Retreat meditation on St. Mathew 5,6

Hunger and thirst, two words we can define but whose reality we are unacquainted with. We say we are hungry when we have an appetite and probably among us there isn’t one who hasn’t been able to find food for a number of days… Much to the contrary, we usually pamper ourselves.

Thirst is not a concern for us. Refreshment is always within reach… We complain of thirst in the heavy heat of summer when our pipelines supply sufficient water even for our gardens.

For this reason when we hear this strange beatitude of the hungry and thirsty we do not fully comprehend its tragic sense. It would be necessary to spend some time in the desert where thirst means death, where all routes lead to water holes whose few mouthfuls of muddy liquid seem like a delicious liqueur… where the earth itself is dead from a centuries long thirst. This can be seen in the Pampa… where those who launch out on the endless plains, end by perishing on the way.

Hunger and thirst have lost their horror for us and as a consequence, food and drink are daily facts and not miraculous blessings. Nonetheless Lord, sanctity is hunger and thirst. Lord, give me this hunger, give me this thirst.

For my healing, because I am ill with these small vanities; but I must not sit and muse on them, one by on, but rather let me be penetrated with an overwhelming hunger that will not slacken its oppressive grasp. As the brightness of the sun eclipses the light of the stars without it being necessary to extinguish them one by one, so too you can cleanse me all at once by invading me with a profound concern for justice… This justice does not solely mean to give to each his due: it is rather sanctity, holiness, union with you. This justice, like sanctity, is God Himself.

Methods of sanctification! Take a look at myself. Yes, but above all, look at Him… Let myself be penetrated by Him… May his presence set out to transform me and I will end up being like him. Hunger and thirst for Christ, to be like him, to be another Christ: “I live now not I but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2,20). Paul, overtaken by Christ tells us: “One thing I desire: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3,13-14), to participate in His work.

Hunger… Accursed hunger for gold. What the thirst for honor and power does! The pagans were avid for glory: Alexander in his military exploits; Hannibal crossing the Alps; Napoleon… and I myself for ridiculous inanities, in order to appear in the best light, what won’t I do to satisfy this selfish greediness. But if we begin to love justice, your holy Justice with the same passion and if we serve it with the same ferocious longing, our inertia will disappear and our days will be filled…

This hunger for justice is not a simple torment. To desire it is to begin to possess it and banal satiety will never blunt its freshness. And not only for my perfection but hunger and thirst for the perfection of others, of my brothers.

Each day one meets so many people from all races, upright, well disposed people, hungry for truth. The communist at the voting table… who grieves on discovering the illness of his brother, who suffers for the poor Chinese who die of hunger. By the grace of God and with human collaboration men like him can come to be beloved disciples of Christ.

I wish to desire justice for them with such a passion that it will be forced to visit them… They are like the little boys from Galilee who grouped themselves around you and you did not refrain from hugging them.

Those poor women who spend all their lives in household work and the care of children… rocking the child who cries, milking their cows… Their simple ignorant souls are worth more than mine. Give them O Lord your graces of consolation and encouragement.

Those poor fishermen and farmers, the self-sacrificing miners of nitrate and those who work under the sea… their souls are hungry and thirsty and they wait to be sated.

Some perhaps will persecute you in us, Lord, “They will persecute you thinking that by so doing they are offering an agreeable gift to God…” because they do not know you (cf. Jn 16,2). Difficult days await us but do not permit the disappearance of the desire to serve you in my brothers through the formation of a holy people for you, through the sacrifice myself for them…

For their sake O Lord, I ask that the hunger and thirst for justice in me not be quenched and that you place the desire to form a holy people at a higher level than that of my egoism. To this end, my God, unite me with You; let me be one with You. You teach me the path: the mystery of water and wine. Let me be like the water added to the chalice that is lost finally in You.