. It is helpful in that it enables us to focus on one spiritual struggle at a time instead of continually feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of the task: total transformation into the image of Christ. When we become overwhelmed, we give…

Some of you may have noticed that in my last post I attached the reward of step eight to step seven: one of the dangers of writing about a text without having it open before you. Step seven, being peacemakers, reveals the children of God. On the ladder of the beatitudes, poverty and mourning draw the grace of the Holy Spirit who produces meekness and hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness, because…

Please notice that it does not say, “Blessed are the good negotiators.” Peacemaking is not about negotiating resolution between hostile parties. Peacemaking is about being peace. Now, the ability to negotiate the end of a dispute is a great gift and I do not disparage it, but this is not what this beatitude is talking about. One need not be a Christian at all to be a good negotiator, one who can…

Although I have with God’s help at times ascended to the high plains of mercy, I cannot say that I have ever walked the plateaus of purity of heart nor the peaks of peacemaking. I have gazed upon them. And in this I derive hope. The promise of the sixth beatitude it nothing less than deification, the beatific vision, to see God. To see God is to become like God, as St.…

  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. This is the fifth rung on the ladder. One of the hurdles that causes people to stumble moving from hunger and thirst for righteousness to showing mercy is a legalistic, rule based understanding of righteousness. That is, we stumble when we mistake righteousness for being right. Mercy triumphs over justice (James 2:13). In a sense, mercy is the deeper law (to borrow…

Blessed are the hungry and the thirsty. Having tasted the comfort of the Comforter, we hunger and thirst for more. The forth rung of the ladder of the Beatitudes moves from the meekness that comes from mourning to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Our life is never static. To stand still, or to imagine we are standing still, is to slip into despondency (“what’s the use?”) or complacency (“I already have enough;…

There’s nothing like a good cry to calm one down. Mourning brings about a clam peace. Mourning over our sin and the lack of God’s Grace in our lives leads us to the third step on the ladder of the Beatitudes. Meekness is the quiet calmness of accepting myself as I am and where I am. Inwardly, a meek person can let go of pretending, can let go of the fear of…

Once we have seen and accepted that we are poor in spirit, we begin to see ourselves as we really are. Christ comes to us where we are, not where we wish or imagine we were. Christ meets us as we are, not as we pretend to be. But most of us spend a good deal of our life and energy pretending to be somewhere and be someone we are not. Coming…

I have ignored my blog the past two weeks because I have been preparing for the visit of His Grace Bishop Joseph (which, by the way, went very well) and a young adult retreat coming up in two weeks. The original speaker, Mother Melania, had to cancel suddenly; and after several days of trying to find a good replacement, the bottom of the barrel was reached. I have been studying the Sermon…