Mourning in this life is blessed insofar as it represents a yearning for union with God

In addition to that, however, this beatitude does refer—like all others—to the high value of one particular attitude. For one thing, it declares blessed the sorrow of those who still abide in the Advent: those not satisfied with earthly reality. Blessed are, indeed, those who yearn for redemption: who, roused from the slumber of self-contained earthliness, are aware of the disharmony of a fallen world and experience the vestiges of original sin as a heavy burden. Blessed are they whom no earthly happiness can deceive about the essential inadequacy of the present world; whose thirst cannot be quelled by terrestrial goods. They shall be comforted, because they long for what only eternal community with God can give them—whereas those who set their hearts on earthly treasures and seek for happiness in an unredeemed world are the truly and ultimately miserable ones.

Yet that word in the Sermon on the Mount is not addressed to them alone whose sorrow is the Advent sorrow. Even for souls fully responsive to the grace of Redemption, the present world remains a valley of tears. The inconceivable gift of the Incarnation of God and the redemption of man by His death on the cross have not wholly ended our separation, on earth, from God. Earthly life has remained, not only a status viae—even a paradisiac state, free from all disharmony, would be that—but a state of dolorous longing and unfulfillment.

Already, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we are in an inexpressible fashion united to God and may participate in the life of the Holy Trinity. We still, however, possess God according to the mode of belief only, not according to the mode of vision. If we really and truly love God, this “seeing through a glass in a dark manner” cannot but pain us. Whoever feels no sorrow at this relative separation from God and does not yearn to see God face to face, is not yet filled with that supreme love of God which speaks from St. Paul’s words; “Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). “Blessed are they that mourn” for not having attained yet to the beatific vision.

Mourning; must be understood, here, as the feeling of privation that accompanies a hope for future contentment and fulfillment: the suffering, that is to say, of wistful love. For we are still imprisoned in time, compelled to hurry endlessly from one object to another. The hour has not yet struck which will allow us to abide undisturbed with Him who constitutes our beatitude. Though redeemed, we still live by hope. We are still pilgrims who cannot know whether we will persevere to the end; who are still beset by dangers of all kinds; in whose midst “the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Our community with God is not yet a definitive one but still an object of hope. We are still, as it were, running for a prize. For those who love God, this implies suffering. “Blessed are they that mourn”: they, that is to say, who feel the gravity of our terrestrial situation, are aware of the abyss between our status finalis and our status viae, and consciously bear the cross which lies in the fact that our union with God cannot on earth be a definitive and indestructible one.