Daily Meditation: Blessed are they who Thirst and Hunger after Justice
Excerpt from Daily Reflections for Christians
I. Our Lord would not have His followers indifferent about what is termed justice, and all that comes under the name of justice. Not only must they not be wicked or neglectful of the duties of a good life, but they must also sincerely and constantly hunger and thirst for justice. The justice He demands must be goodness in spirit and in conduct in thought, desire, affection, speech, and action. Our Lord would have the lives of His followers to be an example and a reproach to unbelievers. Many of the Saints in the pursuit of perfection voluntarily imposed upon themselves many privations, often suffering even hunger and thirst; but the hunger and thirst of which our Lord speaks is the determined effort and the zeal which the truly just display in their endeavor to fulfil all justice (Matthew 3:15).
Christians are invited and exhorted, by the aid of grace, to be constant and exact in observing all that is demanded by God’s commandments, in fulfilling all the duties of religion, and by practicing the Christian virtues. It must be their desire ever to please God, and carefully to abstain from what might lead them to sin of any kind.
Be resolved, devout Christian, not to turn aside to the right or to the left from the path of true goodness. So, walk by the path of a holy discipline that you may avoid every fall into sin yourself, and that you may not cause others to offend God in any way. Love the ways of piety and virtue and pray that you may ever seek your happiness in striving to please God, and that you may abhor all the ways of evil.
II. Christians are exhorted in every possible way within the scope of their calling in life to practice themselves, and to promote in others, what is demanded by the service of God: in this way should they hunger and thirst after justice. The holy desire of their own perfection should carry them onward in the pursuit of the Christian virtues and in the practice of religiousness, not only and not always in a manner that might cause men to esteem and honor them, but also at times in ways that are arduous and trying to nature, and even in ways that might lead men to look down upon them with unmerited contempt.
Christians in their zeal for goodness must not allow themselves to be deterred or turned aside by any fear of men’s disesteem; and they are warned not to do their justice before man to be seen by them (Matthew 6:1). They must, despite all obstacles, ever persevere in the path of a truly Christian life, persuaded that there is always much more that they can do to become pleasing to God. They should therefore press forward on this path with a holy eagerness, so that it may be said of them that they even hunger and thirst after justice.
See, then, devout Christian, what is demanded of your zeal for all goodness. Be not dismayed by the opposition you may experience from the slothfulness or unruliness of your own nature, or from the ill-will of others; but seek to be ever more pleasing to the Sacred Heart of Jesus who invites you to learn of Him and to follow Him.
III. Our Lord says: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.” (Matthew 5:6) While the wicked are left empty-handed or strive to feed their souls with the husks of swine, the just who are eager for justice are rewarded with ample blessings. The lovers of justice who hate iniquity shall be anointed with the oil of gladness (Psalm 44:8), and they shall have their hands filled with spiritual gifts; they will advance in holiness and merit, and it will be given them to experience a sense of satisfaction and of consolation, which is not granted to the lukewarm and indifferent.
Our blessed Lady declared in her canticle: “He hath filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:53) If this is true of the ways of God’s bounty in dealing with His true servants in this life, how much more so is it true of the outpouring of His goodness upon them in the life to come! The Psalmist says: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy house: and Thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure” (Psalm 35:9).
Desire for yourself, devout Christian, the fulness of spiritual joy and contentment in this life, and of the everlasting joys of Heaven hereafter; and that you may receive these promised blessings, pursue ever with zeal and constancy the paths of justice. Be not deceived or led astray by bad example or by delusive advice. Demand through Mary’s prayers, a zeal for your perfection, and a constant determination to walk in the ways of virtue and of a devout life.
From the book Daily Reflections for Christians, Volume I by Very Reverend Father Charles Cox, O. M. I. (R. and T. Washbourne, LTD., 1914, pages 145-147).