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How does God guide us? Listen to the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading from the Gospel according to Luke (Luke 6:17, 20-26). This is a great place to start. The Beatitudes are at the very heart of Jesus’ preaching. They expand upon Jesus’ command that we are to love our enemies and love our neighbor. The Beatitudes are contained in what is called the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, though in Luke’s Gospel this is called the Sermon on the Plain because it is described as taking place on level ground rather than on a sloping hillside. At the core of the sermon is Jesus’ teaching on love. This love is characterized by forgiveness and generosity. These qualities are characteristic of the Christian life. They offer us hope in the midst of the trials of life. And they show us what is already ours by virtue of our salvation through Christ. They help us to see the fullness of our lives as God has designed them. In paragraph 1718 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is stated:“The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.”
How can it be that those who are poor, those who are hungry, those who are weeping, and those who have been hated and insulted, are blessed by God? Elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus’ disciples were puzzled at his teaching on how difficult it would be for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God, because they presumed that such wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Likewise, we today find it difficult to comprehend how poverty, hunger, and sorrow can be signs of God’s blessing as well. But perhaps if we take a closer look at what is called the “Judgment of the Nations” scene in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 25:31-46), we gain a better sense of how Jesus identified himself with the poor, the hungry, the sorrowing, and so on. And if we stand united to Jesus, truly we are blessed.
Just as there are consequences to disobeying rules and laws in our society (just ask anyone who has received a speeding ticket!), so, too, there are negative repercussions from our straying from God’s vision of human happiness. Unlike the Beatitudes n Matthew’s Gospel, Luke gives four “woes” after his description of the Beatitudes. These woes are reminiscent of the cries of impending distress by the Old Testament prophets who issued to the people a call for repentance. Luke depicts Jesus as fulfilling the same prophetic role to warn that disaster comes upon those whose worldly comfort and prosperity has turned them away from God and fidelity to the demands of his covenant. The woes remind us that satisfaction in worldly wealth and prestige can give us a false sense of security and lead us to overlook our radical dependence on God’s mercy.
Today, let us heed God’s warnings about the dangers of a life apart from his grace, and follow the path of blessing and human flourishing he has described for us in the Beatitudes, for “your reward will be great in heaven.”
