The Cursed and the Blessed

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

What does a world without trust look like? If subjects no longer trust politicians and their leaders, our society would descend into chaotic anarchy. If consumers no longer trust that their data and money can be safeguarded, then the modern financial system could collapse. If litigants no longer trust the legal and judicial system, justice would be an elusive illusion. Marriages will breakdown, families will divide and communities would be perpetually splintered. Trust is the base layer of all human relationships. Without trust, there can be no value exchange, no community, no intimacy. It would seem that Confucius was right when he declared: “without trust we cannot stand.”

And yet, our Lord begins His soliloquy in the first reading with these words: “A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from the Lord. He is like dry scrub in the wastelands…” Is God calling us to abandon trusting humans altogether? Is He advocating that we should be perpetually weary of the deceit and untrustworthiness of others? I believe reading the passage in its entirety will help us to understand these troubling and challenging words.

If we were to go to the beginning of this chapter in the Book of Jeremiah, which has not been included in our lectionary selection, the prophet correctly observes that “sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point on the tablet of their hearts.” That hardened sin is why God is so harsh in His condemnation of Israel and it is sin which has rendered the heart “deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” So, what the Lord is warning us is to distrust sin which causes man to be deceitful. The problem with marriage that results in divorce is not the institution of marriage itself nor due to some inherent defect of the partners to the marriage, but sin which corrupts the heart and leads us to break covenant with each other. Sin makes the human heart inherently self-centered, unable to see itself accurately and correct itself.

On the other hand, the man who places his trust in God will not be disappointed or as the text of Jeremiah assures us, he will be “blessed.” The reason for this is that God is not only truthful, He is truth, and therefore, ever faithful, and borrowing the language of a marriage covenant, He is true to us in good times as well as in bad, in sickness and health, and unlike the partners to marriage, even death cannot separate us from the love of God. At the end of the day, our Lord is not advising us to treat every person with suspicion. No relationship can be sustained and no society can survive without learning to trust others. But trusting in others requires faith in someone far greater than them. We lay our hearts on the line knowing God is the only one who ultimately keeps them.

There is no greater proof of this proposition than the Catholic Church. Christ founded His Church on the foundation of weak men and where is the Church today? She remains standing despite centuries of persecution, ostracisation, schisms, heresies and bad shepherds. On the other hand, look at the empires, kingdoms and governments built by strong, talented and charismatic men. Where are they now? Most are in the dust and reduced to the pages of history books. One thing is true, our trust in God would not disappoint because God will not fail us. If men can betray us, break their promises to us, disappoint us with their failures, God will never do so. He can’t. It’s against His very nature. This is why St Paul can declare that “hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), because that hope is founded on a God who will not disappoint!

So, we can now understand the simple binary picture painted in both the first reading as well as in the gospel, where our Lord Jesus sets out Luke’s version of the beatitudes matched by a set of woes or curses. Those whose hearts turn away from the Lord are cursed and those whose hearts trust the Lord are blessed. It’s as simple as that. There are just two kinds of people in the world—the cursed and the blessed—and the difference is whom they trust. In a world filled with differences and divided by those differences, that is a revelation. It’s not black or white, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, male or female, old or young that ultimately matters. It is where the heart of each person places their trust.

If you still can’t see the difference in this morally ambiguous world of ours, Jeremiah sets it out in stark contrast. He describes what being “cursed” means with an image of a bush in the desert, where there is no steady water supply. Such a person will live on the edge of existence, always thirsty for more water, always on the verge of dying, so that when water finally comes in the form of an occasional thunderstorm, it won’t lead to a good harvest or abundance. Such a person will survive, but just barely. Life will be parched and lonely and unfruitful at its core.

And then Jeremiah describes what “blessed” means with the image of a tree planted by a stream that never dries up. Because its roots are sunk deep in the “spring of living water,” the person who trusts in the Lord does “not fear when heat comes,” “in a year of drought.” His life is always verdant, and he continually bears fruit. So, he does not live in fear and worry. Life is abundant for the person whose heart trusts in the Lord, rather than in human beings.

So, how do we grow in trusting God rather than in ourselves and our resources? The answer is prayer. When man works man works but when man prays, God works. The self-sufficient man does not pray because he sees no need for prayer. The mystic and saint, Padre Pio puts it in the simplest terms: “Pray persistently, daily, and with love. Pray in the face of every challenge, every crisis, every failure, every cross. Pray, and hope, and don't worry, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall renew the face of the earth.” Don’t let prayer be your last resort when all else fails. Begin every venture, every decision, every challenge with prayer. Do not just do your best and let God do the rest. Let God be the fuel, the guide, the inspiration and the object of everything you do.

To sum it, let us listen to the words of this spiritual author, Thomas a Kempis who gave us this classic literature on spirituality, The Imitation of Christ:

“Vain is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things.
Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud.”

Seek the Kingdom, Seek Humility

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

At one time, Catholics were expected to learn and memorise the 10 commandments, a collection of Catholic prayers, the names of the seven sacraments and the Beatitudes. Most of us may still be able to make a fair stab at the first three. But how many of us can recall all eight beatitudes?

Today, we have a chance to listen to the list of Beatitudes which serves as the opening to the Sermon on the Mount. Saint Matthew clearly saw the Beatitudes as important, as crystallising Jesus’ teaching. They are the first words of teaching that Matthew quotes in his gospel. The “sermon” is given its name because Matthew tells us that the Lord had gone up to the mountain to teach (just as Moses did when he received the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai), and the Lord teaches sitting down, the traditional position of a rabbi when wanting to teach officially, not just off-the-cuff, throw-away lines while wandering along. Jesus and Matthew are telling us: this is important!

The Lord looks at those gathered around Him on that mountain. These are people who do not live easy, comfortable lives. They are people who for the most part live in poverty, for whom hunger, starvation even, is only one bad harvest away, for whom sickness and disease can all too readily lead to suffering and death, who are weak and vulnerable to the rapaciousness of the rich, to the violence of the powerful. He looks at them and tells them that if they follow the way of the kingdom, they will be “happy!” Try wrapping your head around this. To say to this group of poor, struggling people that one day they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will see God, they will be called children of God, is just an extraordinary promise. To make such a radical connexion would require more than a few mental summersaults.

And yet, the Lord goes further: “If you follow me, you are blessed”. Each one of these eight remarkable statements begins with: “Happy are…” In other words “blessed are you…” or “you are in a good place when you are poor in spirit, when you mourn, etc…” You are in a place of hope, of life, of truth, in the here and now. Jesus tells those listening whose lives are so tough, He tells us too, “when you follow me, you are in that good place”. It’s the promise that in the midst of struggles we can be in a place of current hope, peace, joy, life. The beatitudes point us forward to an even better future but there is the promise that we can experience the taste of that future even now - joy can be found even in the midst of sorrow.

So how do we experience that place of current and future blessedness, that place of hope, of joy, of peace, of life, in the midst of the turmoil and struggles of life? Our Lord tells us: Live the life of the kingdom.

Here’s a hack on how to read the beatitudes. Although each beatitude merits a lengthy commentary, the first beatitude provides an adequate summary of the rest. “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Who are the poor in spirit? The poor in spirit was a phrase used throughout the Old Testament to describe those who had come to acknowledge that they were totally in need of God’s help. It was often associated with those who were economically destitute, those who had nothing left to rely on – no money, no power, no influence – and so could only trust in God. Poverty of spirit is a total emptying of oneself, an abandonment of the self to the will of God.

It is that sense of utter dependence, of acknowledging that only God can meet our needs, that is meant here. We are not to rely on our own wealth, or status, or abilities. We are to humbly acknowledge that we need God in every aspect of our lives. Christ Himself shows us what that looks like.

So, the first beatitude could be re-phrased: “You are in a good place when you acknowledge that you totally need God, that you cannot do it by yourself.” That leads us to prayer and to humility. Humility is the key to understand the Beatitudes. Humility is the key which opens the door to the kingdom. Humility is the basis and foundation of all to follow. As Saint John Chrysostom says, “Pride is the fountain of all wickedness, so is humility the principle of all self-command.”

Of all the virtues Christ commended in the Beatitudes, it is significant that the first is humility, being ‘poor in spirit’. Here is the divine irony, the ascent to the mountain of the Lord (the Mount of Beatitudes) first requires a descent: the closer we come to the Lord, the more keenly aware are we of our distance, the more we grow in holiness, the greater the awareness of our unworthiness. That is why the virtue of humility (the blessed gift of self-forgetfulness) underlies all the others. For example, you cannot mourn without appreciating how insufficient you are to handle loss in your own strength. That is humility. You cannot hunger and thirst for righteousness if you proudly think of yourself as already righteous. Longing to fill that spiritual appetite demands humility. You cannot be merciful without recognising your own need for mercy. To confess your sin and ask God and others for forgiveness takes humility. You cannot be pure in heart if your heart is filled with pride.

In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah describes the remnant of Israel who will be restored to their land after the period of exile as “the humble of the earth.” In his view, it is the humble of the Lord who will receive divine blessing, those who seek refuge in the Name or Power of the Lord and recognise their entire dependence on Him. So if one wishes to be reconciled to God and with others, heed the call to “seek integrity, seek humility.”

St Paul provides a correction to the popular identification of humility to self-deprecation. It is not about boasting about your achievements or lack of it which makes you proud or humble but rather in whether one seeks to give glory to God or dwell in some form of narcissistic self-worship. That is why St Paul tells us in the second reading: “The human race has nothing to boast about to God” and that is why “if anyone wants to boast, let him boast about the Lord.”

The Beatitudes encourage an upside-down view of what leads to being in a good place, a place of blessing, a place of solid not just fleeting happiness. We may be tempted to think that it is when all our needs are met, when we are self-reliant, when we are financially independent, when we are in control of our lives, that we are happy. Instead, the Lord calls us to humbly acknowledge that we are always in need of God, and to live that out by living lives of prayerfulness. And we may be tempted to deny real sorrow or to avoid recognising the impact of our own failings. But instead, the Lord calls us to acknowledge the depths of our grief, the gravity of our powerlessness and the extent of our failings, for it is in doing so that we discover God as healer and comforter and the only true source of strength.

How happy are you who are poor

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

We are finally reaching the end of the Chinese New Year festive season with the famous Chap Goh Mei (or simply, the 15th day) celebration on Tuesday. I believe many of you have broken new records of the number of yee sang tosses for the current year, number of ang pows you’ve received and for the adults, a record deficit in your personal account. One of the festive greetings that you will hear most frequently to the point of ad nauseum, is Gong Xi Fa Chai or its many dialectical equivalents. Most non-Chinese speakers would mistake this as simply meaning “Happy New Year”, only to be surprised and shocked by its actual literal translation: “May you have increased wealth/ prosperity!” The greeting seems to reaffirm the unflattering stereotyping of the Chinese as people who are obsessed with money and wealth. Well, I can assure that for many, even the non-Chinese, happiness is often tied to how much money you possess. So, for the last time this year: “Gong Xi Fa Chai”.

A good friend of mine once asked why we Catholic priests can’t preach like famous televangelists, the likes of Joel Osteen. She was referring to the message which is commonly known as the gospel of prosperity. Joel Osteen once told Time Magazine: “I preach that anybody can improve their lives. I think God wants us to be prosperous. I think he wants us to be happy.” And so, my friend’s contention is that instead of making Catholics feel guilty for being rich, can riches be justified and even promoted in our preaching? Can this simple formula be expounded more frequently and more assertively from the pulpit: “the more you give the more you get”? Can every homily sound like a Chinese New Year greeting?

The answer which I will give is going to disappoint my friend and anyone else who would expect to hear us preach about God’s blessings in the form of wealth, good health and endless happiness. But disappointment is too mild a term. St Luke’s Gospel uses the harshest language toward the rich and also treats the poor in the most flattering way. For example, in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes which we heard today, Our Lord not only pronounces a blessing on the poor, He also pronounces curses on the rich. Instead of wishing you a prosperous life, our Lord issues this strange blessing: “How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God.” On the other hand, He addresses the rich in this way: “But alas for you who are rich: you are having your consolation now.”

What seems most disturbing about the Lukan beatitude, especially the first, is the inexplicable canonisation of poverty and the ensuing situations which normally spell tragedy. It has none of the spiritual dimension that is found in St Matthew’s version - “poor in spirit” - a term which could equally include the rich as well as the poor, because spiritual poverty can afflict anyone regardless of their economic status.

What is it about poverty that is so “blessed” or “happy” or even authentically “human”? We must first make a critical distinction between poverty and destitution. All human beings are entitled to have their basic needs met. The fact that millions are living in our world in the state of destitution, where hunger and disease ravage entire nations, is a great sin against humanity. There is certainly no blessing in this, neither should it ever be a cause of happiness. Every time we withhold our cloak from the naked or our food from the hungry, we sin, not only against the human person, but also against the Lord Himself. But poverty, or at least evangelical poverty, is not identical with destitution. The destitute may think of themselves as forsaken, but the poor are definitely not forsaken by God. Poverty is the state of simplicity, that is the state of having only what one needs. God is the supreme wealth of the poor.

To advance in the life of virtue, poverty must come first. This is due to the chasm that lies between God and the world, the Creator and His creatures. This world and all its riches are God’s gift to us to be used as a means for our return to Him. Simply put: God is the end; things are means to this end. On the other hand, the possession of material goods beyond that of basic necessity, brings with it the risk of using goods as ends in themselves. Things therefore become our ‘idols.’ The outcome would be the proliferation of vices like greed, envy and possessiveness. It is interesting that, while Christ cured the sick, made the blind see, made the deaf hear, but He never once made a poor man rich. Illness, blindness, and deafness are deprivations; poverty is not. Likewise, when one is deprived of the basic needs of life, this physical state of destitution necessarily brings with it the challenge of spiritual destitution. This is why we must work to eliminate destitution in the world, not primarily because of the physical suffering it brings, but because we wish to allow God’s people the freedom to worship Him in health of body, mind, and soul.

Christ, in this first beatitude, does not say, “To those who are impoverished, I say to you, the day will come when I will relieve you of this poverty and make you rich.” That’s the gospel of prosperity. Instead, our Lord says, “happy are you who are poor.” Poverty itself brings with it a blessing, or rather, sanctity. The poor understand their need for God. The poor’s security and wealth lie with God. The more we possess, the further we find ourselves from pursuing our proper end: God. We cannot serve both God and mammon. The further we are from our proper end, the less human we find ourselves. This explains the unique theme of reversal, present in St Luke’s beatitudes, the so-called four ‘woes’, as opposed to the four ‘blessings’. Wealth, full stomachs, contentment and human respect, though good in themselves, can also risk becoming dangerous. They can lead us to believe only in ourselves and our resources, and forget our true end which is God and His Kingdom.

Despite what my good friend claims, the Catholic Church has not canonised material poverty as the ladder to heaven. The state of poverty cannot just be purely material; material poverty alone does not bring salvation. St Basil warns us, “for many are poor in their possessions, yet most covetous in their disposition; these poverty does not save, but their affections condemn.” Material poverty, in order to be humanising and divinising, must be accompanied by spiritual poverty – being “poor in spirit.” On the other hand, neither is the state of poverty purely spiritual. There are those who want to reduce Christ’s call to poverty, to the mere spiritual detachment from goods, and continue to live scandalously lavish lives at the expense of the poor. This too is a distortion of the Gospel message. This beatitude should certainly not excuse us from our responsibility to assist those who are in a state of destitution.

Evangelical poverty can never mean a rejection of all material goods, which are good in themselves. But it is an invitation to see that these things are better when they are shared with those who have-not. As we launch into this new year and encounter Christ in different people and situations, let us give true glory and worship to God in all that we do, in whatever we say, and in all that we possess, for He became poor so that we may become rich in His graces.

Losers and Winners

Solemnity of All Saints 2021

Some of you may have been fans of the characters of the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz. Without a doubt, we have grown up enjoying, laughing with, sympathising and even hating the various individual comic personalities. My most endearing character is definitely Charlie Brown, the main male protagonist. The reason for this attraction is because Charlie Brown reminds me so much of myself growing up and even now, as an adult.

Personality-wise, he is gentle, insecure, and lovable. Charlie Brown possesses significant determination and hope, but frequently fails because of his insecurities, outside interferences, or plain bad luck. Although liked by his friends, he is often the subject of bullying, especially at the hands of Lucy van Pelt. Charlie is the proverbial Born Loser. He is described by his creator as “the one who suffers because he’s a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning. Winning is great, but it isn’t funny.” We may laugh at Charlie’s bumbling expense, but as far as Charlie is concerned, losing isn’t funny either.

To be a Christian today often feels like being a loser. This is true, both as a matter of demographics and regarding the influence and respectability of traditional Christian values. There are fewer Christians even in traditionally predominantly “Christian” countries, and our neighbours think less of us because of our strange values and ideas. We are increasingly outsiders. And how we respond to this reality may be the defining question of our time.

The good news is that Christianity has always been a religion of losers. We have been persecuted, our beliefs have been ridiculed and rejected, our values have been maligned, sometimes driving us underground to practice our faith secretly. But though we may appear to be weak, powerless, failures, and losers in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of God we are victorious and winners! In this world we will have trouble; in this world we will lose; but take heart, Christ has overcome the world. And this is what the Saints in heaven declare in song and praise: “Victory to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” These were the same figures who appeared to be defeated by anti-Christian forces, persecuted, tortured and martyred and yet, emerged victorious holding palms as trophies of their victory.

Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the Beatitudes. One could paraphrase the list of beatitudes as this: “Happy or Blessed are the losers!” This is what the paradoxical and counterintuitive values behind the Beatitudes seek to display. Our Lord and Saviour, just as the beatitudes would describe, had to experience poverty, pain, suffering, loss, persecution and death for the sake of righteousness in order to gain the victory and joyful blessedness of the resurrection and the gift of eternal life for all of us. This is the core of the Christian message - death before resurrection, loss before victory, last before first, poverty before riches. For in the Christian story, ‘success and failure’ is inverted.

Although we often describe the Saints in heaven as the Church Triumphant, those who have “run the race” and are crowned with glory in Heaven, it often doesn’t feel this way here on earth. Our earthly experiences of failure and loss make us doubt the promises of the beatitudes.

But if we take a deeper look at the promises which are proclaimed by the beatitudes, we begin to recognise the veracity of their claims even in this life without waiting for the next. The losers can discover something about themselves that winners cannot ever appreciate – that they are loved and wanted simply because of who they are, and not because of what they achieve. That despite it all, raw humanity is glorious and wonderful, entirely worthy of love. This is revealed precisely at the greatest point of dejection – our Lord’s death and resurrection. The resurrection is not just a magic trick at raising a dead body to life. That’s a neat and impressive trick. But it is so much more than that. It is a revelation that love is stronger than death, grace is stronger than sin, that human worth is not indexed to worldly success, but to one’s fidelity to the path laid out by Christ. The lives of the Saints are testimony to this. On this side of heaven, they may appear to be losers. But as the vision of St John in the first reading lifts the veil, we are given a glimpse of their true worth - they are winners and victors in the Kingdom of Heaven.

A successful Christian, if you can call him or her one, called to be a saint, ought to be hated rather than feted in this world. Yes, it does seem that the modernist forces seem to be attacking the Church from every angle, that orthodox Christian beliefs and values are aggressively under assault, yet this feast reminds us that we are not alone in our experience and that this epoch in history, is not that unique as the Church has always suffered derision, rejection, humiliation and condemnation from her inception. We often forget that until our Lord returns in glory as He brings judgment upon the earth, battles and wars will remain. So, no matter how peaceful we wish our lives could be, the truth is our lives, this side of heaven, will be tainted with conflict.

But despite the onslaught she experiences, not only from earthly enemies but also demonic forces, the vision described in the Book of the Apocalypse will be the final outcome. There, before the throne of the Lamb, we will know that we are conquerors, not losers and that failure will be redeemed by the victory won for us by the Lamb which was slain.

Joy is Hidden in Sorrow

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The 13^th century Persian mystic Rumi wrote: “The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold is some desolate, unnoticed place. Why would anyone hide treasure in plain sight? And so it is said: ‘Joy is hidden in sorrow.’”  I would like to add: life is hidden in death, wealth in poverty, relief and liberation in suffering. This is the wisdom of the Beatitudes – “a treasure of gold” hidden in the darkest and bleakest of human experience.

The word “beatitude” comes from the Latin beatitudo, meaning “blessedness.” The main translation in use at Mass (from the Jerusalem Bible version) has replaced “blessed”, a rich and weighty word, with this possibly misleading word, “happy”'. Why do I say that this could be misleading? Basically, because of the danger that we may come to think that the way the Christian religion makes us happy is something like giving us an emotional “high” through the use of drugs or alcohol, or through entertainment and pleasure, or by fulfilling all our wants and desires – making us popular, powerful and rich. But even a passing glance at the Beatitudes makes it clear they're hardly anything but fun and happiness-invoking. Instead, these sayings are disturbing, threatening, and downright unpleasant. The Beatitudes predict that if we are to discover true happiness at all it has to be by way of a list of obviously unpleasant scenarios: poverty, tears, hunger, and even persecution. Hardly any cause for revelry. It is hard for anyone to understand how one can rejoice and be happy when oppressed, cursed and persecuted. It seems that all suffering leads naturally only to sorrow.

Understanding the context of these sayings may help throw light on the mystery of the text.  The Beatitudes placed at the beginning of His monumental Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the essence of discipleship. In other words, it is directed specifically to those who are ready not only to listen to Christ but to accompany Him. It is the key to understanding how a follower of Christ can imitate Christ. Here, our Lord presents a programme of discipleship, a standard of virtue that no ordinary person could understand, unless that person wishes to imitate Christ in both His mission and His destiny. For it is Christ who has become poor for our sake, who weeps over Jerusalem and our bondage to sin, who suffers violence for righteousness sake and when persecuted, remained meek and gentle. He is the One who hungers and thirst for God’s Justice and who reveals God’s mercy on earth. In a way, Christ is telling us, “If you wish to be my follower, if you wish to be like me, then live the beatitudes!”

And why should we imitate Christ in the Beatitudes? This is because the Beatitudes are stacked up like a ladder to heaven. Christ has forged a golden chain for us to reach heaven. It starts with the fact that the poor in spirit, the man of humility, will mourn for his sins and in this way will become meek, righteous and merciful. And the merciful is bound to become pure in heart. The pure in heart will be a peacemaker. And he who has attained all this will be ready for danger, and will not be afraid of calumny and countless tribulations. Readiness and fearlessness will be the crowning virtues that bring, according to Jesus Christ, joy and happiness.

The reason why we find these sayings paradoxical is because there is clear contradiction between the priorities and values of the world, and the values of the Kingdom which our Lord embodies. Let’s be honest. What is it that most of us are really looking for in life? We're looking for happiness, for security, for peace. But where are we looking for these things? We desperately try to protect ourselves by collecting more and more possessions, having to have bigger and better locks on the door, putting in alarm systems. We are constantly armouring ourselves against each other – increasing the sense of separation – by having more possessions, more control, feeling more self-importance with our college degrees. We expect more respect, and we demand immediate solutions; it is a culture of instantaneous gratification. So we're constantly on the verge of being disappointed – if our computer seizes up, if we don't make that business deal, or if we don't get that promotion at work. But aren’t we just chasing shadows?

But this is not to say that we should have nothing to do with material things, possessions and financial security. We need material support, food, clothing, medicines; we need shelter and protection, a place to rest; we also need warmth, friendship. There's a lot that we need to make this journey. But because of our attachment to things, and our efforts to fill and fulfill ourselves through them, we find a residue of hunger, of disappointment, because we are looking in the wrong places. As much as we believe that these things will give us “happiness”, they won’t.

But here in the Beatitudes, Christ is offering us another way of looking at these things without being enslaved to them. In fact, true freedom comes from embracing the Beatitudes. When you possess nothing, you do not need to suffer the fear or anxiety of losing anything. That is why the key to understanding the Beatitudes is Love, or to be exact, the price we are willing to pay for love. The Beatitudes are about the things that love will suffer, they are about what love will willingly endure, the things that love will find itself able to give, and to find satisfaction and even delight in giving. At the end of the day in order to love deeply, there are things we must be willing to forgo because we have found a greater treasure in the things we have grown to love. Only by sacrificing ourselves will we find ourselves in the fullness of life lived for God and for others. And to find ourselves in God and in others, we must lose our own selves.

The teaching of Christ, then, puts a literally infinite demand on us. We can't say, ‘No more’ or ‘That's it’. The Christian faith is a hard way. Following Christ is going to be costly. Ultimately, it means the way of the Cross. Any Christian religion or preacher that promises us a bed of roses, an easy life, success, prosperity and material abundance in this life is a counterfeit. Our Lord wants the whole of us and not just a part of us. Our Lord has the right to make an infinite demand on us, because He has given us an equally infinite grace not only to help us but also to raise us up to share in the divine life.

The Beatitudes provide us with a clear reminder that the Lord overcame the world by treading the path of persecution by His enemies, whilst remaining humble, meek, and gentle. It is important to understand that tribulations are necessary because there is no other way for us to imitate Christ and be freed from sin. In suffering, we become aware of our own weaknesses, helplessness and impoverishment, and, humbled in prayer and contrition before God, we receive divine help and joy in the Lord.

The Beatitudes of Christ shows that the blessing of sorrow, lies in the consolation we receive from God. Sorrow strips off beloved possessions—but reveals the treasures of the love of God. Just like the clouds that gather in the sky with ominous threatening; but they pass, and leave their rich treasure of rain. Then the flowers are more fragrant, the grass is greener, and all living things are lovelier. In the same way, we finally can discover that God has hidden His greatest treasures in the bleakest and gloomiest of experiences. Joy is hidden in sorrow, life in death, wealth in poverty, and glory in humiliation.  Whether the world will believe it or not, whether the wise can explain it or not, the Christian’s sole desire should only be the Cross; and for those who are willing to walk the path of the Beatitudes, they will find in it a joy so hidden, a sweetness so heavenly, and a happiness so exquisite, that all can proclaim with Saint Francis of Assisi that perfect beatitude consists in suffering for the Blessed Christ. 

Happy are you who are poor

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

We are in for a treat this weekend. I’m not sure about you but I’m personally excited. It’s not always that you get to celebrate the liturgy of the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Year C cycle. The last occasion was in 2010! It’s like a liturgical leap year of sorts. We have a late occurrence of Ash Wednesday and Lent this year to thank for this. An added treat would be that the gospel passage features the beatitudes as found in the Gospel of St Luke, and not the familiar eight that we hear more frequently (well, at least once a year on the Solemnity of All Saints and it comes at the top of a list of options for funerals).

The beatitudes in the famous Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of St Matthew and the Sermon of the Plains in St Luke contain some similarities and differences, despite the great likelihood that these are a narration of the same sermon. The striking difference between the two is to be found in the number of beatitudes: in Luke, who gives us four, compared to Matthew’s eight more developed beatitudes. But Luke balances his four blessings with four corresponding curses or ‘woes’ (or in our text “alas for you”). The Matthean beatitudes sees the world with a Jewish lens, where groups of people are identified as the righteous and the unrighteous. The Lukan beatitudes, on the other hand identify and categorise humanity as simply the poor and the rich. The Law, rightousness and piety found in the Matthean text is all but absent from the gospel of St Luke. St Luke is more concerned with the universality of the mission and message of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will not have sufficient time for a complete comparison of the two versions, but suffice to say that they are not just redundant repetitions.

After having provided the context of the sermon on the Plain (topographical location, demography of the audience), St Luke makes this poignant statement, “then fixing his eyes on his disciples, (Jesus), said …” In some translations, we have “And he, lifting up his eyes on his disciples.” This simple action of the Lord provides us with a clue of what is going to follow. St Ambrose asks, “What is lifting up the eyes, but to disclose a more hidden light?”  Christ is calling His hearers to a deeper understanding of God and His plan for mankind.  The Lord is not simply calling us to pay attention, but rather, He is calling us to see with the eyes of faith. 

Then we begin with the set of four beatitudes. Thirty years ago, the Jerusalem Bible created a stir by rendering the traditional “blessed” of the Beatitudes as “happy”: “How happy are you who are poor . . .” Happy? What a choice of word! Happy sounds frivolous and superficial. But the Greek word “makarioi” can be translated as both “blessing” as well as “happiness”. The problem is that many today often associate happiness with "having a good time"–with pleasure and comfort, the absence of suffering and want. But contemporary usage is flawed. True happiness is spiritual and moral, not merely emotional or pleasurable. The saints in heaven are supremely happy, because they're with God, the source of all happiness.

Just as the beatitudes in the Matthean gospel is hinged on the first beatitude, the four beatitudes of St Luke are likewise summarised in the first. That makes my preaching so much easier and your listening so less demanding. What is it about poverty that is so “blessed” or “happy” or even authentically “human”?  We must first make a critical distinction between poverty and destitution.  All human beings are entitled to have their basic needs met.  The fact that millions are living in our world in the state of destitution, where hunger and disease ravage entire nations, is a great sin against humanity. There is certainly no blessing in this, neither should it ever be a cause of happiness. Every time we withhold our cloak from the naked or our food from the hungry, we sin, not only against the human person, but also against the Lord Himself.  But poverty, or at least evangelical poverty, is not identical with destitution.  The destitute may think of themselves as forsaken, but the poor are definitely not forsaken by God. Poverty is the state of simplicity, that is the state of having only what one needs.  Poverty brings with it the simplicity to give oneself to God, who is the final cause of all of humanity. God is their wealth.

As the spiritual writers unanimously observed, to advance in the life of virtue, poverty must come first.  This is due to the chasm that lies between God and the world, the Creator and His creatures.  This world and all its riches is God’s gift to us to be used as a means for our return to Him.  Simply put: God is the end; things are means to this end.  On the other hand, the possession of material goods beyond that of basic necessity brings with it the risk of using goods as ends in themselves. Things therefore become our ‘idols.’ The outcome would be the proliferation of vices like greed, envy and possessiveness. It is interesting that, while Christ cured the sick, made the blind see, made the deaf hear, but to my recollection, He never once made a poor man rich.  Illness, blindness, and deafness are deprivations; poverty is not. Likewise, when one is deprived of the basic needs of life, this physical state of destitution necessarily brings with it the challenge of spiritual destitution.  This is precisely why we must work to eliminate destitution in the world, not primarily because of the physical sufferings, but first and foremost to allow God’s people the freedom to worship Him in health of body, mind, and soul. 

Christ, in this first beatitude, does not say, “To those who are impoverished, I say to you, the day will come when I will relieve you of this poverty and make you rich.” That’s the gospel of prosperity often preached by successful and popular pastors. No wonder, thousands throng to their churches. Instead, our Lord says, “happy are you who are poor.”  Poverty itself brings with it blessing, or rather, sanctity. The poor understand their need for God. The poor’s security and wealth lies with God. If the possession of goods beyond that of basic needs bring with it the risk of treating this excess as an end in itself, then it follows that the more we possess, the further we find ourselves from pursuing our proper end: God. We cannot serve both God and mammon. The further we are from our proper end, the less human we find ourselves.  This explains the unique theme of reversal present in St Luke’s beatitudes, the so-called four ‘woes’ as opposed to the four ‘blessings. Wealth, full stomachs, contentment and human respect, though good in themselves, can also risk becoming dangerous. They can lead us to believe only in ourselves and our resources and forget our true end which is God and His Kingdom. 

I hope that I have not given the impression that the Church has canonised material poverty as the ladder to heaven. The state of poverty cannot just be purely material; material poverty alone does not bring salvation.  St Basil warns us, “for many are poor in their possessions, yet most covetous in their disposition; these poverty does not save, but their affections condemn.” Material poverty in order to be humanising and divinising must be accompanied by spiritual poverty – being “poor in spirit.” On the other hand, neither is the state of poverty purely spiritual.  There are those who want to reduce Christ’s call to poverty to the mere spiritual detachment from goods and continue to live scandalously lavish lives at the expense of the poor.  This too is a distortion of the Gospel message.  Finally, this beatitude should certainly not excuse us from our responsibility to assist those who are in a state of destitution. Evangelical poverty can never mean a rejection of all material goods which are good in themselves. But it is an invitation to see that these things are better when they are shared with those who have-not.  As we continue our celebration of this Year of Mission, let us not forget the last point of the star. That our encounter with Christ, our learning from missionary testimonies and catecheses, should lead us to missionary charity, and in doing so, may we give true glory and worship to God, who became poor so that we may become rich in His graces.