Matthew 5:6 - Hunger & Thirst, Part 2
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
—
We can think of Matthew 5:6 as a three-part movement.
Last week touched on fasting & what are we hungry for?
This week, what kills our (spiritual) appetite?
To help unpack this question, I give you…
Charlotte Mason.
Who? you might ask.
If this is your first acquaintance with her, she is education’s best kept secret, who should be more of a household name.
I like to think of her as “The Great Synthesizer” of the entire tradition of Christian education.
This text is the first of hers worth reading, which contextualizes the rest of her life’s work.
Mason believed that cultivating worthy affections - or “rightly ordering” a child’s loves, desires, and emotional attachments - is a primary goal of education.
But, perhaps her greatest insight is that this “feast” is never optional.
The affections are always being cultivated, and our digital age has only amplified this.
Every soul is always feeding on something.
No one remains neutral.
The fight for our salvation is waged on the battleground of our attention and affections.
That is to say, our souls are nourished not only by what we receive, but also the manner in which we receive it.
If we don’t “feast” on content that is true, good, and beautiful through living relationships with God, people, books, nature, and art, we will scavenge on whatever is easiest to digitally consume: outrage, distraction, novelty, comfort, entertainment, and noise.
The appetite itself is not so much the problem.
The question is whether it has been habituated to crave what gives life or merely what offers momentary pleasure.
Jesus' Beatitude suddenly comes into sharper focus.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." implies that righteousness has become the object of their appetite.
They have learned to delight in what God delights in.
The tragedy of our age is that we “snack” all day on lesser things until we have no room left for the feast God has prepared.
While fasting removes what spoils the appetite, formation teaches us to love the right food.
As it turns out, every single person, whether he likes it or not, is about the business of education because education is character formation.
Asceticism alone doesn't make someone holy.
It simply cleanses the palate.
Authentic education, in the deepest Christian sense, fills the soul with truth, goodness, and beauty until righteousness itself becomes desirable.
In other words, fasting makes us hungry; formation teaches us what to hunger for.
Onward and Upward,
Ted
If you’ve enjoyed these reflections, please consider a paid membership or buy me a coffee.
If now isn’t the right time, I’d be grateful if you shared Into Deep Water with a friend.
