Jesuit Father Richard Malloy finds it helps to look at other times of distress and learn how people overcame disappointment. Exhibit A: The American civil rights movement during 1966-67.
To be poor in spirit is to be in need of God, to desperately desire God's consolation and aid. Comfortable lives mask our need for and our dependence on God. We think we can take care of ourselves. We say "In God we trust" on our money, not about our celebration of the Eucharist.
Father Rick Malloy tells how his fellow Jesuit was a broken spirit after five years of solitary confinement. Only then could his own poverty lead him to see the poor as brothers and sisters.