Saturday, March 15, 2008


SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #159


" Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." (Matt. 5:5)

MOURNING WHICH IS PLEASING TO GOD: There is a great deal of mourning and complaining in this "vale of tears," but all this mourning is not pleasing to God. When, for example, a man grieves, because his pride or his revenge or any other passion is not gratified, his sadness is the result of sin, and can in no way please God. Our sorrow for the dead, or for personal losses or disappointed hopes, is a holy sorrow only so far as it convinces us of the nothingness of the things of this world, and raises our hearts to God in worship and resignation. The sorrow most pleasing to God is that of those who renounce the sinful joys of this world, and grieve over their own sins and the sins of others. Examples: Lot, Elias, Jeremias, Judith, John the Baptist.

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]
(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)

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