|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>>> >>> >>> >>>
BLESSED ARE YOUHIDDEN IN BEAUTY1. WHAT DO you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
2. What might the shepherd be thinking when he leaves his flock vulnerable on the beautiful and lofty mountains? Will the beauty and grandeur of the mountains “watch” over his sheep? Can the pastoral loveliness of nature keep the flock from harm? The shepherd knows the truth. Death, hidden in beauty, lies in wait for the lamb. SINGLE SHEEP3. The herdsman cannot help but reflect on the contrast between peace and disaster, beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, power and helplessness. It is no surprise to us that the shepherd searches, not in obvious or comfortable places, but in the geography of distress and darkness. When searching for a lost lamb, a good shepherd will look downward. Leaving the good pasture behind him, he will search in the deep crevices of the wilderness. 4. Apart from the shepherd’s vigilant care, the weak and helpless lambs fall into perilous circumstances. The lost lamb in Jesus’ parable, having gone astray, is incapable of existing independently of the flock and mastering the heights. A single sheep, alone and disoriented, attracts the predator. The shepherd knows that his lamb is lost and bewildered in the loveliness of nature. LITTLE STORIES5. Many of us have seen the parable of the lost sheep illustrated. Artists over the centuries have portrayed the good shepherd leaning far down into a dark ravine of briars, using the crook of his staff to grasp the lamb. Other artists have pictured Jesus carrying the lamb on his shoulders as he returns it to the flock. 6. Little stories of trust and courage, and the art that illustrates them, are often criticized as saccharine and artless. Nevertheless, they effectively convey a strong and important message. That a powerful, yet benevolent figure rescues a helpless creature threatened with extinction, is one such message. WORDS LIKE THIS7. Whatever we may say about the shepherd’s rescue of the lamb, this story tells us something about God’s blessings. Sometimes God blesses us simply because we’re in need or in distress. In other instances, God will bless us if and when we do the right thing. 8. Our Divine Lesson for today is called "Blessed Are You". The words “blessed are you” are familiar to all Christians. Words like this alert us that we are about to hear a beatitude:
THEY ARE HUMAN9. These are two examples of unconditional beatitudes. God blesses people in a particular way without asking them to do anything special. Such persons are blessed because God takes pity and is moved to alleviate their distressing circumstances and suffering. 10. The “poor in spirit” merit the grace of a beatific “blessing” because they are human, and they are poor. God created them. They are in his image and likeness. [cf. Gen 1:26] CONDITIONAL BEATITUDES11. In like manner, the merciful merit God’s blessing for no other reason than the fact that they are merciful themselves. There are nine traditional beatitudes in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, emphasizing good character and God’s faithfulness. 12. Some beatitudes are conditional. This means that, in order to receive the power of God’s particular blessing, a human being must do something specific that God wants. An example of a conditional beatitude may be found in the Book of Revelation:
LOVE AND RESPONSE13. Notice how this beatitude from Revelation (one of seven in this prophetic New Testament book), like many others, functions as a mini-covenant. For his part, God will bless you, but you must wash your robes in order to receive his blessing.14. By washing your robes, God blesses you with a right, the right to access the “tree of life” and to enter the heavenly city Jerusalem as a citizen—“by the gates”. Notice how a conditional beatitude emphasizes both God’s love and man’s authentic response to God’s love. FACE OF LOVE15. To be expected, many beatitudes may be found in both testaments of the Bible and enjoyed. Whether they are conditional or unconditional, beatitudes identity the blessings that God gives to us each day. We need them. All human beings need them. They are not like candy which one can take or leave. Beatitudes, in some sense, are the fruit of a spiritual tree, perhaps the Tree of Life. 16. God gives us this spiritual nourishment freely, and if I may be permitted to express this reality as an extemporaneous and informal beatitude: Happy are those who receive the daily blessings that God offers, for the fullness of life in Christ is theirs. Whereas the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) is the face of God’s justice and perhaps the origin of the conditional nature of some blessings, we may say that the beatitudes themselves are the face of God’s unconditional love and mercy. SYNONYMOUS WITH ALTITUDE17. A word about the face of God’s justice. The demands of the virtue of justice—that is to say, giving to another what he is due in the eyes of God—are promulgated in the hard, holy way of the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue may be summed up by God’s word to Moses: “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.” [Lev 19:2] 18. Hence, God’s justice is synonymous with altitude. Man must ascend a rugged terrain in his pursuit of the knowledge of God and the ethical life: “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life (says the Lord), and those who find it are few. [Mt 7:14] HUMAN PERCEPTION19. Here we must make a qualification. Justice, apart from any other consideration, can tell us something about the face of God. By itself, however, justice can’t tell us very much. There must be something more that we can say about God than sin, judgment and punishment. 20. Whatever that something is, to be sure, it cannot diminish or tarnish God’s justice. That something else must allow the eyes of faith of mortal human beings to apprehend more clearly the true face of God. After all, it’s not God’s face that needs to be perfected; it’s our human perception of God’s face that needs perfecting. PROFOUND TRUTH21. Our human perception of God’s face is perfected when we understand God’s sovereign justice in relation to his creative love and regenerative mercy. In Preface 38 of the prayers of the Mass, we find a simple yet elegant summation of the love, justice and mercy of God:
22. The profound truth of this simple statement has its antecedant in St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 2:
ATTITUDE OF COMPASSION23. As we grow older, and the years of our lives pass rather quickly, we become more fond of the beatitudes. We more clearly understand why the nine famous beatitudes are traditionally associated with God’s love and mercy. 24. Whereas justice corresponds to the altitude of man’s ascent to God, God’s love and mercy are correspondent to the attitude of compassion (Lat. patior, to suffer), the depth to which God himself has graciously inclined to rescue fallen man. PREPARED DISHES25. The beatitudes are like the prepared dishes of attractive and nourishing food gracing a great table. At the head of the table is a Father who loves his many children. He gives his children a rich and aromatic banquet of the food they need for the proper enjoyment of life. 26. Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep is a wonderful expression of beatitude. God the Father loves us for the sake of his own love. God loves us because he loves love itself. This parable illustrates very well the two dimensions of the word beatitude. SHARING IN DIVINE27. First, beatitude refers to the attainment of the ultimate good, the supreme good that is God himself. In this sense, beatitude refers to the fulfillment of human beings in the order of God’s grace. We seek to know and love God in this life. We pray that God will judge us worthy to attain full love and knowledge of him in the next life. 28. The gospels promise us that we will share in the very life of God. The life of God is the divine knowing and loving experienced by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (that is to say, the Divine Trinity) throughout eternity. IN RECOGNITION29. God created in man a desire to seek him, and he graciously wills to be found by man. The expression “beatific vision” refers to God, specifically the desire of worthy human beings to experience the fullness of God in his heaven: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (writes the psalmist). When shall I come and behold the face of God?” [Psa 42:2] 30. Second, beatitude refers to a particular blessing of God in recognition of someone in need or someone who is faithful to God. Beatitudes are blessings themselves and the words of blessings. PAYMENT AGAINST HOPE31. A beatitude is a payment against hope. We live in the sure and certain knowledge that, far from an unpredictable date of delivery, the promises of God are being fulfilled at the present instant—in our situations of life and in our world. But let’s keep in mind that covenants and beatitudes do not make God’s mercy. God makes God’s mercy! The beatitudes are a proof of the lovely expression, “God’s merciful Kingdom is here and now.” 32. A beatitude is what it does. It is God’s action and man’s praise. God acts on behalf of man to lessen his sufferings. God acts to strengthen man in his pursuit of the truth, his development of a noble character, and the authenticity of his relationships in an enjoyable and peaceful society. WALKING IN TRUTH33. Indeed, the fulfillment of our blessings began before time itself when the Son was begotten of the Father. To proclaim a beatitude, therefore, is to proclaim absolute truth, the absolute veracity of God’s revelation to man. Beatitudes also celebrate God’s friendship with man. 34. To walk in the truth, then, is to walk with Christ. To abide in the truth’s delightful reality, is to experience something of the life of heaven here and now. [cf. Psa 1:2-3] To defend the truth, even perhaps to die for it, is to defend the person of Jesus Christ who is, himself, the Truth. OVERTURNING EXPECTATIONS35. In the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus stood to read. Handed the Book of Isaiah, he announced that God intended to overturn human expectations—in all their distortions and complacency. 36. Added to this is the Lord’s intention to reform mere human traditions. [cf. Mt 15:1-9] He identified himself as the bearer of the “Spirit of the Lord”. [Isa 11:2; cf. Lk 4:18] The authenticity of his ministry derives, not from man, but from his anointing by the Father. FIRST-BORN SON37. The “Spirit of the Lord God” [Isa 61:1] was upon Jesus, in the words of Isaiah, because the Lord anointed him to help a people who had fallen under the weight of their staggering burdens. They were afflicted, brokenhearted, saddened, and afraid. 38. They needed a healer, a preacher, a minister, a saviour. But not just anyone could fill these shoes, least of all an embarrassing self-indulgent celebrity. The people of God needed a Son, a first-born Son, the only-begotten Son of the eternal Father. EVERYWHERE39. Contrary to the bumptious provincialism of his fellow villagers, Jesus from Nazareth became Jesus for the World, not from just anywhere but of everywhere, not in some things but in all things. He would become the foundation, the “living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious”. [1Pet 2:4] 40. One day in his travels, Jesus paused at a level stretch of ground to engage his followers and a “great multitude of people”. “(Lifting) up his eyes on his disciples” [Lk 6:17, 20], Our Lord chose a message perhaps unfamiliar to their ears. He talked about divine generosity and favor. DESERVING OF FRIENDSHIP41. By word and prayer, Jesus lifted up the poor, the hungry, and the hated, that is to say, everyone whom the world shuns and tramples underfoot. He named them and called them to himself. 42. He announced that, in the sacred order of his Kingdom, they are precious in God’s sight and deserving of divine friendship. They certainly will “…taste the kindness of the Lord”. [1Pet 2:3]:
EGREGIOUS FICTION43. Unfortunately, our society no longer recalls what it means to thank God in a meaningful way. We tacitly assume that the blessings of life result from a fortuitous union of our own intellectual and physical prowess, even blind luck. 44. Most egregious is the fiction that one can control life’s blessings, that a bright fellow can order up a future of his own choosing. So many of us have forgotten, or have never learned how to express our gratitude to the Almighty. Pacified by the wealth of information and experiences available to us, we fail to recognize the poverty of our spiritual thought. UNDERLYING MESSAGE?45. Tragically and often, people become arrogant and prideful. Some deny God’s existence altogether. Others think God is merely some kind of force or energy. Still others, while accepting the notion of God, presume that God is bound to save them. They say, He created this world. Not me. It’s not my mess. So I'm not responsible for the way I turned out. 46. What’s the underlying message here? That God made us victims? That God is just another way of speaking about compulsion? That God is obliged to save us for the sake of our sins? That the road to heaven is paved with anger, hatred, selfishness, promiscuity, lust, and the pride of life? WHEN PEOPLE SIN47. Recall that the ancient Greeks named pride as the metropolis of all evil. What we’re confronting here is a death-dealing vainglory. To say that one’s soul is impervious to the evil he does, that the human soul is invincible and can never be harmed, and that it doesn’t matter how one treats it, is both counter-intuitive and irrational. If such were truly the case, we would cease to be human beings. There would be nothing left for us to do but to swing in the trees and scream. 48. When powerful people sin against God, it’s almost always against his sovereignty. When weak people sin against God, it’s almost always some form of despair. The powerful doubt God’s capacity to satisfy their wants. The weak doubt God’s capacity to satisfy their needs. The hands of both weak and strong persons are empty before God, but the sin of powerful people is greater. What did our Lord say?
GOD WILL CONFOUND49. In the view of the powerful and arrogant, both body and soul are commodities—that is to say, the bodies and souls of persons other than themselves. Therefore, a person standing on the outside of the powerful special-interest group is at risk:
50. Yet the face of God will confound the powerful who bristle when they hear his truth, the arrogant who run from his justice as one flees from a sudden storm. "BORN ANEW"51. Humankind, indeed the earth and the whole of the created order, must accept a radical purification. We call this radical purification the pursuit of holiness. This pursuit requires love, justice and mercy, all three. Love and mercy, apart from justice, are not enough. 52. Whether weak or strong, all persons must be "born anew" into the more excellent realm of heaven, for as Our Lord counseled the pharisee Nicodemas, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." [Jn 3:3; cf. 1Cor 15:27-28] INTENDED TO ENDURE53. In this life, we “walk” with God by the Spirit which mediates our life in Christ. In the next life, we shall behold the beatific vision of God with our very eyes:
54. Thus, the relationship of divine will and human desire will not “vanish like smoke or wear out like a garment”. [Isa 51:6] More to the point, the divine-human relationship is intended to endure throughout eternity. The divine-human dialogue of faith and reason “will never be ended”. [Isa 51:6] LITTLE COVENANTS55. The beatitudes are signposts for Christians guided by the Spirit in prayer. These beatitudes, these little covenants of each day are proofs of God’s love. As well, they remind us of our duty to trust in God and trust in his blessings. 56. We may say, then, that the just and merited synonym for “trust” is God himself. God is trust! We find a conditional beatitude in the writings of Jeremiah the Prophet: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord”. [Jer 17:7] WHAT IS EXPECTED57. This beatitude explicitly defines what is expected of the man who desires God’s blessings. If God is your trust, he will bless you. Trust, therefore, is the confidence of working out our salvation with “fear and trembling”. [Phi 2:12] After all, our imperfect spirit must join with God’s perfect Spirit so that our prayer may be devout and meaningful. 58. In the English language, the Latin expression adventus christi means the coming of Christ. The entire gospel message, indeed every truth in Sacred Scripture, points to the coming of Christ in glory. The Church carries the adventus Christi proclamation to the world. UTTERLY UNCOMMON59. It’s possible to express the core Christian message as an extemporaneous beatitude: Blessed are you who are "born of water and the Spirit" [Jn 3:5], for you shall have “power to become children of God”. [Jn 1:12] The finest expression of the meaning of adventus Christi is to be found in the solemn yet celebratory prayer of the Eucharist. 60. While speaking about God may be rather common, man’s prayer and adoration before God must be utterly uncommon. It must be totally unlike his day-to-day conversation with mere mortals. Our deeply spiritual and intimate encounter with God must be more excellent than any encounter we might have with human persons. God is not common; he is not to be bought or sold or traded in the market-place of commodities or ideas. "MAKE THE EARTH A HEAVEN"61. For walking with God is always special. It is, actually, a human activity entirely beyond the commonplace, because God himself is beyond the ordinary. God’s Kingdom is beyond the ordinary. Now, if a beatitude is the point at which man’s need and God’s blessing converge, what are we to say about the intersection where humanity on its earth is destined to meet God in his heaven? 62. St. John Chrysostom, writing at the beginning of the fifth century, had something to say about the nature of blessing and the divine-human dialogue. It is, he said, our human responsibility to cooperate with God in making the earth a heaven. The blessings of God, whether great or small, are intended to bring about nothing less than the radical transformation of humanity as we now know it:
|
|
|
 |
||
