Divine Blessedness!

 (Homily 4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Yr-A)

          The readings of today invite us to become beatitude people; therefore we need to be meek, poor and pure in heart. The overriding theme in the today’s readings is the theme of the poor. In the first reading the word of God says: “In your midst I will place a humble and lowly people.” Even the Psalmist in the responsorial psalm took it up: “Happy are the poor in spirit.” In the Gospel Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. On the other hand, in the second reading St. Paul puts it in a rather latent manner thus: “God chose what is foolish…weak…low and despised.” However, a closer look at the quotations above reveals not only the important place given to the poor in the Christian literature, but also it raises the question of the category of the poor being referred to; is it the economical and materially poor (as in the stanzas of the psalm) or a spiritualized notion (as in the first beatitude)? The poverty blessed by Jesus does not consist in an economic situation of misery, rather it refers to a religious or spiritual category, the poor who lack human security open themselves easily to the message of Jesus, those who recognize their dependency on God. The words of Jesus over the centuries have been understood from different perspectives: allegorical, eschatological, fundamentalist and sociological. However, our evangelist presents Jesus’ words with existential, internal and spiritual underpinnings.

         The first reading (Zeph. 2:3; 3:12-13) is taken from the prophecy of Zephaniah, one of the least known and least used in the Old Testament prophets. It has been so from the beginning, for instance in the whole of the New Testament it was cited only once in the gospel of Mathew (13:41). Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of King Josiah, who embarked on reformation. Prophet Zephaniah was filled with a sense of impending doom, as such, he had much to say about the day of the Lord, and for him and Amos, the day of the Lord would be a day of darkness and not of light, a day of great judgment for the Israelites. Therefore, in view of this impending judgment, prophet Zephaniah in the passage of our first reading invited the Israelites to seek for righteousness and humility, because it is only righteous and humble people that will escape the judgment day. The passage of this reading is made up of two separated passages, or better chapters. However, the combination of the two texts could be justified, for both passages laid emphasis on humility as the veritable ground for standing secure on the day of the Lord. Drawing the issue further, Zephaniah’s major contribution to the Old Testament literature was his emphasis on God’s concern for the Anawim, that is, the poor. This theme of the poor resurfaced in the passage of the Gospel in the first beatitude.

     The Gospel passage (Mt. 5:1-12a) is taken from the famous discourse or sermon of Jesus on the Mount, where he proclaimed the Beatitudes. The letterry genre of the Beatitudes is found in the Old Testament too: “How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked…” (Ps.1:1); “Blessed anyone who cares for the poor and the weak…” (Ps. 41:1); “How blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways” (Ps. 128:1). The eight beatitudes of Mathew constitute the initial part of the so called Sermon on the Mount, and as such, they are to be considered in the light of the entire sermon, but in a way they may be considered as the synthesis of the whole discourse. At first we capture the image of Jesus that climbs the mountain, and this gesture presents Jesus as the new Moses, who has come to proclaim the new law and the statute of the new people of God, the people of the new covenant: the Church. The beatitudes are proclaimed by Jesus in a fascinating way. The choice of the Mount by Mathew for this sermon is in line with his conception of these sets of teachings as the new law, which corresponds with the old law given by Moses on Mount Sinai. For Mathew Jesus is the new law giver, the new Moses. Though for Luke the Sermon took place on the plain (Lk. 6:17-26). In Gospel of Luke Jesus spoke directly to his disciples: “Then fixing his eyes on his disciples he said: “How blessed are you, who are poor, the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk. 6:20). While Luke used the second person, Matthew used the third person, and the use of the third person by Matthew confers on the Beatitudes a sapiential and timeless character, as such, they transcend the historical situation in which Jesus pronounced them. Thus, Jesus is still proclaiming the same words for us today! The Beatitudes that are unique to Matthew are the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peace makers, the other four are similar to that of Luke., although in Luke we have only four of them, which were immediately followed by the proclamation of four woes.

     Indeed, it has been often observed that the beatitudes describe the life of Christ himself. The beatitudes that were proclaimed by him were not abstract precepts or theoretical enunciations, rather they are portraits of Jesus himself, who first lived and experienced them integrally. He is the poor in spirit per excellence, the One who hungers and thirsts for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, peace-maker and the persecuted. It is necessary to clarify the thoughts of Jesus, thus, by proclaiming blessed or happy some categories of people in certain life conditions, Jesus didn’t intend to exalt or to beatify the situations of suffering and pain.

     The disciple of Christ, therefore, a true Christian is one who follows the Master and incarnates the beatitudes in his or her life. But in order to live the beatitudes it is necessary to enter in the world of new values, that is, the Kingdom of God. The new values of the Kingdom render the values that were considered to be absolute (money, power and success) invalid. The first beatitude proclaimed by Jesus which summarizes all the discourse on the mount, is according to Mathew: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs”, that is, blessed, happy are those who choose to be poor. Poverty in spirit does not signify only interior detachment, of the heart from earthly things, but it also signifies poverty, a choice, not imposed by necessity or suffered out of a particular circumstance. The poor in spirit is one who renounces the accumulation of earthly things, who chooses to live without making money, power and carrier absolutes, who refuses the idolatry of money and of power. But this does not mean to wallow in idleness, rather it hinges on not counting on human means and security. The poor of the beatitudes are like the poor that prophet Zephaniah and St. Paul talked about in the first and second readings, it is all about those who even though they are well to do, yet they place their hope in God, those who are free from egoism, from the ambitions of power and from the avidity of riches. They are those who have placed their trust in the Lord, convinced that He does not disappoint, and that is why they are happy and blessed.

          However, we may ask a pertinent question thus: why are these categories of people proclaimed blessed by Jesus? Not because to them Jesus assured success and wealth, but they are blessed because the “Good News” of God’s kingdom has been announced to them, and they were disposed to welcome it, from here springs joy, happiness and blessedness. We too can be called blessed if we welcome the Good news and all that it comports, for by so doing we will be on the road to holiness. Be that as it may, the road to sanctity or holiness is the road of the beatitudes. Spiritual poverty or humility and detachment from the things of this world, meekness and the rejection of every form of violence, bearing pains, thirst for justice, comprehension and mercy towards ones neighbour, purity of heart, spirit of peace: are the roads to holiness.

           Furthermore, the spirit of the beatitudes is indispensable for the construction of a human society that is more healthy, just and serene. With the beatitudes Jesus launches a sort of revolution, but his revolution is not against someone, rather his revolution is for someone. The Gospel invites us to put the foundation of our joy on the love of God, a faithful love, its promises are sure and infallible. The joy of the beatitudes finds its foundation on the certainty of a blessed and happy future that will be God’s gift, but together in the joyous discovery that already here it is possible to have a foretaste of a new way of living, of possessing a world of values (the Kingdom of God).

          In the second reading (1Cor. 1:26-31) we see the presentation of the real problem of the Corinthian Church. The trouble with the Corinthians was that they were too sure of themselves and that made them to be boastful of their wisdom. They believed that through their initiation into Christ, they had been made partakers in the divine wisdom. St. Paul went to the theological root of the matter and thus, told them the truth about themselves: “not many wise according to worldly standards, not many powerful, not many noble of noble birth.” Truly, before God they have nothing to boast about. Therefore, they should be humbled because their salvation is not as a result of their own spiritual endowments, wisdom and achievements, but it is a manifestation of God’s saving act in Jesus Christ. If at all they should “glory”, they should glory in and about the Lord, that is, in the saving act of God in Christ.

          Above all else, however, we need to ask ourselves concretely if our moral profile corresponds to the one delineated in the beatitudes, that is, if truly we are persons who do not run after material wealth as a mirage of happiness, or we trust and confide in God, if we are simple and humble persons, if we are people who desire to work for justice and peace with the force of love, also ready to bear persecutions for the cause of good. Or we are like the Corinthians that puff up with the air of presumption that all is out of merit. Indeed, it is necessary that we assimilate the evangelical mentality of the beatitudes and believe that with it we can be happy already on this earth, and fully happy in the hereafter. Interestingly, at the end of his teaching on the Beatitudes, Jesus told his listeners and to us, “Rejoice and be glad”, for you are the blessed of God. As a matter of fact, in living the beatitudes, we come to a sense of wholeness, a sense that all is right within us. We gain the peace that comes from being close to God. Indeed Christ offers us joy, we become joy-filled. As a bonus, Christ promised: “Your reward will be great in heaven.”

 (Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)