(photo: Ed DeBaney, S.J.)

All Saints Day Nov 1, 2015   Retreat Mass at Wernersville

BEATITUDES FROM MATTHEW 5

(Homily for Mass, shortened for the blog!)

…..my lists of words spoken by Jesus include the Beatitudes, the promises that Jesus makes to the disciples of blessedness or, as some translate, happiness.   I do admit, of course, that the beatitudes are very stylized and have a rhetorical character.   One wonders if Jesus worked out the balance and poetry.   But I think of these sayings as expressions of Jesus’ experience.  Let me make that the first and main point this morning….

These promises of blessedness and happiness are made first of all by the Father to the humanity of Jesus.   Jesus responds in obedience to the Father in order to bring about these promises for others but His Father first of all so relates to Jesus’ human spirit as to fill it with these promised blessings, with a happiness that cannot be described in earthly terms alone, with a host of consolations related to his obedience to the Father’s call.  

It is the blessed (and can we say happy?).  It is the blessed Jesus who is able to welcome the disciples to a celebration of the Kingdom of God now at hand.   It is the blessed Jesus (and can we say confident in the future of peace, and mercy and justice?).  It is the blessed Jesus that attracted the disciples and the great crowds that followed him.  It is the blessed Jesus (and can we say the Jesus having  a pure vision of God in everything and everyone around him?).  It is the blessed Jesus that encouraged and strengthened his friends.   Jesus stated these promises or blessings not merely as poetic turns of phrase for an auspicious occasion.  Rather these promises pour out of Jesus own heart.   He owns them.  They signify both his constant demeanor and his consoled frame of mind. 

God places Jesus in his humanity as the model of the blessed. Blessed or happy is Jesus poor, meek, mourning, merciful, pure of heart, thirsting for peace and justice, taking insults as a result of his challenging character

All of these promises enumerate, as one scholar states “the results of the characteristics Jesus expected of the citizens of (God’s) Kingdom.”  Jesus is the first born of such citizens.  The promise of blessedness or happiness belongs first to Jesus who longs to share it with us….