Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [193]
Meekness alone achieves true victory in the world
“Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.” The meek, who in truth follow Christ and in all situations keep faithful to their primal response to the love of Christ—they shall obtain the promised land of eternal beatitude. Yet, already on earth they are irresistible: for them is also reserved true victory over the world. For it is they who challenge all evils in the world with the weapons of light; who resist all determination by the immanent automatisms of worldly concerns; and who confront all enmity with the superior power of an inalterable, soaring charity. True meekness is the token of our being thus anchored in the supernatural; the seal of the true and ultimate freedom that resides in suffering, serving, world-redeeming love.
In meekness is revealed the operation of the fundamental law of victory over the world: the principle of not returning like for like—of opposing the spirit of the world by an integrally new and different one, as expressed in the words of the Lord: “Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you” (Matt. 5:44). Meekness is likewise incarnate in the words, “If one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other” (Matt. 5:39).
It means no passive toleration of all wrongs, no dull acquiescence in the dominion of sin—rather, it means true warriorship in the cause of Christ. However relentless his fight against sin, however ardent his zeal for the victory of the kingdom of God, the true warrior of Christ remains meek: he is melted by the love of Christ once it has been evoked in him by his glance upon the Savior who suffered and died for love.
“For they shall possess the land.” In his Homily on the words of Our Lord—“Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16)—St. John Chrysostom with sublime mastery expounds this victory of the meek over the world. He paraphrases the words of the Lord: “When you start on your way, behave with the meekness of sheep, although you prepare to meet wolves, nay, to betake yourselves into their midst. For by this shall I reveal my power most visibly, that wolves shall be overcome by sheep, whereas the sheep, though exposed to the fangs of wolves and bleeding from innumerable wounds, shall not only not perish but even change the wolves into their own nature. Surely it is greater and more wonderful to win the soul of the foe, to turn his mind into its opposite, than to kill him. . . . So long as we are sheep, we conquer. Should a thousand wolves encompass us, we should win them over and emerge victorious. Yet if we become wolves, we shall be conquered. For then shall the Shepherd (who leads to pasture not wolves but sheep) withdraw his assistance from us. He shall turn from thee and abandon thee, seeing that thou makest it impossible for him to reveal his power. But if thou abidest meek, thy victory shall be his work.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 34.)
In truth, the meek will emerge victors over the world, because, in their struggle for the kingdom of God, they know no weapons except that by which Christ has redeemed the world and vanquished our hearts; because they have cast all other—all natural—weapons from them, countering all enmity and unruly fierceness of evil with the offer of their unshielded heart, which is ready to bleed to death for the sinner’s sake also.
If spoken by the meek, the word of truth which like a sword, severs soul and body, subtly insinuates itself like a breath of love into the innermost recesses of the soul. For the meek is reserved true victory over the world, because it is not they themselves who conquer, but Christ in them and through them.
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Holy Mercy
MERCY is a specifically divine virtue. If humility is a virtue specifically befitting the creature, so that it can be attributed to God only insofar