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Theo Tigno•
6/7/2009 8:53 pm
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Monday, June 8th 2009 |
Matthew 5:1-12
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.
Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Dawg's thought:
Today's prayer intention is for those who were recently ordained.
Today's reflection comes from Fr. John Hardon:
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The Beatitudes are a perfect synthesis of Christ's own life; they are, if you wish, a summary of Christ's own practice of virtue. When we say that perfection consists in following Christ and ask what that means, we can answer that it means practicing the Beatitudes, which Christ first practiced and then preached.
The Beatitudes exemplify the paradoxical character of Christianity. We speak of Christian mysteries, and so they are. They are not fully comprehensible to the human mind. We are told, "He that loses his life will find it" and "Those who are great, but become small, will inherit the kingdom." We are told that God has chosen the "little things," the "foolish things," to confound the strong and the wise. These are all paradoxes. But what is a paradox? It is an apparent contradiction. I like to identify mystery with paradox, and say that our faith is full of paradoxes.
In the Beatitudes, the paradox is happiness, which Christ promises if a person does certain things that naturally-or humanly speaking-are the very opposite of what we would expect to bring happiness. In short, He tells us to do things that we don't naturally enjoy and then tells us we are going to have joy. "Come, come," we say, "Lord, now what do you mean?" "What?" He tells us, "You have heard the word supernatural haven't you?" "Yes, of course, Lord." "Well, that is what I mean. The super part of supernatural is that which I give unexpectedly by your giving up certain things. You sacrifice pleasure and I will give you joy."
There are many translations of the Beatitudes. One begins with, "How happy..." Why? Because it implies how unexpectedly happy "are the poor in spirit." One difficulty in speaking on the foundations of our faith is that, in the nature of things, we have heard such things so often, we have read so much about them, we have prayed about these things so many times, we are tempted to think they are like relearning a multiplication table. No! Every time we direct our faith-inspired minds to these mysteries we learn more about them.
* * *
Take care and God Bless.
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