Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Sister Anawim used to call me to say the Mass for the Missionaries of Charity in Downtown Newark, a place you do not want to go at night. It was always a very moving experience since the nuns are so young, from every continent, barefoot, and very pious. Her name means the little one, or the one who is poor in spirit. I always thought that it meant the one who was broke, financially poor. But the gospel (Matthew 5: 1-12) meaning is totally different. It means the one who is fully dependent on God; the one who sees he or she is incapable of doing anything worthwhile for the Lord with their own efforts. They are the ones who have the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus, seeing the crowds, went up to the mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him, and he taught them. The setting was very cosmic: blue sky, earth and the Word. When Moses received the Ten Commandments it was thunder and lightning; here it is completely different. Jesus spoke without any trace or reference to his Father. And he spoke with ultimate authority, as God. He is not only the new Moses but God himself.
Blessed is sometimes translated as happy is the one…but this is not so accurate. It is not a psychological happiness that the Beatitudes give us. Fortunate captures the idea more completely. Many desire to have meekness, purity of heart and to be peacemakers, but few attain it. How fortunate are they? Bien adventurado in Spanish gets it even more so.
And in Greek there is no verb after the ‘blessed.’ It would read: blessed the poor in spirit for they…It also tells us that God is NOT asking you to do many things; it is not a list of do’s and don’ts. It is the spirit of God that he wants to give you. One of the Church Fathers said, God became man so that we might become God. His son became man so that we could see that it was possible to be like God.
The gospel does not say: blessed are those who fast, or give alms or pray. The Beatitudes go deeper. They are looking at the spirit that underlies the fasting. Do them in the right spirit and they will lead you to God. If you and I do them as a Pharisee then what’s the point? The Beatitudes teach us to love, as a Christian. This is impossible on a human level, without the help of God.
For the next few weeks we will hear more about this theme of Love as we hear the Sermon on the Mount week by week. Christianity ultimately is a way of love. The true sign of a Christian is one who loves his enemy; the one in your living room, not the one in Iraq. Christian love especially in marriage is not a fifty-fifty arrangement, but a gift of my whole self to the other person. This is shown physically in the act of love, done the way God intended. I give my whole self to the other in marriage and I hold nothing back.
So we will take a look at what it means to love since it is the most important thing that I can do. You may be thinking, “I have enough to do right now and I don’t need something else.” However, to love is one of the deepest desires of man. How much good it will do for your spouse or your child to know deep down that I am loved, unconditionally. To love as a Christian unto death is not humanly possible and I need the help of God to do so. Let us ask for it this week and in particular in the Eucharist where God loves us in a very unique way.