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The eight Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-10) are the Decalogue of the New Law. What the Ten Commandments were to the chosen people of Israel, the Beatitudes are to the people of God in Christianity. What are they? They are eight promises of “happiness” to those who fulfill eight conditions as followers of Christ. The term, “Blessed”, passive voice, is not a happiness of the world, but a supernatural one as only God can reward those who serve him with their whole heart; it is a happiness not only in the life to come but now here on earth. The Beatitudes are meant for every Christian believer. To be stressed is that Christ himself lived the Beatitudes which he proclaimed. A good synonym for the imitation of Christ is the practice of the Beatitudes.

Poverty of spirit. Christ promises the kingdom of heaven to those who are internally detached from the things on earth. Heaven & earth are here contrasted. The more our hearts are freed from worldly riches & possessions, the more happy we shall be even this side of eternity.

Meekness. Meekness is the virtue of temperance, which controls our natural impulse to anger under provocation. Gentleness is the virtue of charity which restrains our natural urge to severity with those who provoke us. Christ's promise that we shall inherit the earth is no poetic phrase. It is the assurance of influence, of converting sinners, and of being a channel of grace to others to the degree that we are meek & gentle with them.

Mourning. Christ legitimizes sorrow when he wept over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus. To mourn is human as shown by God himself who became the Man of Sorrows. What is the promise?  The strength of will not only to mourn in patience, but to grow in love, because faith tells us that we are most pleasing to God when we are most like his divine Son.

Hunger & thirst satisfied. The clearest biblical synonyms for strong desire are hunger & thirst. We are told that our desire will be satisfied, even in this life, provided we desire what God wants. What then is the secret to happiness even in this life? To know what God wants for us, to choose to do what he wants, and then to do it. All unhappiness is unsatisfied desire. We are not to be unhappy. And we shall be happy, even this side of heaven, in the measure that we desire what is right - which means we must conform ourselves to the loving but often demanding will of God. 

Mercy as a condition for gaining mercy. Christ clearly taught the cause-and-effect relationship between our mercy towards others and God's mercy to us. God has a profoundly good reason for allowing us to be offended by others. It provides us with a shower of opportunities to do penance not only for our sins but also for those of others - especially those who offend us.

Purity of heart. Purity from sin, or sinlessness and purity of chastity are both meant here & on both accounts the reward is overwhelming: we shall see God. Only the sinless & chaste of heart have a right to the Beatific vision of the all-holy God. Even on earth we may speak of seeing God by faith.  We are to grow in faith and the divinely ordained means of this growth are sinlessness and chastity. As we become less sinful, the eyes of our mind perceive God's presence more clearly & deeply. As we grow in chastity, which means chastity of mind & body, our perception of God becomes more vivid and our seeing him, more profound.

Peacemaking and intimacy with God. Peace is the absence of conflict. It is tranquility of order. There is peace of mind, the experience of knowing the truth. and there is peace of heart, the experience of doing God's will. There can be no peace of heart unless there is first peace of mind. I must know the truth before I can choose the true good, which God wants me to do. There can be no real peace between people unless there is peace within people. All discord and all the conflict between people can be traced to a greater or lesser lack of interior peace within those who are in conflict with each other. We must be peace makers on three levels: help others know the truth; help others conform their wills to God's will; and help reconcile people who are in conflict - success ultimately depends on God but it also depends on our own peace of soul to make us channels of the peace of Christ to others.

Joy in persecution. The eighth Beatitude is a summary of the Gospels. It synthesizes the whole teaching of the Master on following him faithfully, even though it necessarily means misunderstanding, rejection, even persecution from the world that crucified the Savior. The important word here is "necessarily." When God became man and proclaimed his message of salvation he was – to put it mildly - not treated favorably by those whom he came to save. Time and again, he repeated, "a servant is not greater than his master."  What his contemporaries did to him are what the contemporaries of his followers will do to them who sincerely strive to become like him. No wonder the promised reward is heaven in the life to come.

(Ref. John Hardon, A Retreat with the Lord, Day 13.)