1. The possession of the sevenfold gifts results in the
performance of certain virtuous acts, for it is perfectly obvious
that if I am so blest by the gifts that I find my reason, will,
emotions, made increasedly perceptive of divine currents
previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way. I
now discover the view about me, and the music, and, consequently,
my manner of life must in some ways be different from before. The
Vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in
life without thereby altering that very life itself. Not only
shall I find that what seemed to me before to be evil now appears
to me to be a blessing; but on that very account what before I
tried to avoid, or, having got, tried to be rid of, I shall now
accept, perhaps even seek. Similarly, whereas then I was weak, now
I am strong; and increase of strength means new activities, new
energy put into the old work and finding its way out into works
altogether new. My emotions, finally, which perilled and dominated
my life, slip now into a subordinate position, and while thereby
as actively employed as before, are held under discipline. It is
clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I was
before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.
2. I find, then, that these new habits will develop into new
activities. But this means also that I have a new idea as to the
means of achieving the full happiness of life. Once upon a time I
thought happiness meant comfort, now I see that it means something
quite different. My view of happiness has changed. I am therefore
obliged to change also my idea as to the means and conditions
whereby, and in which, happiness can be found. I had attempted to
climb out of my valley over the hills in the west; I now attempt
to climb out over the hills to the east. The steps by which once I
clambered are useless to me. I must try new ones in the opposite
hills. Just that is what Our Lord meant by promulgating His eight
Beatitudes. These are just the new blessedness, so to say, which
results from finding that happiness now means the knowledge and
love of God. Things that previously I fled from, I now seek;
things once my bugbear, are now the objects of my delight.
Poverty, meekness, mourning, the hunger and thirst after justice,
cleanness of heart, the making of peace, mercy, the suffering of
persecution for justice's sake, are now found to be the steps to
be passed over, the conditions to be secured before happiness can
be finally secured.
3. These things, then, are beatitudes to me. They are acts which I
finally achieve by means of the new enlightenment gained through
the gifts of God. Actively I am merciful and meek and clean of
heart. I perform these actions, and they are the result of visions
seen, and counsels heard, through the new sensitiveness to the
divine instinctive guidance that of old passed me by without
finding in my heart any response. To be forever pursuing now peace
and sorrow, and, at whatever cost, justice, is an energizing state
of life which is due entirely to the new perception of the value
of these things, so that we are right in asserting that the
beatitudes are nothing else than certain actions, praised by Our
Lord and practiced by us as a result of the establishment in our
souls of seven definite habits. But not only are they actions,
they produce as an effect joy in the heart; for which reason it is
that we call them beatitudes. They show me what is truly blessed
and thereby give me, even here on earth, a foretaste of the bliss
of final happiness.