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Christianity Today, July, 2007

Reflections

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Quotations to stir heart and mind.

Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman | posted 7/17/2007 08:18AM

Comments (7)

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BLESSED are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4

"BLESSED are those who mourn" is, paradoxically, a more necessary message than "Rejoice in the Lord always," because there can be no true rejoicing until we have stopped running away from mourning.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes

[W]E WILL NEVER experience the angel of comfort until we can enter into the mourning. … The admission of what is deepest within us can be done only with an angel of comfort. This angel comes to us in the appearance of a total stranger or an absolute friend.
Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes

[MOURNING] cannot be limited exclusively to expressing sorrow for one's sin … or grief surrounding death. … Rather, "those who mourn" has the more comprehensive sense of Isaiah 61:2-3, an inclusive grief that refers to the disenfranchised, contrite, and bereaved. It is an expression of the intense sense of loss, helplessness, and despair.
Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount

THE DISCIPLES bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the Cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the crucified. They stand as strangers in the power of him who was so alien to the world that it crucified him. This is their comfort, or rather, he is their comfort, their comforter. … This alien community is comforted by the Cross.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship

IN THIS BEATITUDE, Jesus praises … those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it.
Richard Rohr with John Bookser Feister, Jesus' Plan for a New World

HE CALLS BLESSED even those who mourn. Their sorrow is of a special kind. He did not designate them simply as sad but as intensely grieving. Therefore, he did not say "they that sorrow" but "they that mourn."
John Chrysostom, "Homily 15.3"

IT IS NOT ENOUGH for us … within the arena of the world's pain merely to know of a God who sympathizes. It is not even enough to know of a God who heals. We need to know of and be connected with a God who experiences with us, for us, each grief, each wound. We need to be bonded with a God who has had nails in the hands and a spear in the heart!
Flora Slosson Wuellner, Weavings

EVERY SUFFERING can be blessed because it hollows out a place in us for God and his comfort, which is infinite joy.
Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue

IT IS impossible for one to live without tears who considers things exactly as they are.
Gregory of Nyssa, De Beatitudine

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Reflections include:

Poor in Spirit | June 27, 2007

Spring | April 24, 2007

Resurrected Life | April 2, 2007

Suffering God | March 5, 2007

Winter | January 29, 2007

Signs of the Church | January 8, 2007

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July 2007, Vol. 51, No. 7

Comments (7)

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Displaying 1–5 of 7 comments

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Anonymous

July 24, 2007 10:34pm

My husband's been fighting cancer now for the last 3 years with the last few months really excruciating with him having high dose chemo and it leaving more deteriorated than ever. Low blood platelets, non functioning kidneys and poor hearing and he's not quite 50 years old yet. We have a 10 year old daughter and early in the school year this last year she experienced the coldness of a "friend" to our situation. She was so hurt. I thought it was because of the lack of value for family life today and her own mother's indifference to this girl's father. We really need to teach how precious life in all it's forms is - family life, a life of faith in God and the commitments therein. It's shallow to think the cliche' "life goes on" attitude after someone dies. These ones are precious to someone and not just of passing notice.

Anonymous

July 18, 2007 9:01am

coltakashi is wrong. Jesus comforted me with his presence and teaching before I was mature enough to follow doctrine and be a mature disciple;before I could identify with his suffering. Jesus took pity on me while I was still a great sinner and while I was spiritually very poor; and He came into my life because he is wonderful and kind and loving and generous to those who mourn, to those weeping because they are just wretched while he is kind. I was wretched - God comforted me. So now I can identify with the suffering of Jesus after he led me into the deeper things of his Truth: What glory. I was blessed from the beginning not just because I was a good disciple, which I was not. Too often people put heavy burdens on others, expecting them to be perfect disciples and be perfect in doctrine. One of the things that God taught me from his own heart is not to be perfectionist but to realize we are treasures in clay holders. A light to life because we are fragile yet contain a great treasure

rdonaghy@optusnet.com.au

July 18, 2007 4:37am

A blessing to all who reads the material. GOD bless & keep up the good work.

Anonymous

July 17, 2007 9:35pm

It came at a time when I needed comforting. I was mourning not for someone dear who has passed away, but for an event in my life that shook my faith in God as a loving Father. Thank God for modern prophets and angels, His messengers to the faint hearted.

George T.

July 17, 2007 6:16pm

Trully to "STIR HEART AN MIND."It did so to me. I can not add any further comment except that you bless us more often with such spiritual and inelligent selection of thoughts.

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