All Saints by the Lake, Dorval
February, 2026
Candle for the Wave of Light for miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss, 2016.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
The Beatitudes – this list of blessings – is like the Lord’s Prayer, in that it’s so familiar that we can miss how radical it is.
Blessed are those who mourn. And blessed are those who keep the peace when the world cries out for war, and blessed are those who keep their hearts pure when everything is conspiring to corrupt them, and blessed are those who are merciful when everyone is urging them to vengeance, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness when any such things seems utterly impossible, and blessed are those who are jeered and spat on and called horrible names because they dare to insist that the world could be better.
Everything that the world defines as winning, Jesus turns on its head, proclaiming, against all apparent logic, “blessed are the losers.”
And when our lives are basically comfortable and happy, it all sounds very weird and a little bit off-putting. But when our lives are comfortable and happy is precisely the time that we need to let these words sink into our souls, need to engrave them on our hearts, because by the time we need them –
Well, I don’t want to say it’s too late, because there’s no such thing as “too late” in God’s time. But I’ve been a priest long enough to have had many conversations with people whose lives have been suddenly turned upside down by loss and grief, and who conclude from that experience that God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t love them, or that the last place that they could go to be supported and held up in their time of mourning would be church.
The mindset is so widespread, and so persistent, that somehow God only wants to see us or hear from us when we’re happy and content. That lament and anger are unfit for people of faith, and if you experience them that disqualifies you from participation in the worshiping community. That we have to go off and suffer alone, until we can plaster a smile on our faces and be worthy of polite society again.
But Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.”
And not, “Blessed are those who mourn, because God will magically take their grief away.” Not “blessed are those who mourn, because they should be glad their loved ones are in a better place now.”
But, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Grief and mourning are real, and as anyone who has grieved knows, the only way out is through. There’s nothing else to do with the feelings besides feel them, and do the work of putting yourself back together and figuring out how your life will be changed by this loss. And the thing that is the most helpful as you go through this process, are comforters. Sympathetic people who will bring you casseroles and hold you while you cry and reassure you that yes, this sucks, but it’s also a universal human experience and you will get through it.
And there can be many blessings in this process – blessings of increased strength, deepened friendship, heartfelt gratitude, and joyful memories. But it’s so much better to know, going in to your experience of mourning, that God blesses those who mourn, because then you can be on the lookout for those blessings. You can almost expect them. You can be ready to find God in the midst of your mourning, rather than angry and ashamed and hiding like a hurt animal.
And of course, Jesus promises blessings – but it’s the church’s job to make those blessings come true. It’s the church’s job to show up and be the comforters. To host the funeral reception, and make the sandwiches, and quietly fetch the Kleenex box, and when someone is sitting in the back pew sobbing, to offer a hug, and if it’s declined, to graciously back off and leave them alone.
Because one of the great strengths of liturgical worship, like we have as Anglicans, is its predictability. If you show up on a Sunday, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. And when your world has just collapsed around you, that can be exactly what you need – a familiar container to hold you as you cry, and you don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to, but you can stand next to them and sing songs about the love of Jesus, and then go up to the altar rail with empty hands and have Jesus literally placed into those hands for you to be fed.
So, this is just one of the many reasons to study scripture, to, as the classic prayer says, “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” it – so that you can prepare yourself to be the grieving person who finds meaning in loss and comfort in community, and you can also prepare yourself to be that community for others who will need it.
And of course this is equally true for the other Beatitudes – though many of them describe experiences that are less universal than grief. In particular, there are many in recent months who have discovered firsthand what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, what it means to be reviled and persecuted for the crime of loving their neighbours. And they are discovering that indeed, despite the fear, despite the awful things that have inspired them to chase ICE vehicles or stand guard outside a preschool or drop off diapers for families too scared to leave the house, that there is blessing beyond imagining in showing up this way.
I have complained before that this is a Sunday where the lectionary offers an embarrass de richesse, that each of these readings is worthy of a whole series of sermons all by itself. But they certainly resonate profoundly with each other as well. The prophet Micah demands, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Blessed, indeed, are the merciful, and the pure in heart, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
And St. Paul declares, “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Blessed are the meek, and those who mourn, and the peacemakers. Blessed are those who see the world not as the cynics see it, but with the topsy-turvy eyes of God, who loves the poor and the persecuted.
And blessed are those who read the scriptures, and prepare for a time when these words will be activated in their own lives, so that they can recognize God’s love working in the world, and be a part of it, and know the blessing of community when they see it.
Amen.
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