What actually is 'a Beatitude'?
We hear them read at All Saints and on other occasions – but what exactly are the Beatitudes supposed to be?
We hear them read at All Saints and on other occasions – but what exactly are the Beatitudes supposed to be?
Editor's Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge tells us…
How the Beatitudes are both the virtues themselves and the crowns that accompany them.
That they mark the soul’s ascent through grace, virtue, gifts, fruits, and finally the serene perfection of sanctity.
Why true blessedness appears foolish to the world, yet gives sweetness of conscience and a foretaste of heaven.
Coleridge shows us that the Beatitudes reveal the soul’s interior progress from healing to holiness — from grace begun to glory nearly attained.
For more context on this series, see Part I.
The Beatitudes
The Preaching of the Beatitudes
Chapter IX
St. Matt. v. 3-10; Story of the Gospels, § 31
Burns and Oates, London, 1876.
(Read on All Saints)
What is a ‘Beatitude’
We may understand the remark of many Christian authors who have written on these Beatitudes, that the blessing which our Lord affirms and decrees is twofold in each case, that is, that the virtue itself is blessed, and it is further blessed in that it has the reward and crown and fruit which He attaches to it. So that if by possibility, or for a time, the meek should not ‘inherit (or possess) the land,’ or the mourners not be comforted, or those who hunger and thirst after justice should not be satisfied, still they would be blessed because they are what they are.
For each Beatitude, as distinct from the reward of which it is the condition and foundation, is an aspect of the perfect soul resting in its own pure tranquillity and peace in the arms of its Father and God, and as a wonderful gem, blazing with inherent brilliancy, may be different in hue or form as its different faces are looked on, and as the gem is what it is even though it have no rich setting, nor be worn in the crown of a king, so the perfect soul has always its own blessedness inherent in itself, or rather it is never shut out from the sight of Him to see Whom is to be blessed.
We find spiritual theologians, in accordance with this doctrine, assigning the highest place of all in the scale of states of the soul to these Beatitudes considered as such.
The delicate system on which the arrangement is made need not be entered upon here in any fulness of detail, but it may be well shortly to allude to it. St. Bernardine of Siena1 tells us that there are five degrees of grace, by which the soul in the present life is led to the state of Beatitude.
‘The first is sacramental grace, the second is virtue, the third the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the fourth the fruits of the same, and the fifth the Beatitudes.’
Sacramental grace heals the soul. The sacraments are the medicines and remedies against vices, and thus their grace does away with sickness. The virtues give the faculties power to act well. He is looking upon all these five principles as causes of ‘purgation,’ and so he says that the virtues do away with the soul’s weakness, giving it strength to operate.
We have already mentioned that the virtues produce good acts of the ordinary kind and in the ordinary way, according to reason, natural or supernatural. The gifts of the Holy Ghost do away with all difficulty in working good, enabling the soul to work with facility and quickness: they also, as has been said before, are the principles of heroic acts of virtue, and of acts which might not be thought of or might not be prudent on ordinary grounds, but which are suggested and made possible and easy by the gifts of the Holy Ghost.
The fruits add the crown of joy and satisfaction to the good works of either kind, and in their ‘purgative’ character they do away with all weariness, fatigue, or sense of effort in such works. Higher than all are the Beatitudes—‘the state and perfection of a soul already entirely purified.’
He gives the definition of ‘Beatitude’—‘A grace known to one who is truly wise, tending to produce sweetness of conscience, and already close on the borders of glory.’
It is a kind of grace, because it pre-supposes the habits of the virtues and the gifts informed by charity and grace, so as to make a man rightly and easily and joyfully undergo adversities, undertake difficult things, and work the works of perfection and supererogation. It is a kind of grace known to the truly wise, because it seems quite foreign to the opinions of human wisdom.
St. Bernardine’s definition
All the Beatitudes, according to the opinion of the world, have misery as their companion or as their predecessor. He quotes St. Bernard, who says, ‘What is so hidden, as that poverty is blessed?’
And in St. Matthew our Lord says, ‘I confess to Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,’2 that is, of this world.
For these things cannot be perfectly known except one has had some experience and taste of God. Then again, the definition speaks of ‘sweetness’ of conscience, because a Beatitude is the perfection of a soul already purified, and it preserves the mind from all remorse and reproach of conscience, and thus disposes it to a sweet and happy life.
And lastly, it is added, that the grace of the Beatitudes is already, as it were, on the borders of glory, for it is after all the blessedness of men still in their state of pilgrimage, not yet arrived at their home and country, whom it makes blessed in hope, and in a certain sense actually blessed also, because it gives them a certain nearness and easiness of approach to God.
Principles of holiness
This must suffice as to the perfection of the state of the soul in which the Beatitudes reside in their highest stage. It is at once obvious that the holy writers who speak of them in this almost technical manner have before their minds a generic condition of consummate sanctity, which might be conceived of other virtuous habits of the soul as well as of those particular excellences which are declared by our Lord to be Blessed.
Our present business is rather with the Beatitudes as principles of holiness, and lines, so to speak, of perfection, which may admit of many degrees between that stage of virtue which is obligatory on all under pain of sin, and the high and beautiful serenity which belongs to the state of the soul on which we have been dwelling.
Thus there are some acts of poverty of spirit or of purity of heart which are essential to the state of grace itself, and which may be produced by virtue of the sacraments. There may be other acts which require the habits of virtue, and others which are more extraordinary, and may be the result of the gifts of the Holy Ghost; others which may show the influence of His fruits, and others which may belong to the full and perfect Beatitude.
The Beatitudes
The Preaching of the Beatitudes
Further Reading:
Here’s why you should subscribe to The Father Coleridge Reader and share with others:
Fr Coleridge provides solid explanations of the entirety of the Gospel
His work is full of doctrine and piety, and is highly credible
He gives a clear trajectory of the life of Christ, its drama and all its stages—increasing our appreciation and admiration for the God-Man.
If more Catholics knew about works like Coleridge’s, then other works based on sentimentality and dubious private revelations would be much less attractive.
But sourcing and curating the texts, cleaning up scans, and editing them for online reading is a labour of love, and takes a lot of time.
Will you lend us a hand and hit subscribe?
Follow our projects on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram:
Twitter (The WM Review)
Sermo de Christianâ perfectione Beatitudinum Evangelicarum, art. 2, c. I.
St. Matt. xi. 25.