4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This week we have been taking part in Catholic Schools week, over these days we have been celebrating what it means to be a catholic schools. We pray for our teachers, parents, grandparents and the young people that make up our school communities where we are. The Gospel text for this weekend is the story that we know as the ‘Beatitudes’. The beatitudes introduce Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom, discipleship, the true meaning of the Law and true righteousness (virtue), interior disposition of the heart against external fulfilment of Law, trust in God and keeping the Kingdom as the focus of the disciples life. In the ancient languages of Aramaic and Greek, the statements of blessedness are an exclamation of surprise and applause. “Oh, Blessed the poor in spirit.” This is acclamation, a shout of praise. The first Beatitude strikes the keynote for the seven Beatitudes that follow. The decisive word in this first Beatitude is the word, poor.
The poor are called ‘blessed’ and ‘happy’ because God’s compassionate gaze rests on them. The poor in the Bible are the humble people who bear a burden on their shoulders. They are given God’s favour and because of this they are identified as just, meek and humble of heart. All kinds of attitudes are included in the eight beatitudes. The poor the weak, the gentle, those who mourn, the merciful, the pure in heart, the persecuted and the peacemakers. These eight blessings stand at the head of the Sermon on the Mount, pointing out eight ways in which we can welcome God into our lives. They are ways of living out God’s blessing. The first and the last knit them all together with ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. Those who are called “blessed” or “happy” in these beatitudes can hardly be described as fortunate or lucky in the eyes of the world: the lowly, the mourners, those deprived of justice, those who are persecuted and abused. In structuring the beatitudes in the way he does, Matthew is not offering a programme that leads to worldly happiness; instead, he is describing what happens to Christian disciples when the kingdom of God breaks into their lives and our broken world. The beatitudes speak of a variety of experiences that disciples undergo as a result of following Jesus message. The result of this involvement might appear to the world as senseless suffering, but Jesus heaps loads of blessings on those who struggle to love and live the truth of the Gospel in their own time and place. Because of who he is Jesus will change us and others will change because they see the change that he makes in us. Without the person of Jesus, Christian discipleship is meaningless.
We are people of the beatitudes when we show the attitude of the beatitudes when we stand for the truth, for the marginalized, for the alien, for the victims of war, for the victims of economic and political systems that serve only the capitalist when they should serve everyone. We are stronger when we show that there is another way and that way is the way of blessedness that is proclaimed in the beatitudes. In that blessedness we remember the poor, the weak, the gentle, those who mourn, the merciful, the pure in heart, the persecuted and the peacemakers we who are the people of god inheritors of the Apostles are called to pass that blessedness on to those around us so the Kingdom of God will be theirs.