The Blessedness of Divine Vision

u Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” — Matt. xvi. 17.

The Master is not here pronouncing a blessing on Peter; He is declaring that Peter is already blessed. He is not promising him a place in the beatitudes of a future heaven; He is proclaiming the truth that he has reached even now the heavenly beatific joy, “Blessed art thou.” We speak of the dead as among the blessed, yet the living as well as the dead may reach the goal of blessedness. Why did the Master pronounce Peter blessed? It was because he had reached in life what is supposed to be the boon only of death — the joy of revelation. Is there to thee any blessedness equal to that, anything which thou wouldst choose in comparison with that? Hast thou too not felt at times the joy of a revelation which flesh and blood could never give, the rapture of seeing further than the bodily eye can see, of hearing further than the bodily ear can hear? When thou hast stood upon the margin of the shore and surveyed far and wide the expanse of waters, and when there has risen within thee a sense of the boundless, the infinite, the divine, what is that which has made thy blessedness? It is the knowledge that something has been revealed to thee which flesh and blood could not have revealed. What gave thee that sense of the boundless? Not the sea, for the sea was itself limited, and the finite cannot wake the infinite. It came from no material source; flesh and blood did not reveal it unto thee, but thy Father which is in heaven. That was the knowledge which no MOMENTS ON THE MOUNT.

made thee blessed in beholding the expanse of waters — the knowledge that thou wert larger than they. Yea, and that blessedness should be thine always, everywhere. For, indeed, thou art larger than all materialisms, 0 my soul. Flesh and blood could never have re< revealed to thee any of the things which make thee man. Even the visible form of the Christ would not have revealed to thee His beauty; if thou hast seen His beauty, it is by another eye than sense. If thy heart has burned as He talked with thee by the way, if thine aspiration has soared as He pointed thee to the mount of God, it can only be because thy heart is already one with His heart, because thine aspiration is already harmonious with His holy will. Thou couldst not have seen Him as He is if thou hadst not been like Him, for the divine alone can recognise the divine. The mutual recognition is the proof of a kindred spirit; “Blessed art thou.”