The Sermon on the Mount (Bossuet)/Day 3
Third Day
SECOND BEATITUDE
To be meek. — Matt. v. 4.
BLESSED are the meek.' ‘Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of hear.[1] Meek — that is to say, free from bitterness, from presumption, from disdain; never taking advantage of others, nor insulting the unfortunate, nor even offending the proud, but trying to win them by gentleness; mild even with those who are sharp; not meeting temper with temper, or violence with violence, but moderating excess in others by gentle words. Such is true meekness.
There are false kinds of meekness — contemptuous, full of hidden pride, effrontery and affectation of mildness — which are more unkind and more insulting than open roughness.
But let us reflect on the meekness of Jesus Christ, of which the Holy Spirit speaks as follows in Isaias: — 'Behold my servant, I will uphold him! my elect, my soul delighteth in him. I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor have respect to person, neither shall his voice be heard abroad. The bruised reed he shall not break and smoking flax he shall not quench; he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.’[2]
This is what Isaias saw in spirit; and what St Matthew, in act, found so beautiful — so remarkable — so worthy of Jesus Christ — that he takes special pains to extol it.[3]
He is meek towards the weakest: though a reed, already feeble, may have been made more so by bruising, far from taking any advantage of such weakness, He turns aside that He may not tread upon it. Do you, then, act thus towards your neighbour. Instead of seeking occasion to injure him, take care that you do not walk over him and complete his destruction by inadvertence, and as though ' by the way.’ But who is this weak neighbour if not the hot-tempered man who has got into a passion? He is bruised by his own rage; the feeble reed has bent itself in the act of striking. Do not you destroy it utterly by crushing it under foot. This, again, is what is meant by the ‘ smoking flax.' Anger in a heart has made it catch fire; the smoke is some insult offered to you by your neighbour in this angry state. Take great care not to quench the fire by violence. Listen to St Paul’s exhortation — ‘Not revenging yourselves, my dearly beloved, but give place unto wrath.’ [4] Let it smoke a little and go out of its own accord. Left to itself it will burn out, so do not stifle it; but let the smoke rise and lose itself vainly in the air, without annoying or even reaching you.
This is just what our Saviour does when He bears so many insults without bitterness. ‘ Thou hast a devil; ’ they say to Him. ' Who seeketh to kill thee? ’ [5] And He replies, unmoved, ‘ I have not a devil, but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me.’ [6] And on another occasion, when they reproach Him with the same thing: ‘ Are you angry at me because I have healed the whole man on the Sabbath day? ’ [7] Here, as you see, He does not extinguish the smoking flax, but leaves it to burn out, to see whether the unfortunate people, tired of covering so meek and humble a man with insults, will not return to their senses. Such, throughout, was the conduct of the Son of God, especially in His Passion. ‘ When he was reviled he did not revile; when he suffered, he threatened not.' [8] And again, to the man who gave Him a blow, ‘If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou me? ’ [9]
To Him, truly, it belongs to say, ‘ Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.' [10] He is rightly compared to a lamb, the meekest of all animals, which not only allows itself to be ‘sheared,’ but was ‘led as a sheep to the slaughter,’ without opening its mouth. [11]
‘ Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.’ The land promised to Abraham is called 'a land flowing with milk and honey.' [12] Everything sweet abounds there; it is the type of Heaven and of the Church. What makes us harsh is the pouring forth upon others of our own inward venom and bitterness. When we have a spirit calmed by possession of the only real good and by the joy of a pure conscience, as there is then nothing bitter within our hearts, so we have only mildness for others. The true mark of innocence, either preserved or recovered, is gentleness.
Man is so prone to take offence that he is often offended with the very people who are doing him good. How irritable a sick man is with his nurses! Almost the whole world is diseased in that way; and hence it is that we are always getting angry with those who advise us for our own good, even more so with those who have the authority to do it than with others. The innate pride that we carry about with us is the cause of this. 'Blessed, therefore, ' are the meek, for they shall possess the land' where all sweetness abounds, because the joy there is perfect.