were on a public stage in the presence and to the great admiration and wonderment of all the angels, saints, demons, and reprobate. And generally speaking it is to the poor in spirit, who on this earth are humbled, persecuted, afflicted, oppressed, and penitent that this prize is given.
“Come, How joyfully the welcoming words of Our Lord shall resound in their ears: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess yon the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Let us consider those words briefly. “Come!” Come from combat to victory; from labor to an exceeding great reward; from the lowly cross to glory and honor; from sorrow to joy; from danger to safety; from darkness to light; from a prison to liberty; from banishment to your fatherland; from the vale of tears to the city of eternal rest. Come! for all care is at an end, sorrow is past, there is no longer any danger of sinning and losing My grace.
Ye blessed of My Father, “Come, ye blessed!” Formerly, as St. Paul says, you were “in labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”[1] Formerly you were counted amongst those Christians of whom the same Paul says: “Others had trial of mockeries and stripes, moreover also of bonds and prisons;”[2] “being in want, distressed, afflicted.”[3] Now you are blessed and supereminently happy and blissful in all things. Formerly the world hated and persecuted you because you did not live according to the manner of vain worldlings nor adopt the customs of the world; now you are a source of terror to the lovers of the world, who must tremble at your feet. Formerly you were despised, persecuted, often reviled, and cursed; now you are raised above all, admired and blessed by all. Blessed in your soul, which always employed its memory, understanding, and will for its last end and My pleasure; blessed in your body, which wore out its health and strength in My service; blessed are your eyes, with which like holy Job you made a compact that they should not look on any dangerous object, and which have so often wept for your past sins; blessed your ears, which you always kept closed against sinful talk; blessed your tongue, with which you announced My praise; blessed your hands, with which you labored for My honor, and which so often helped Me
