The Beatitudes cannot be taken alone: they are not Ideals; they are Hard-Facts and Realities inseparable from the Cross of Calvary. What He taught was Self-Crucifixion:
* to Love those who Hate us;
* to pluck-out-eyes and cut-off-arms in order to prevent Sinning;
* to be Clean on the Inside when the Passions clamor for Satisfaction on the Outside;
* to Forgive those who would put us to Death;
* to overcome Evil with Good;
* to Bless those who Curse us;
* to stop mouthing Freedom until we have Justice, Truth and Love of God in our Hearts as the condition of Freedom;
* to live in the World and still keep oneself Unpolluted from it;
* to Deny ourselves sometimes Legitimate Pleasures in order the better to Crucify our Egotism - all this is to sentence the Old-Man in us to Death.
--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen