"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill." - Matthew 5:6"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill." - Matthew 5:6
What is it to hunger and thirst after justice? In the case of the sinner, it consists in a longing desire to be freed from his sin, and this is a happy sign of a coming change. So the Prodigal longed after his father's home. So Saint Augustine longed to escape from the chain of sin. So the sinner who comes to the tribunal of Penance longs after the blessedness of having the burden of his sins removed. All these are blessed in prospect, not in virtue of their present condition.
There is a higher form of this hunger and thirst after justice which is to be found in the Saints in proportion to their sanctity. They are happy, wonderfully happy, happy amid all the trials and sufferings of this valley of tears, but this happiness is the result of their hunger and thirst after the heavenly country. It is the prospect of coming joy that makes them so light-hearted Is this my case? When I repeat the words, "O Paradise! I would that I were there!" do I mean them, or are they mere empty and unreal sentiment.
Those who hunger and thirst after justice shall have their fill. Even in this life the Saints cried out, "Enough, O Lord," when God poured into their souls spiritual delights. In Heaven all will overflow with joy. The joy that God gives satisfies, but never satiates. We always have enough, yet we never have enough. This is the secret of its sufficiency to all eternity.
- taken from The Ministry of Jesus Christ: Short Meditations on the Public Life of Our Lord, by Father Richard Frederick Clarke, SJ