The second Beatitude: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt 5:4). Is it good to mourn and to declare mourning blessed? There are two kinds of mourning. The first is the kind that has lost hope, that has become mistrustful of love and of truth, and that therefore eats away and destroys man from within. But there is also the mourning occasioned by the shattering encounter with truth, which leads man to undergo conversion and to resist evil. This mourning heals, because it teaches man to hope and to love again...
Those who do not harden their hearts to the pain and need of others, who do not give evil entry to their souls, but suffer under its power and so acknowledge the truth of God - they are the ones who open the windows of the world to let the light in. It is to those who mourn in this sense that great consolation is promised.
From "Jesus of Nazareth", by Pope Benedict XVI
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