Fourth Sunday Reflection: The Beatitudes
Franciscan Reflections from the Hermitage – Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time – The Beatitudes – (Matthew 5:1-12)
If you wish to listen to this reflection, please do so here https://www.spreaker.com/episode/52514861
I’m so blessed, I’ve just landed my dream job! I’m so blessed, I have such gifted children! I’m so blessed, we’ve just bought our perfect home! I’m so blessed to live in such a great country. These are posts from Social media that remind us that Jesus understands our hearts today… as much as those of his listeners 2,000 years ago. Our hearts are empty and conceited, even as we hide behind our illusions.
Jesus uses a number of images to depict our human condition:
We are sick and in need of a physician.
We are lost and need to be found.
We are culpable and in need of forgiveness.
We are distressed and downcast and need a shepherd.
We are blind and need sight.
We are in darkness and need light.
We are dead and need a life.
We are spiritually hungry and thirsty and need bread and water.
We are in slavery and need freedom.
We are possessed and need deliverance.
We are confused and need to know the way.
We are troubled and need peace.
We are idolatrous and need to know God.
Any narcissistic re-branding exercise on social media just ain’t going to get the job done! Being blessed is not about summoning the genie out of the lamp! Jesus is accurate in describing the sickness and sufferings that have befallen us.
Without God… without Jesus… without a relationship of prayer and communion… there is a gut-wrenching emptiness of the abyss facing the truth of our human condition that we eventually must face alone … ageing, sickness and death.
In and through Jesus, however, these were not the final facts about us. Jesus always views us from the vantage point of God’s redemptive purposes. He came to seek and to save that which was lost!
Jesus did not consider his equality with God and something to be exploited but instead came to us in the most vulnerable of ways… as a powerless, flesh and blood newborn. As though to say, you may hate your bodies, but I am blessing all human flesh. You may admire the strength and might, but I am blessing all human weakness. You may seek power, but I am blessing all human vulnerability.
This Jesus cried at the tomb of his friend and forgave those who hung him on the cross. Jesus is God’s Beatitude… God’s blessing to the weak in a world that only admires the strong, successful and important.
Maybe you are mourning, feeling abandoned, abused, unseen or cast aside. Perhaps you are all too aware that it is not your strength and virtue that qualify you to be called blessed, but your need for a God who makes beautiful things out of dust and broken vessels.
It is not our ability to do for ourselves, but the hunger that qualifies us to be fed with the food of Life. For it is a beatitude meal… the broken, blessed and given body of Christ. So as you come, behold who you are. And as the blessings, Jesus pronounced on the mount so long ago… know that it is here that we become what we receive.
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