4th sunday Ordinary time 2008
Beatitudes
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
The eight beatitudes we have in today’s gospel constitute a road map for anyone who seeks to attain this happiness of the kingdom. The Eight Beatitudes do not describe eight different people such that we need to ask which of the eight suits us personally. No, they are eight different snapshots taken from different angles of the same godly person. In them we find the "attitudes" of Jesus.
A parent is walking in the woods searching for a lost child. Suddenly, in the distance, the parent hears what sounds like a faint cry for help. The parent stops--the sound of the dead leaves being crushed underfoot drowns out the faint cry. The parent is motionless, even to the point of not breathing. In the woods at this moment the parent has become a listening presence. That special love between a parent and a child allows the parent to hear what the other searchers will never hear. Love recognizes the faintest cry in the distance and distinguishes it from the other sounds in the woods. Without that love relationship, the faint cry would not be heard. Without that relationship we won’t understand God’s word.
The Beatitudes lie at the heart of Christ's teaching, for they describe our relationship to the Kingdom in three ways. First, these simple rules address our highest desire: happiness with God. For, only God can satisfy the heart. Second, they describe the path to God for us as individuals and together as a Church. Through the Beatitudes, we share God's very life (sanctifying grace) because we enter into his Kingdom. Finally, they challenge us to live moral lives by putting God first. If we want to know what it truly means to be a Christian we need to listen and understand the Beatitudes in Matthew.
1)"Blessed are the poor in spirit, Spiritual poverty recognizes that all we have and all we are, is a total gift from God. We are totally dependent on God, a good and loving God, who is in charge of the universe and of our lives. They are those who are aware of their own smallness and emptiness. This Beatitude assumes that someone either already has certain possessions or gifts and is nevertheless poor in spirit, or that he does not have certain things but is detached from what he doesn’t have. Do you know we can be attached to things we don’t have? In either case, poverty of spirit is “detachment of spirit.”
To be detached in spirit so that we use the gifts we have as God wants us to use them, and to enjoy them only insofar as the Lord wants us to enjoy them, but never to take complacency in any creature.
The rich in spirit don’t hunger for anything. They are “full of themselves,” self-satisfied. When offered an opportunity to grow spiritually, they protest “but I’m a good person and worship God in my own way” or “I go to Mass every Sunday, isn’t that enough?” They may be able to get excited about the Super bowl, but never about heaven.
2) "Blessed are they who mourn… Now as you know, there is trouble with our English language. Because, while the labels remain quite constant, the meaning of what’s behind the label is determined by the persons who use the language.
There is distinction between sorrow and sadness. Christ does not mean “happy those who are sad.” Sadness is mourning. It is either mourning over the wrong object or excessive mourning.
Sorrow, on the other hand, is grief over what deserves to be mourned (and mourned in the right way). The Gospels give us a fine description of what is to be mourned in the two episodes where we are told that Our Lord wept. He wept over Jerusalem and at Lazarus’ tomb. Why did Christ weep over Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem was sinning! What, then, is a correct object for mourning? Sin. Christ Himself, the Son of God, not only mourned over Jerusalem, but what happened in Gethsemane? He was in positive agony. We say, with some justification, this was in anticipating His sufferings, but mainly it was due to sin—our sin.
At Lazarus’ tomb, Christ sorrowed over Lazarus’ death. We, too, sorrow over the loss of people we love. Those who are honest about their sorrows and sins will gain the consolation of the Lord. They know how little they are without God. In their sorrow, they will be comforted.
3) "Blessed are the meek… the meek know that God is ultimately in control, and they are about doing the divine will. Gentleness is strength restrained by love. Only strong people can be gentle. Others can seem to be, but they are not. Gentleness, therefore, is not weakness; it is just the opposite. It means that someone has hurt me but I don’t hurt back. How many times in public you have been told things when everything in you cries out to tear a person to shreds. But you don’t, not because you can’t, but because love keeps you from doing that which nature urges you to do.
4) "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…We all have longings: for meaning, for intimacy, for depth. You name the desires and we’ve got them. The highest ideal of all is to desire above all else to put God's righteous will into action and then work unceasingly with his help to grow in holiness, justice, and truth. Truth in the following of Christ consists in desiring and then choosing what is right.
5) "Blessed are the merciful…If we give mercy, we shall get mercy. Mercy is love that overcomes resistance. Mercy is love in the face of sin and injury. I love in spite of the fact that I am not loved. I love those things which cause me difficulty and trouble. I love even those who not only don’t love me, but who may oppose me, who may hate me. This is what God’s mercy is towards us. It is His love overcoming resistance. And you know who offers resistance to God’s love—we do. Yet in spite of us, God loves us. That is mercy.
6) "Blessed are the clean of heart… The pure of heart are those who are not defiled and polluted by values and attitudes that take us away from God. We know that our seeing is dependent upon the condition of our hearts. They put on the mind and heart of God, looking on others with the eyes of Jesus. There are many meanings to the expression “purity of heart.” But the one that we cannot omit is the internal chastity of mind, symbolized by the biblical word “heart.” Chastity confers clarity of vision.
7) "Blessed are the peacemakers… God's peace is the rightness of relationships. Peace embraces four satellites: truth, charity, freedom and justice. Peacemaking means reconciliation: first with God, the highest kind of peacemaking; with themselves, and within themselves.
8) "Blessed are they who are persecuted …The Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, once said, "No cross, no crown." To stand up for what is right, especially in the face of mockery, rejection, and verbal and even physical abuse, is to stand with Jesus Christ and help him carry his cross. Jesus never promised us a rose garden; he did promise us eternal happiness united to the Blessed Trinity.
Like any ideal of happiness, the road is as important as the destination. Striving to live the Beatitudes day by day opens us to God's lead and the way to his Kingdom. Think of the Beatitudes as Jesus taught us as attitudes for happiness. They will require us to change our lives. But the payoff? Happiness. Thomas Aquinas said: No one can live without joy.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
The eight beatitudes we have in today’s gospel constitute a road map for anyone who seeks to attain this happiness of the kingdom. The Eight Beatitudes do not describe eight different people such that we need to ask which of the eight suits us personally. No, they are eight different snapshots taken from different angles of the same godly person. In them we find the "attitudes" of Jesus.
A parent is walking in the woods searching for a lost child. Suddenly, in the distance, the parent hears what sounds like a faint cry for help. The parent stops--the sound of the dead leaves being crushed underfoot drowns out the faint cry. The parent is motionless, even to the point of not breathing. In the woods at this moment the parent has become a listening presence. That special love between a parent and a child allows the parent to hear what the other searchers will never hear. Love recognizes the faintest cry in the distance and distinguishes it from the other sounds in the woods. Without that love relationship, the faint cry would not be heard. Without that relationship we won’t understand God’s word.
The Beatitudes lie at the heart of Christ's teaching, for they describe our relationship to the Kingdom in three ways. First, these simple rules address our highest desire: happiness with God. For, only God can satisfy the heart. Second, they describe the path to God for us as individuals and together as a Church. Through the Beatitudes, we share God's very life (sanctifying grace) because we enter into his Kingdom. Finally, they challenge us to live moral lives by putting God first. If we want to know what it truly means to be a Christian we need to listen and understand the Beatitudes in Matthew.
1)"Blessed are the poor in spirit, Spiritual poverty recognizes that all we have and all we are, is a total gift from God. We are totally dependent on God, a good and loving God, who is in charge of the universe and of our lives. They are those who are aware of their own smallness and emptiness. This Beatitude assumes that someone either already has certain possessions or gifts and is nevertheless poor in spirit, or that he does not have certain things but is detached from what he doesn’t have. Do you know we can be attached to things we don’t have? In either case, poverty of spirit is “detachment of spirit.”
To be detached in spirit so that we use the gifts we have as God wants us to use them, and to enjoy them only insofar as the Lord wants us to enjoy them, but never to take complacency in any creature.
The rich in spirit don’t hunger for anything. They are “full of themselves,” self-satisfied. When offered an opportunity to grow spiritually, they protest “but I’m a good person and worship God in my own way” or “I go to Mass every Sunday, isn’t that enough?” They may be able to get excited about the Super bowl, but never about heaven.
2) "Blessed are they who mourn… Now as you know, there is trouble with our English language. Because, while the labels remain quite constant, the meaning of what’s behind the label is determined by the persons who use the language.
There is distinction between sorrow and sadness. Christ does not mean “happy those who are sad.” Sadness is mourning. It is either mourning over the wrong object or excessive mourning.
Sorrow, on the other hand, is grief over what deserves to be mourned (and mourned in the right way). The Gospels give us a fine description of what is to be mourned in the two episodes where we are told that Our Lord wept. He wept over Jerusalem and at Lazarus’ tomb. Why did Christ weep over Jerusalem? Because Jerusalem was sinning! What, then, is a correct object for mourning? Sin. Christ Himself, the Son of God, not only mourned over Jerusalem, but what happened in Gethsemane? He was in positive agony. We say, with some justification, this was in anticipating His sufferings, but mainly it was due to sin—our sin.
At Lazarus’ tomb, Christ sorrowed over Lazarus’ death. We, too, sorrow over the loss of people we love. Those who are honest about their sorrows and sins will gain the consolation of the Lord. They know how little they are without God. In their sorrow, they will be comforted.
3) "Blessed are the meek… the meek know that God is ultimately in control, and they are about doing the divine will. Gentleness is strength restrained by love. Only strong people can be gentle. Others can seem to be, but they are not. Gentleness, therefore, is not weakness; it is just the opposite. It means that someone has hurt me but I don’t hurt back. How many times in public you have been told things when everything in you cries out to tear a person to shreds. But you don’t, not because you can’t, but because love keeps you from doing that which nature urges you to do.
4) "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…We all have longings: for meaning, for intimacy, for depth. You name the desires and we’ve got them. The highest ideal of all is to desire above all else to put God's righteous will into action and then work unceasingly with his help to grow in holiness, justice, and truth. Truth in the following of Christ consists in desiring and then choosing what is right.
5) "Blessed are the merciful…If we give mercy, we shall get mercy. Mercy is love that overcomes resistance. Mercy is love in the face of sin and injury. I love in spite of the fact that I am not loved. I love those things which cause me difficulty and trouble. I love even those who not only don’t love me, but who may oppose me, who may hate me. This is what God’s mercy is towards us. It is His love overcoming resistance. And you know who offers resistance to God’s love—we do. Yet in spite of us, God loves us. That is mercy.
6) "Blessed are the clean of heart… The pure of heart are those who are not defiled and polluted by values and attitudes that take us away from God. We know that our seeing is dependent upon the condition of our hearts. They put on the mind and heart of God, looking on others with the eyes of Jesus. There are many meanings to the expression “purity of heart.” But the one that we cannot omit is the internal chastity of mind, symbolized by the biblical word “heart.” Chastity confers clarity of vision.
7) "Blessed are the peacemakers… God's peace is the rightness of relationships. Peace embraces four satellites: truth, charity, freedom and justice. Peacemaking means reconciliation: first with God, the highest kind of peacemaking; with themselves, and within themselves.
8) "Blessed are they who are persecuted …The Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, once said, "No cross, no crown." To stand up for what is right, especially in the face of mockery, rejection, and verbal and even physical abuse, is to stand with Jesus Christ and help him carry his cross. Jesus never promised us a rose garden; he did promise us eternal happiness united to the Blessed Trinity.
Like any ideal of happiness, the road is as important as the destination. Striving to live the Beatitudes day by day opens us to God's lead and the way to his Kingdom. Think of the Beatitudes as Jesus taught us as attitudes for happiness. They will require us to change our lives. But the payoff? Happiness. Thomas Aquinas said: No one can live without joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment