"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."
One of my favorite beatitudes. Because everyone understands hunger. We feel it every day to some degree.
Hunger means we need something. We need food to keep our bodies from starving. If we go too long without food, we grow restless and uneasy. We get uncomfortable, even irritable. We become more prone to sickness or physical ailments like headaches. We weaken.
Just as our bodies hunger, our spirits hunger. If our spirits go without food too long, they weaken. Our spirits grow restless and uneasy, uncomfortable and irritable, more prone to inner sickness (think temptation and sin).
The key to avoiding that is, Jesus says, righteousness. That means that it is not enough just to keep our noses clean and avoid wrongdoing. If all we do is go through life trying to avoid sin, then eventually sin will find us wherever we are hiding. We will find ourselves not fulfilled, not satisfied. It's not enough just to not drink poison. If we get thirsty enough, we'll drink sulfuric acid. If we avoid sin but do not replace it with something that satiates the desires of our hearts, the desires that God has placed within us, then eventually we will settle.
Sex is a great example. It's a deep hunger that many people have, God knows. God gave us those desires. The Church has many examples of sinful ways of satisfying the sexual appetite. Most of us know what they are. Many people believe such prohibitions are unreasonable. The truth is they are perfectly reasonable and eminently wise. The problem is what's missing. The problem is that we have forgotten in many ways how to satisfy our sexual appetites -- again appetites that are from God Himself -- without resorting to these sinful methods. We've forgotten how to really relate to one another as men and women. We've forgotten how to appreciate and embrace the things that make us different and the things that make us fit together so beautifully. So when the Church tells us we must not do things like have intercourse outside of marriage or self-gratify, we think the Church is telling us to starve ourselves. Not so. The Church is inviting us to pursue what really satisfies, not what tides us over for a time but has poisonous long-term consequences.
We have to actively seek out opportunities to do what is right -- to love our neighbors as Christ loves us. We have to search like starving people, because the truth is we are starving. We need to find opportunities to love other people, and to show our love for God above all. We have to make it so there is no room in our lives for sin, because when we are living on a truly healthy and holy appetite, if we have truly loving relationships and are truly serving others, then we won't hunger for anything else.
Because why compromise? Why settle for anything less? Righteousness satisfies.
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