want everyone to applaud them: they want to be happy, and always cheerful, and
CHAPTER 3: The Meek Those Who Hunger for Righteousness and the Merciful
want everyone to applaud them: they want to be happy, and always cheerful, and have only all prosperity: - that people around them laugh, and that they are flattered. That is for an item.
And then it's still not enough. But when we come to say, Alas, here is such a poor man who endures a lot, he has such scarcity and poverty, he suffers from such illness, it is pity to see him: this again annoys them.. And in fact, we will see profane people harden themselves to their knowledge, so that they are far from having any pity for the poverty and misery that others endure, that there are who will be very happy that everyone is starving: and if they have a large quantity of corn, provided that they fill their purses they would like the earth to be almost devoid of inhabitants: it is all right for them to starve poor people, provided that they face their tasks well. And under one species we can understand much more. So this is how the despisers of God cast aside all compassion and pity, in order to exempt themselves from all molestation and anxiety. But on the contrary it is here said, in addition to the fact that we must be patient in our own miseries (as we have shown above) that we must also embrace the miseries of our neighbors, and as though we were clothed in their condition, in order to be touched when we see them endure: and so that we have a tender affection to groan with them, and to weep with the mourners as we are exhorted to do by Paul. Just as here before it has been shown to us that if our life is subjected to many miseries, annoyances, oppressions and injuries, we nevertheless do not fail to be blessed, because God blesses all our afflictions when we look to him: also now our Lord Jesus Christ has led us a step further: this is to know in addition to this that each faithful must be gentle in himself, and must groan patiently when he is afflicted and tormented, that we must be united with those who suffer, and be so touched, with compassion, because of the adversities and tribulations which they endure that we seek the means. to help them, as if we ourselves endured: that we know (say) that because God has associated us, and that he wants us to be a body, it is necessary that as all the members must being one, each one also takes his share of the afflictions, to give relief to those who can no longer bear it. So this is what we have to remember here.
But mercy in short is nothing other than a sorrow we feel from the sadness of others. However much a man is healthy and prosperous, however much he has to eat and drink, and sees no danger threatening him, yet when he sees his neighbor endure, he must be touched therein, let him be miserable with him, let him take part of his burden to relieve him as much. That is mercy. And it is