329 part ii: meditations for more solemn feasts After Holy Communion 1. “Blessed are you who are poor,” (Lk 6:20). Consider that the Lord said that the poor are blessed, but not those poor that lack in material goods, but those who are poor in spirit (cf. Mt 5:3). He who has nothing yet seeks to have everything is not blessed, but miserable; while the one abounding in riches is blessed, if he does not immerse his heart in them. The Apostle said about such men: “Having all things, and possessing nothing.” Do not think that someone who left behind all things for the love of Christ, but held back a great desire for possessing some trinket or swelling his own honor or dignity, is truly poor in spirit! Oh, what a hypocrite this poor man is! He deceives himself! As for you, you shall be blessed and truly poor if you are happy with Jesus alone, received in the sacred banquet. Therefore, together with St. Bonaventure, ask Him to be your portion, your possession, and your treasure, in which your mind and your heart shall be fixed, firm, [f.100r] and always immovably rooted.145 2. “Blessed are you when people hate you” (Lk 6:22). Consider that human ways of thinking are often contrary to divine actions. Hence, it is no wonder that people hate those who seek to please God. Yet those whom the people hate on account of God are certainly blessed. Just as the people, who do not favor their king, do not favor the royal servants, so the world that is unfriendly to God is also unfriendly to God’s servants. Then, as the king greatly esteems his servants, who did not abandon him 145 In the 1962 Roman Missal and prior editions, there is a prayer entitled Alia Oratio (“Another Prayer”) from the section Gratiarum Actio Post Missam (“Thanksgiving After Mass”), which has been ascribed to St. Bonaventure. Cf. MIR, p. li (Gratiarum Actio Post Missam — Alia Oratio). Cf. Rev. F.X. Lasance and Rev. Francis Augustine Walsh, The New Roman Missal: In Latin and English, Reprint of 1945 ed., Christian Book Club of America, Palmdale, CA, 1993, p. 1812: Here are the beginning and ending of this prayer: “O sweetest Lord Jesus, I implore Thee, pierce the very marrow of my soul with the delightful, healthgiving dart of Thy love … Be Thou alone and evermore my hope … my portion, mine own possession and my treasure. In Thee, O Lord, may my mind and my heart remain fixed and firm, and rooted immovably for ever more. Amen.”
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