Becoming aware of our enslavement

"Once we have become aware of our enslavement, and have passed from mere lamentation and a sense of misery into a sense of brokenheartedness and poverty of spirit, our imprisonment in the land of Egypt is answered by the words of the next beatitudes: 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted', 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth'. This mourning that is the result of the discovery of the kingdom, of one's own responsibility, of the tragedy of being a slave, is a more bitter mourning than that which is the lot of the simple slave. The slave complains about an outer situation; this mourner, who is blessed by God, does not complain, he is brokenhearted, and he is aware that his outer enslavement is the expression of something far more tragic: his inner enslavement, his severance from the closeness of God. And nothing can be done to escape this situation unless meekness is attained."

Living Prayer, p. 28