Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, as well as the feastday of the Holy Fathers of the first six Ecumenical Councils!

With God’s help, throughout the past several weeks we have examined the Beatitudes, and today have come to the final two, which read: “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for Мy sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.” Let’s note that the eighth beatitude is assembled out of parts from two other beatitudes. Righteousness is mentioned in the fourth, and the Kingdom of Heaven in the first. These final beatitudes are very similar, and although the ideas they hold are clear, to embody them in life is far from easy.

Probably it is not by chance that Christ repeats a very similar idea in the final two beatitudes. Earlier we noticed that spiritual poverty, i. e. humility and meekness, are the foundation on which all other good deeds stand, and that therefore the Lord mentions this twice (in the first and third beatitudes). Something similar is happening here. The hight of all good deeds is to suffer, to be persecuted, to be accused falsely for the sake of God’s righteousness and Christ; therefore we hear about this twice.

We cannot ignore the opinion of the Holy Hierarch John Chrysostom, who says that the eighth beatitude is tied to the one proceeding it, which we talked discussed last week. Remember that we talked about the peacemakers becoming the children of God the Father. The fact is that sometimes it is impossible to reconcile warring parties, and at times this is not even desirable from the spiritual point of view. Therefore, as Chrysostom teaches, Christ added the words about those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. This thought can be tied together thus: Fortunate are those who reconcile people, because they are Christ-like, but since it is not always possible to produce peace, fortunate also are those who recognize when reconciliation is futile and wrong, and instead of building a imaginary, flimsy, false peace, suffer persecution for the sake of God’s righteousness.

Let’s also take note that it is not any suffering person that will inherit great rewards in the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those, as St. John says, that suffer for Christ and when such attacks occur because of lies. Sometimes, if not often, we suffer not by chance, but because we have brought on this suffering ourselves. Children upset parents because we do a poor job of raising them; we fall sick because we eat poorly and neglect our health; we find ourselves mired in debts because we spend carelessly, etc. Of course we can expect no fortunate future in the Kingdom of Heaven for this type of suffering. Those, however, who suffer the most diverse misfortunes for the sake of Christ are in truth blessed, for they will inherit not only the Kingdom of Heaven, but will also be rewarded with great honours.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, although we live in relative peace, we don’t know when trials will befall us. The twentieth century is an example of how quickly everything can change for the worse. Therefore, let’s try to have the words of these final beatitudes always in our hearts, like it must have been with the Holy Apostles and Martyrs, so that if persecutions come upon the Church and the faithful, we will always be ready to inherit spiritual crowns in the Kingdom of Heaven.

priest Alexis