“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The hunger and thirst of the desert traveler is the intensity of desire that Jesus associates with the pursuit of righteousness — not casual interest but desperate need. Psalm 42:1–2 describes the soul that pants for God as a deer pants for water; Amos 8:11 warns of a famine for the word of God. The righteousness being desired is both the individual's right standing with God and the social-moral order that characterizes the kingdom — both personal and cosmic. They shall be satisfied — the hunger that the world cannot meet will be fully met in the kingdom. Isaiah 55:1–2 calls the hungry and thirsty to come without money and eat; Jesus is the bread and water of life (John 6:35; 7:37) who satisfies the deepest hunger.
Church Fathers on Matthew 5:6
As soon as I have wept for my sins, I begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness. He who is afficted with any sort disease, hath ho hunger.
It is not enough that we desire righteousness, unless we also suffer hunger for it, by which expression we may understand that we are never righteous enough, but always hunger after works of righteousness.
All good which men do not from love of the good itself is unpleasing before God. He hungers after righteousness who desires to walk according to the righteousness of God; he thirsts after righteousness who desires to get the knowledge thereof.
Read all 8 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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