Blessings And The Way

Beati immaculati in via, qui ambulant in lege Domini. Prima igitur haec beatitudo est, beatos esse qui immaculati in via sint: sed non in via fortuita et in incerta et in erratica, sed in via in qua in lege Domini ambulatur. Plures etenim utilem et necessariam viam sese ingressos existimant; sed immaculati in via non erunt, quia non in lege Domini ambulant. Sed via haec non solum ineunda est, sed etiam pergenda . Nemo enim dum in via est, id ad quod per viam tendit obtinuit; secundum quod beatus Paulus ait, Non quod aliquid acceperim, aut jam perfectus sim: sequor autem si apprehendam, in quo et apprehensus sum a Christo. Ergo adhuc ille pergebat: sed pergebat ea quae retro sunt obliviscens, his autem quae in priora sunt se extendens. Itaque viam hanc agens beatus est, qui cum oblivione praeteritorum in futurorum spem extenditur. Et quae via sit in qua unusquisque ambulans beatus sit. Dominus docet dicens: Ego sum via. Quisquis igitur in praeceptis ejus institerit, hic beatus est: dum vitia carnis coercet, dum animi petulantiam edomat, dum avaritiae famem vincit, dum terrenorum honorum gloriam evitat. Qui in his ergo manserit, hic est immaculatus in via, et in lege Domini ambulans. Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis, Tractatus super Psalmos, Tractatus in Psalmum CXVIII Source: Migne PL 9.504c-505a

Blessed are the immaculate on the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. 1 First, then, is this blessing, that they are blessed who are immaculate on the way, but they do not walk by chance or uncertainty or erratically, but in the law of God. Many indeed judge themselves to have entered on a useful and necessary way, but they shall not be immaculate on it because they do not walk in the law of God. But this way must not only be entered on, it must even be travelled on. For no one, while he is on the way, attains that to which he goes. According to which the blessed Paul says: 'Not that I have obtained something, or am now perfect, but I follow that I might gain it, in which I am gained by Christ.' 2 Therefore he was yet walking onward, but walking onward he was forgetting those things which were behind, and to those things which were before he was reaching out. Thus this way is the action of the blessed, who forgetting the past, reach out in hope for the future. And what is that way in which anyone who walks is blessed, the Lord teaches, saying. 'I am the way.' 3 Whoever, therefore, shall stood stood on His commands, he is blessed, while he corrects the vices of the flesh, while he tames the petulance of the soul, while he conquers the hunger of avarice, while he shuns the glory of worldly honours. And he who shall persist in these things, he is immaculate in the way, and he walks in the law of the Lord. Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Homilies on the Psalms, from Psalm 118 1 Ps 118.1 2 Philip 3.12 3 Jn 14.6