The Fourth Beatitude: Hunger for Righteousness and Fulfillment

After meekness comes hunger and thirst for righteousness. For when the soul has ceased to resist God and has learned to submit quietly, it begins to desire what is truly good. Meekness removes contention; desire now takes its place. The soul no longer strives to assert itself, but longs to be made right.

This hunger is not for bodily food, nor for any earthly satisfaction, but for righteousness itself. It is the longing of a soul that has been humbled, purified, and made gentle, and now yearns to be conformed to the will of God. Such a desire cannot arise in one who is proud or contentious, for pride seeks its own fulfillment, whereas hunger seeks what it lacks.

This hunger and thirst signify an earnest and continual desire. For righteousness is not possessed all at once, but must be sought perseveringly. The soul knows that it is not yet whole, and therefore longs to be filled. This longing is itself a gift, for God would not cause the soul to hunger unless He intended to satisfy it.

The promise attached to this Beatitude is fullness. Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled, not with passing goods, but with that righteousness which restores the soul to order and peace. This filling does not destroy desire, but perfects it, for the more the soul is filled with righteousness, the more it delights in it.

Thus the same person who was made meek now desires justice, not for the sake of argument or domination, but out of love for what is right. And this desire prepares the soul for mercy, for one who knows his own need for righteousness will readily show compassion to others.

Source: St. Augustine, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Book I, Chapters 4–5.