The Beatitudes
Eight Attitudes for a Holy Lent

Some months ago I received an e-mail from a reader suggesting that Jesus’ eight beatitudes would make a good topic for
E-spirations. As we stand at the threshold of Lent, the timing seems just right for us to explore this teaching of Jesus, which offers us eight attitudes for opening ourselves to God’s saving love.

It’s interesting to note that Jesus presents these eight attitudes immediately after the point in Matthew’s Gospel where he has proclaimed the good news that the Kingdom (God’s saving presence) is at hand (see 4:23). As usual, side by side with Jesus’ proclamation (preaching) of the Kingdom comes his widespread healing activity—his “curing every disease and illness among the people.” The proclaiming of the Kingdom and the healings go hand in hand, as if they are two sides of the same coin.

Matthew tells us at this point that a core part of Jesus’ audience are men and women in desperate straits: “They brought to [Jesus],” Matthew says in 4:24, “all who were sick with various diseases and racked with pain, those who were possessed, lunatics and paralytics, and he cured them.” On the surface, this was not a very happy or self-satisfied group of human beings. They were people keenly in touch with their own poverty and fragility. And so Jesus says to them:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was not there to give comfort to the proud or haughty or to the well-fed but to assure those broken in spirit that they were truly objects of God’s saving love. We can trace this attitude back to the poor, the anawim, of the Old Testament—people who realize that salvation comes as a free gift from Yahweh.
 
2. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Those who feel deeply the pain carried by loved ones or who mourn their own sins are more likely to be in tune with the need for God’s healing and forgiveness.  In Chapter 9 of Matthew’s Gospel, a tax collector named Matthew is among those eating with Jesus. When the question is asked: Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus answers: “Those who are well do not need the physician, but the sick do” (Matthew 9:12). Only those who truly recognize and mourn their sin see the need for God’s healing love.

3. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
The word meek today sometimes suggests softness, even spinelessness. The biblical meaning of meek, however, indicates tolerance, lowliness and respect. As Scripture scholar John P. Meier puts it, the meek “do not push their own plans to the detriment of God’s saving plan.” Jesus describes himself as “meek and humble of heart,” and yet can any human match his inner strength? Mary, too, is an example of biblical meekness. She admits her “lowliness” and knows where her greatness comes from: “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Luke 1:49).

4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied. Here Jesus is saying that those are already blessed who, aligning themselves with God’s saving activity, are dedicated to building a world of justice and righteousness. In such a world, everyone’s rights will be respected. Everyone will find a place at the banquet table and enjoy a fair share of the gifts of God’s creation.

5. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
In the Our Father we ask God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The Peace Prayer of St. Francis picks up the same dynamic in these familiar words: “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.” And this miracle of mercy doesn’t happen just sometime in the next life. It happens now. No sooner does our heart imitate the mercy of God than we are shown the same gift of mercy!

6. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.
With the pure of heart, there is transparency. What you see is what you get. If someone is giving you a gift, that’s what he or she is doing. There is a singleness of aim. There is no mixed intention or duplicitous motive. Sometimes after a spring rain, we come across a clear puddle of water. If we stir that puddle with a stick, it clouds up and loses its clarity. When our motives and intentions are clouded or dishonest, we lose our clarity of heart and our ability to see God—and our neighbor as an image of God.

7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
The Hebrew word shalom helps us understand the full meaning of peace as a state wholeness and total health and well-being. When we wish someone peace in the biblical sense, this is what we are wishing them. When we are in tune with God’s healing and saving love, we are peacemakers, seeking to tear down walls of hatred, division, misunderstanding and prejudice. As instruments of God’s peace, we are instruments of wholeness and reconciliation in our world. We are then true children of God.

8. [a] Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
    [b] Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.
As we look back over the eight beatitudes, we see that Jesus is the perfect model for each of them. He, too, is blessed and happy for the same reasons. In his book Matthew, John P. Meier states: “Ultimately, Jesus is the completely happy man of the beatitudes, the ‘happy attitudes.’ His beatitudes define his own being and call others to be what he is.”

Jesus knows he stands in the tradition of the persecuted and martyred prophets. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling….I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:37-39).

Consider Jesus riding into Jerusalem humbly on an ass. He knows full well—even as the crowds extol him—that he will be persecuted and destroyed by leaders of both the church and state of his day. But he also trusts that God is with him as he breaks through the low-ceiling imperfection of his persecutors—and into the saving love and happiness of God’s kingdom.

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