Blessed Are They

The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time offers a Gospel passage from St. Matthew familiar to Christians. Jesus ascends a mountain and begins teaching the crowds who have gathered. The specific teaching known as the Beatitudes is a litany of how a Christian should live.

Each of the Beatitudes is prefaced by the word “blessed”.  In the Old Testament, the word is associated with God’s might and salvific deeds. As an example, the first book of Genesis tells the reader that God blessed all that he had created and withdrew that blessing when sin entered the world.

By using “blessed,” Jesus not only connects ancient understanding of a relationship with God, but also teaches about an eschatological, meaning the last things. It is the time when all are one in Christ. For the individual, it means eternal life in heaven.

Throughout our tradition, theologians have contrasted the Beatitudes with the Ten Commandments, with the Beatitudes being their fulfillment. St. John Paul II clarifies the relationship between the two. According to Pope John Paul, the beatitudes are not specifically concerned with particular rules of behavior as are the Ten Commandments. For him, the beatitudes are basic attitudes and dispositions, unlike the commandments, which warn against specific activities.

Both, however, refer to eternal life. The Sermon on the Mount demonstrates the openness of the commandments and their orientation to perfection.  Eternal life means perfection, and the only way to reach perfection is through the person of Christ, who himself is perfect. So important is this theme, St. John Paul II indicates the beatitudes “are sort of a self-portrait of Christ, and for this very reason are invitations to discipleship and communion of life with Christ.”  

As outlined above, the beatitudes are neither negative nor commands. Instead, they are a vision of what the culmination and the perfection of a Christian life is.  What appears to be contradictory in earthly terms becomes the norm for eternal life.  Blessed are those who are poor in spirit; and those who mourn; blessed are the meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied; blessed are the merciful and clean of heart; blessed too are the peacemakers and those insulted and persecuted, they will be welcomed into the kingdom.

What Jesus is trying to tell us is what it is like to be God-like. He wants us to imagine what it means to share in the divine life he invites us into. It is a life of grace and goodness. Too often, people think the beatitudes are unattainable. If they were, it would be hard to comprehend Jesus teaching them in the first place. With his grace, we should all work towards perfecting them.

Just think, it isn’t remotely impossible to be merciful when we have received mercy. Or, hunger for righteousness in a world filled with evil. Persecuted, we can definitely withstand it with the courage we have gained through grace.

When we succeed in living out the beatitudes, we experience present and future grace. On earth, we are united with Christ and are full of grace. In our life to come, we have a foretaste of communion with divine life.

Either way, it is the life we should strive for daily.