Blessed Are They

Last week on All Saints Day, Pope Francis provided six new beatitudes for the modern era. They do not replace the eight beatitudes that Jesus preached, in fact I believe they help us to understand and live out the original eight with more honesty and grasping the message of Jesus for our day and age.

They have struck me as I have read them over the past week, they have sat on the top of my pile on my desk and I keep coming back to them. Maybe it is because I see the challenge in them, maybe it is because the beatitudes are good guides for our lives, and maybe it is because I’m trying to embrace how I am called to live out my part of God’s story.

What follows are Pope Francis’ beatitudes and my brief reflections on each.

Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart.

Forgiveness such a powerful gift and one we deny ourselves and others so often. It is not easy to remain faithful when we feel surrounded by easy options, enticing lies and what can sometimes be the cruelty of humanity. Choosing to stay grounded in Christ is a daily choice, choosing to embrace love and forgiveness leads to the fullness of life not an illusion of life that society offers. Remaining faithful may not always feel or be convenient but it keeps us connected to our true source.   How do we remain faithful and how often do we offer forgiveness?

Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness.

The challenge to be brother and sister with those who are hurting, those different from us, those who have made different choices from us, those trying to embrace the freedoms we enjoy, it is easy to stay in our comfort zones and to look the other way. The greater challenge is to be close to them, to journey with them. Jesus did that with the poor, the neglected, the sick, and the widowed. St. Francis did that with the lepers and his brothers. It is a challenge but one that leads to blessings. These are all our brothers and sisters, all of humanity. How do we look into their eyes?

Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him.

Seeing God in my brother, my sister, and my neighbour maybe a bit easier to do, seeing God in the homeless, the drug addict, and the bully is a lot harder. This beatitude flows from the previous one and challenges us to see God in every situation and by our actions and words make God’s kingdom known. The love of God is meant to be share (we know this), the challenge of this beatitude is to actually do it with those we live with, work with and those who need to be loved. How do we see God in those we love and those we find hard to love?

Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home.

This is the only home we have. We seem to forget that a lot of times; we use it, hurt and destroy it for our conveniences. When God created humanity and said subdue the earth, God did not mean use it until it can’t be used any more. God asked us to be in partnership with creation, to bring it to fullness of life and to ensure it is here for generation upon generation. In this time of environmental crisis we have to ask ourselves what are we doing to ensure our sister, Mother Earth is cared for, protected and blessed?

Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others.

Yes the luxuries of life, we all have them and we all want them. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the blessings of life, we however need to share these blessings and not live beyond our means, so others may live. Not always easy, even for us in religious life. We can get too comfortable and forget about helping others. This beatitude goes hand in hand with seeing God in every person. It has to be beyond ourselves and our own comforts, we must be able to see and enter into the journey of those around us. How do we live within our means and share our blessings?

Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.

The challenge of Jesus, ‘that all may be one’. Christians all profess the same Jesus. We sometimes seem to forget this and think that our Jesus is different or better than their Jesus. Really? It is the same Jesus who lived, preached, died on cross and rose from the dead. He didn’t do this over and over again for that denomination or this one; He did it once for all and asked us to live our lives in reflection of him. Can we continue to pray for healing in the Christian family? Can we work harder for unity with our brothers and sisters in Jesus?

All these are messengers of God’s mercy and tenderness; surely they will receive from him their merited reward.

I need to remind myself that my reward is not here and now; no, my reward is when I am face to face with Jesus and filled completely with Him. Until then I continue to strive to live as a beloved Child of God, a Brother of Jesus and allow the Spirit to live and move and be in me. I pray that we all can do this. Let us together be people of the gospel and live with attitudes of being, forgiveness, care, generosity, solidarity, respect, love and mercy. The reward has to be out of this world!