January 29^th 2017. Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL: Mt 5:1-12A

 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Mt 5:1-12A

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 
He began to teach them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Summary . . . The Gospel this week proclaims the Beatitudes. How can poverty, mourning, meekness and persecution be sources of blessing? It is not poverty in itself, or mourning in itself, or persecution in itself that constitute a blessing. These states are pathways to God. They make us ready for the action of God in our lives.

            Usually, we provide a summary of the homily here, but the entire homily this week is really a summary of the meaning of the Beatitudes. Please try to read it in its entirety!

Why is the one who mourns blessed? How is being persecuted a blessing? The blessing does not come from he fact of being bereaved or the fact of being persecuted. It comes from the fact that such states prepare us for the action of God in our lives.

Last week we heard the proclamation of the Kingdom of God by Jesus. This week, we hear the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ longest and most comprehensive discourse in all of the Synoptic Gospels. Consider for a moment the structure of the eight Beatitudes proclaimed in this week’s liturgy.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land, etc.

The fact that the phrase “Blessed are . .” is hammered out in rhythmic fashion at the beginning of each Beatitude tends to make us focus on the words that come immediately after the phrase. In other words, we register that the poor in spirit are blessed, those who mourn are blessed, those who are meek are blessed, etc. But this can cause us to lose the authentic sense of what Jesus is saying. Those who mourn are not blessed by the fact that they are mourning. Those who are persecuted are not blessed by the fact that they are persecuted. It is the second element in each phrase - the part that comes after the “because” - that tells us why these people are blessed! It is a matter of cause and effect, after all, and it is this second part that tells us the reason for the blessing. The poor in spirit are blessed because there is something in this condition that allows them to possess the Kingdom of Heaven.  Those who mourn are blessed because this condition is the departure point for arriving at authentic consolation. The beautiful passive form of the verb  - “they shall be consoled” - tells us that it is God who will do the consoling. The meek are blessed because they will inherit the land. Those who hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied. The justice referred to here is not a legalistic, forensic form of justice but the justice of the Kingdom of Heaven, the justice of God, our relationship with him. Those who hunger and thirst for a real relationship with him are blessed because they will be satisfied. The hunger and privation that they feel is the point of departure for attaining genuine fulfilment. The merciful are blessed because they will receive mercy. They pardon others and have a more fundamental blessing in store for themselves because they too will be pardoned. The pure in heart are blessed because they will see God. A pure heart is a heart that has said “no” to certain things. It is not confused, has not made compromises, is not tainted. This act of being pure is not easy. It is painful and requires renunciation and abnegations. But these renunciations in themselves are not the point! The point is to be able to see God! To have one’s eyes fixed on the invisible and to arrive at the contemplation of God in Paradise.

It is not poverty, persecution or mourning that we seek. We seek heavenly consolation. We seek the Kingdom of heaven. Poverty of spirit, mourning, persecution and meekness are all pathways to the Kingdom.

The Beatitudes are really posing eight questions of us: Do you wish to possess the Kingdom of God? Do you seek authentic consolation? Are you interested in a genuine inheritance? Do you want to be satisfied in a complete and eternal way? Would you like to be pardoned deeply? Have you a desire to see God? Do you long to be a child of God? Do you want to enter into that Kingdom which alone is worthy of our allegiance? If a person is interested in these “fullnesses”, then he must return to the beginning of the Beatitudes and look at the eight pathways announced by this passage.

Summary of the ways in which these pathways lead to blessings

Poverty is not something pleasant. To be poor in spirit signifies to have the sort of simplicity within that is the precondition for possessing the greatest riches of all. To be in a state of grief is the precondition for receiving the fullness of consolation. Tears and mourning by themselves can often prompt the sort of useless consolations that serve nothing.  But mourning can also bring a beam of wisdom with respect to life. Weeping can be an important occasion, a gift that God bestows on us. Even while we are suffering, the Lord is preparing us for something else. Meekness involves bending to others as if they were stronger than us. It involves a control of aggression, of avoiding clashing with others, a refraining from standing up to others. We hate being meek! We hate behaving like sheep for the slaughter! We prefer to assert ourselves, but in so doing we lose the “land”, the possession that the Lord wants to bestow on us. All we end up with is that which we are able to take with our own force and our own aggression. Meekness, by contrast, is the road to authentic possession. To have hunger and thirst for justice is to feel oneself to be unjust. It is to be aware on one’s need for a greater righteousness. It is to be aware of one’s own sinfulness. To be merciful is to acknowledge that I do not have the right to stand over others in judgement. How often we focus on describing the sins of others and fail to see our own sinfulness. The person who is merciful is someone who has their perspective on themselves in order.  All of these things help us to realize that our hearts as they are now are inadequate and deficient. The pure of heart are those who realize that we must often resist the temptations to follow where the heart would like to lead us. We must be able to choose to do that which is right, because many of the choices before our hearts are simply wrong. The one who is persecuted is someone who has been excluded. The etymology of the word refers to someone who has been thrown out, marginalized. If the persecuted are blessed then it means that it is in some sense important that we are excluded by this world if we are to arrive at the Kingdom of Heaven. If you are the centre of popularity in this world then you are far from the Kingdom of Heaven, simple as that! To be on the threshold of the Kingdom means to be on the margins of this world. What does it matter if people think badly of us because we follow the Lord Jesus? We are a disappointment to this world if we follow the Lord! How fortunate we are if there is opposition, if there is no applause for us! Later on in the same sermon, Jesus will say, “Woe to you if people speak well of you, for they did the same for the false prophets”. To be a true prophet is to be on the margins of this world. What an interesting life this is! What a beautiful, unique life! The Christian life is not banal or predictable. It is full of absolute novelty, a journey of discovery that the Lord has prepared for us.