beatitudes

• strengthen moral character, create happiness

140:5.6The faith and the love of these beat­i­tudes strengthen moral char­ac­ter and cre­ate hap­pi­ness. Fear and anger weaken char­ac­ter and de­stroy hap­pi­ness. This mo­men­tous ser­mon started out upon the note of hap­pi­ness.

140:5.71. “Happy are the poor in spirit—the hum­ble.” To a child, hap­pi­ness is the sat­is­fac­tion of im­me­di­ate plea­sure crav­ing. The adult is will­ing to sow seeds of self-de­nial in or­der to reap sub­se­quent har­vests of aug­mented hap­pi­ness. In Je­sus’ times and since, hap­pi­ness has all too of­ten been as­so­ci­ated with the idea of the pos­ses­sion of wealth. In the story of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can pray­ing in the tem­ple, the one felt rich in spirit—ego­tis­ti­cal; the other felt “poor in spirit”—hum­ble. One was self-suf­fi­cient; the other was teach­able and truth-seek­ing. The poor in spirit seek for goals of spir­i­tual wealth—for God. And such seek­ers af­ter truth do not have to wait for re­wards in a dis­tant fu­ture; they are re­warded now. They find the king­dom of heaven within their own hearts, and they ex­pe­ri­ence such hap­pi­ness now.

140:5.82. “Happy are they who hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness, for they shall be filled.” Only those who feel poor in spirit will ever hunger for righ­teous­ness. Only the hum­ble seek for di­vine strength and crave spir­i­tual power. But it is most dan­ger­ous to know­ingly en­gage in spir­i­tual fast­ing in or­der to im­prove one’s ap­petite for spir­i­tual en­dow­ments. Phys­i­cal fast­ing be­comes dan­ger­ous af­ter four or five days; one is apt to lose all de­sire for food. Pro­longed fast­ing, ei­ther phys­i­cal or spir­i­tual, tends to de­stroy hunger.

140:5.9Ex­pe­ri­en­tial righ­teous­ness is a plea­sure, not a duty. Je­sus’ righ­teous­ness is a dy­namic love—fa­therly-broth­erly af­fec­tion. It is not the neg­a­tive or thou-shalt-not type of righ­teous­ness. How could one ever hunger for some­thing neg­a­tive—some­thing “not to do”?

140:5.10It is not so easy to teach a child mind these first two of the beat­i­tudes, but the ma­ture mind should grasp their sig­nif­i­cance.

140:5.113. “Happy are the meek, for they shall in­herit the earth.” Gen­uine meek­ness has no re­la­tion to fear. It is rather an at­ti­tude of man co-op­er­at­ing with God—“Your will be done.” It em­braces pa­tience and for­bear­ance and is mo­ti­vated by an un­shak­able faith in a law­ful and friendly uni­verse. It mas­ters all temp­ta­tions to rebel against the di­vine lead­ing. Je­sus was the ideal meek man of Uran­tia, and he in­her­ited a vast uni­verse.

140:5.124. “Happy are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Spir­i­tual pu­rity is not a neg­a­tive qual­ity, ex­cept that it does lack sus­pi­cion and re­venge. In dis­cussing pu­rity, Je­sus did not in­tend to deal ex­clu­sively with hu­man sex at­ti­tudes. He re­ferred more to that faith which man should have in his fel­low man; that faith which a par­ent has in his child, and which en­ables him to love his fel­lows even as a fa­ther would love them. A fa­ther’s love need not pam­per, and it does not con­done evil, but it is al­ways an­ti­cyn­i­cal. Fa­therly love has sin­gle­ness of pur­pose, and it al­ways looks for the best in man; that is the at­ti­tude of a true par­ent.

140:5.13To see God—by faith—means to ac­quire true spir­i­tual in­sight. And spir­i­tual in­sight en­hances Ad­juster guid­ance, and these in the end aug­ment God-con­scious­ness. And when you know the Fa­ther, you are con­firmed in the as­sur­ance of di­vine son­ship, and you can in­creas­ingly love each of your broth­ers in the flesh, not only as a brother—with broth­erly love—but also as a fa­ther—with fa­therly af­fec­tion.

140:5.14It is easy to teach this ad­mo­ni­tion even to a child. Chil­dren are nat­u­rally trust­ful, and par­ents should see to it that they do not lose that sim­ple faith. In deal­ing with chil­dren, avoid all de­cep­tion and re­frain from sug­gest­ing sus­pi­cion. Wisely help them to choose their heroes and se­lect their life­work.

140:5.15And then Je­sus went on to in­struct his fol­low­ers in the re­al­iza­tion of the chief pur­pose of all hu­man strug­gling—per­fec­tion—even di­vine at­tain­ment. Al­ways he ad­mon­ished them: “Be you per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.” He did not ex­hort the twelve to love their neigh­bors as they loved them­selves. That would have been a wor­thy achieve­ment; it would have in­di­cated the achieve­ment of broth­erly love. He rather ad­mon­ished his apos­tles to love men as he had loved them—to love with a fa­therly as well as a broth­erly af­fec­tion. And he il­lus­trated this by point­ing out four su­preme re­ac­tions of fa­therly love:

140:5.161. “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be com­forted.” So-called com­mon sense or the best of logic would never sug­gest that hap­pi­ness could be de­rived from mourn­ing. But Je­sus did not re­fer to out­ward or os­ten­ta­tious mourn­ing. He al­luded to an emo­tional at­ti­tude of ten­der­heart­ed­ness. It is a great er­ror to teach boys and young men that it is un­manly to show ten­der­ness or oth­er­wise to give ev­i­dence of emo­tional feel­ing or phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing. Sym­pa­thy is a wor­thy at­tri­bute of the male as well as the fe­male. It is not nec­es­sary to be cal­loused in or­der to be manly. This is the wrong way to cre­ate coura­geous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than ei­ther Sam­son or Go­liath. Moses was a su­perb leader, but he was also a man of meek­ness. Be­ing sen­si­tive and re­spon­sive to hu­man need cre­ates gen­uine and last­ing hap­pi­ness, while such kindly at­ti­tudes safe­guard the soul from the de­struc­tive in­flu­ences of anger, hate, and sus­pi­cion.

140:5.172. “Happy are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall ob­tain mercy.” Mercy here de­notes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friend­ship—lov­ing-kind­ness. Mercy some­times may be pas­sive, but here it is ac­tive and dy­namic—su­preme fa­ther­li­ness. A lov­ing par­ent ex­pe­ri­ences lit­tle dif­fi­culty in for­giv­ing his child, even many times. And in an un­spoiled child the urge to re­lieve suf­fer­ing is nat­u­ral. Chil­dren are nor­mally kind and sym­pa­thetic when old enough to ap­pre­ci­ate ac­tual con­di­tions.

140:5.183. “Happy are the peace­mak­ers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Je­sus’ hear­ers were long­ing for mil­i­tary de­liv­er­ance, not for peace­mak­ers. But Je­sus’ peace is not of the pa­cific and neg­a­tive kind. In the face of tri­als and per­se­cu­tions he said, “My peace I leave with you.” “Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be afraid.” This is the peace that pre­vents ru­inous con­flicts. Per­sonal peace in­te­grates per­son­al­ity. So­cial peace pre­vents fear, greed, and anger. Po­lit­i­cal peace pre­vents race an­tag­o­nisms, na­tional sus­pi­cions, and war. Peace­mak­ing is the cure of dis­trust and sus­pi­cion.

140:5.19Chil­dren can eas­ily be taught to func­tion as peace­mak­ers. They en­joy team ac­tiv­i­ties; they like to play to­gether. Said the Mas­ter at an­other time: “Whoso­ever will save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever will lose his life shall find it.”

140:5.204. “Happy are they who are per­se­cuted for righ­teous­ness’ sake, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven. Happy are you when men shall re­vile you and per­se­cute you and shall say all man­ner of evil against you falsely. Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad, for great is your re­ward in heaven.”

140:5.21So of­ten per­se­cu­tion does fol­low peace. But young peo­ple and brave adults never shun dif­fi­culty or dan­ger. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” And a fa­therly love can freely do all these things—things which broth­erly love can hardly en­com­pass. And prog­ress has al­ways been the fi­nal har­vest of per­se­cu­tion.

140:5.22Chil­dren al­ways re­spond to the chal­lenge of cour­age. Youth is ever will­ing to “take a dare.” And ev­ery child should early learn to sac­ri­fice.

140:5.23And so it is re­vealed that the beat­i­tudes of the Ser­mon on the Mount are based on faith and love and not on law—ethics and duty.

140:5.24Fa­therly love de­lights in re­turn­ing good for evil—do­ing good in re­tal­i­a­tion for in­jus­tice.