Matthew
5:1-12
The Beatitudes
a) Opening Prayer:
Lord, the meaning of our life is to seek your Word, which came
to us in the person of Christ. Make me capable of welcoming what is new in the
Gospel of the Beatitudes, so that I may change my life. I would know nothing
about you were it not for the light of the words spoken by your Son Jesus, who
came to tell us of your marvels. When I am weak, if I go to Him, the Word of
God, then I become strong. When I act foolishly, the wisdom of his Gospel
restores me to relish God and the kindness of his love. He guides me to the
paths of life. When some deformity appears in me, I reflect on his Word and the
image of my personality becomes beautiful. When solitude tries to make me dry,
my spiritual marriage to him makes my life fruitful. When I discover some
sadness or unhappiness in myself, the thought of Him, my only good, opens the
way to joy. Therese of the Child Jesus has a saying that sums up the desire for
holiness as an intense search for God and a listening to others: «If you are
nothing, remember that Jesus is all. You must therefore lose your little
nothing into his infinite all and think of nothing else but this uniquely
lovable all… (Letters, 87, to Marie Guérin).
b) Reading the Gospel:
1 Seeing the crowds, he went onto the mountain. And when he was
seated his disciples came to him.
2 Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:
3 How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of Heaven is
theirs.
4 Blessed are the gentle: they shall have the earth as
inheritance.
5 Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they
shall have their fill.
7 Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognized as
children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of
uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
11 Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and
speak all kinds of calumny against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven;
this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.
c) A Moment of Prayerful Silence:
It is important to be able to listen in deep silence so that the
word of Christ may speak to us and so that the Word made flesh may dwell in us
and us in him. It is only in silent hearts that the Word of God can take root
and, on this Solemnity of All Saints, become flesh in us.
2. Light Shed on the Word (Lectio)
a) The Context:
Jesus‟ words on the Beatitudes that Matthew drew from his
sources, were condensed in short and isolated phrases, and the Evangelist has
placed them in a broader context, which Biblical scholars call the “sermon
on the mount” (Chapters 5-7). This sermon is considered like the statutes
or Magna Carta that Jesus gave to the community as a normative and
binding word that defines a Christian.
The many themes contained in this long sermon are not to be seen
as collection of exhortations, but rather as a clear and radical indication of
the new attitude of the disciples towards God, oneself and the brothers and
sisters. Some expressions used by Jesus may seem exaggerated, but they are used
to stress reality and thus are realistic in the context although not so in a
literary sense: for instance in vv. 29-30: “If your right eye should be your
downfall, tear it out and throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose
one part of yourself than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And if your
right hand should be your downfall, cut it off and throw it away, for it will
do you less harm to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body go
to hell.” This manner of speaking indicates the effect desired to be
created in the reader, who must understand correctly Jesus‟ words so as not
to distort their meaning.
Our focus, for liturgical reasons, will be on the first part of
the “sermon on the mount,” that is the part dealing with the
proclamation of the beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12).
b) Some Details:
Matthew invites the reader to listen to the beatitudes
proclaimed by Jesus with a rich concentration of details. First, he indicates
the place where Jesus proclaims his sermon: “Jesus went onto the mountain”
(5:1). That is why exegetes call this the “sermon on the mount” even
though Luke places this sermon on level ground (Lk 6:20-26). The geographic
location of the “mountain” could be a veiled reference to an episode in
the OT quite like ours: that is, when Moses proclaims the Decalogue on mount
Sinai. It is possible that Matthew wishes to present Jesus as the new Moses who
proclaims the new law.
Another detail that strikes us is the physical posture of Jesus
as he proclaims his words: “when he was seated.” This posture confers
upon him a note of authority in the legislative sense. The disciples and the
“crowd” gather around him: this detail shows what Jesus had to say was for all
to hear. We note that Jesus’ words do not present impossible matters, nor are
they addressed to a special group of people, nor do they mean to establish a
code of ethics exclusively for his inner circle. Jesus‟ demands are
concrete, binding and decisively radical.
Someone branded Jesus‟ sermon as follows: «For me, this
is the most important text in the history of humankind. It is addressed to all,
believers and non, and after twenty centuries it is still the only light still
shining in the darkness of violence, fear and solitude in which the West finds
itself because of its pride and selfishness» (Gilbert Cesbron).
The word “blessed” (in Greek makarioi)
in our context does not say “softly” but cries out happiness found throughout
the Bible. For instance, in the OT, those called “blessed” are those who
live out the precepts of Wisdom (Sir 25:7-10). The prayerful person of the Psalms
defines “blessed” as those who “fear”, or more precisely those
who love the Lord, expressing this love in the observance of the precepts
contained in the word of God (Ps 1:1; 128:1).
Matthew’s originality lies in adding a secondary phrase that
specifies each beatitude: for instance, the main assertion “blessed are the
poor in spirit” is clarified by an added phrase “for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.” Another difference with the OT is that Jesus’ words
proclaim a saving blessedness here and now and without any limitations. For
Jesus, all can attain happiness on condition that they remain united to Him.
c) The First Three Beatitudes:
i) The
first cry concerns the poor: “How blessed are the poor in spirit, the
kingdom of heaven is theirs.” The reader may be shocked: how can the poor
be happy? In the Bible, the poor are those who empty themselves of themselves
and above all renounce the presumption of building their own present and future
alone, and thus leave room for and focus on God’s project and his Word. The
poor, always in the biblical sense, is not someone closed in on himself,
miserable, negative, but someone who nurtures being open to God and to others.
God is all his/her treasure. We could say with St. Teresa of Avila: happy are
those who experience that “God alone suffices,” meaning that they are
rich in God.
A great modern spiritual author described poverty as follows: “As
long as one does not empty one’s heart, God cannot fill it with himself. As you
empty your heart, so does the Lord fill it.
Poverty is emptiness, not only in what concerns the future but
also the past. Not a regret or memory, not a worry or wish! God is not in the
past. God is not in the future: He is in the present! Leave your past to God,
leave your future to God. Your poverty is to live the present, the Presence of
God who is Eternity” (Divo Barsotti).
This is the first beatitude, not just because it is the first of
many, but because it seems to encapsulate all the others in their diversity.
ii) “Blessed are those who mourn; they shall be comforted.”
One can mourn because of a great pain or suffering. This underlines the fact
that we are dealing with a serious situation even though the motives or the
cause are not mentioned. If we wish to identify today “those who mourn” we
could think of all the Christians who hold dear the demands of the kingdom and
suffer because of many negative aspects in the Church; rather than focus on
holiness, the Church presents divisions and lacerations. They may also be those
who suffer because of their sins and inconsistencies and who, in some way, slow
down their conversion. To these, only God can bring the news of “consolation.”
iii) ”Blessed are
the gentle, they shall have the earth as inheritance.” The
third beatitude is about gentleness. This is a quality that is not so popular
today. Rather, for many it has a negative connotation and is taken for weakness
or the kind of imperturbability that knows how to control calculatingly one’s own
emotions. What does the word “gentle” mean in the Bible? The gentle are remembered as those who enjoy great peace (Ps 37:10),
are happy, blessed and loved by God. They are also contrasted with evildoers,
the ungodly and sinners. Thus, the OT gives us a wealth of meanings that do not
allow for one single definition.
In the NT the first time we meet the word is in Matthew 11:29: “Learn
from me because I am gentle and humble of heart.” A second time is in Mt
21:5, when Matthew describes Jesus‟ entry into Jerusalem and cites the
prophet Zechariah 2:9: “Behold your servant comes to you gentle.” Truly,
Matthew’s Gospel may be described as the Gospel of gentleness.
Paul too says that gentleness is an identifying quality of the
Christian. In 2 Corinthians 10:1 he exhorts believers “I urge you by the
gentleness and forbearance of Christ”. In Galatians 5:22 gentleness is
considered one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the heart of believers and
consists in being meek, moderate, slow to punish, kind and patient towards
others. Again, in Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:12 gentleness is an attitude
that is part of the Christian and a sign of the new man in Christ.
Finally, an eloquent witness comes from 1 Peter 3:3-4: “Your
adornment should be not an exterior one, consisting of braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothing, but the interior disposition of
the heart, consisting in the imperishable quality of a gentle and peaceful
spirit, so precious in the sight of God.”
How does Jesus use the word “gentle”? A truly enlightening
definition is the one given by the gentle person of Cardinal Carlo Maria
Martini “The gentle person, according to the beatitudes, is one who, in
spite of the fervor of his/her feelings, remains
docile and calm, not possessive, interiorly free, always extremely respectful
of the mystery of freedom, imitating God in this respect who does everything
with respect for the person, and urges the person to obedience without ever
using violence. Gentleness is opposed to all forms of material or moral
arrogance, it gains the victory of peace over war, of dialogue over imposition.”
To this wise interpretation we add that of another famous
exegete: “The gentleness spoken of in the beatitudes is none other than that
aspect of humility that manifests itself in practical affability in one’s
dealings with the other. Such gentleness finds its image and its perfect model
in the person of Jesus, gentle and humble of heart. Truly, such gentleness
seems to us like a form of charity, patient and delicately attentive towards
others” (Jacques Dupont).
3. The Word Enlightens Me (Meditatio)
a) Am I able to accept those little signs of poverty in my
regard? For instance, the poverty of poor health and little indispositions? Do
I make exorbitant demands?
b) Am I able to accept some aspect of my poverty and fragility?
c) Do I pray like a poor person, as one who asks with humility
the grace of God, his pardon and his mercy?
d) Inspired by Jesus‟ message concerning gentleness, do I
renounce violence, vengeance and a vengeful spirit?
e) Do I encourage, in families and in my place of work, a spirit
of kindness, gentleness and peace?
f) Do I pay back any small malice, insinuations or offensive
allusions with evil?
g) Do I look after the weakest who cannot defend themselves? Am
I patient with old people? Do I welcome lonely strangers who are often
exploited at work?
4. To Pray
a) Psalm 23:
The Psalm seems to rotate around the title “The Lord is my
shepherd”. The saints are the image of the flock on the way: they are
accompanied by the goodness and loyalty of God, until they finally reach the
house of the Father (L. Alonso Schökel, I salmi della fiducia, Dehoniana
libri, Bologna 2006, 54)
Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
In grassy meadows he lets me lie. By tranquil streams he leads
me to restore my spirit.
He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name. Even
were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you
are at my side.
Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me.
You prepare a table for me under the eyes of my enemies; you
anoint my head with oil; my cup brims over.
Kindness and faithful love pursue me every day of my life.
I make my home in the house of Yahweh for all time to come.
b) Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you show us the way of the beatitudes so that we may
come to that happiness that is fullness of life and thus holiness. We are all
called to holiness, but the only treasure of the saints is God. Your Word,
Lord, calls saints all those who in baptism were chosen by your love of a
Father, to be conformed to Christ. Grant, Lord, that by your grace we may
achieve this conformity to Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, for the saints you
have placed on our way and who manifest your love. We ask for your pardon if we
have tarnished your face in us and denied our calling to be saints.