We round out this popular approach to the Beatitudes with its final, fatal step. Not only are the conditions cited—poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, and so on—meritorious ones that somehow make it “only right” for God to match them with beatitude, and not only can you be sure of being in the kingdom if you appropriately flee or fall into these conditions, but if you are not in these conditions, you certainly cannot be blessed. If you’re not on the list, you’re not in the kingdom. Perhaps you will not even make it into “heaven” when you die.
