W.C. Fields, the famous comedian from the first half of the 20^th century, was known throughout the movie industry as an irreligious person. He did not take much stock in churches or church practice. It was therefore a surprise when an associate of his came across Fields reading the bible. “Mr. Fields,” the man said, “I never would have taken you to be a person of faith.” “I’m not reading with devotion,” Fields responded. “I’m looking for loopholes.”

W.C. Fields might have been interested in today’s gospel, because there is a loophole in it, an escape clause from which a number of us might benefit. The gospel selection is from the beginning of Jesus’ famous sermon on the mount. It consists in the eight beatitudes. These eight sayings by Jesus are widely recognized to be the heart of his teaching. They have been called the Magna Charta or the Constitution of the kingdom of God, because they express both what the kingdom is and what must be done to be a part of it.

Imagine if the question
of admitting immigrants and refugees to our country
were actually as simple as the current debate suggests…

One side, in the name of law, order and economic fairness,
wants to build walls to keep out the many
and tighten the process by which the few might be welcomed in.
The other side, in the name of mercy, compassion and justice
would welcome all
and provide for their housing, health and education.

What gets lost in these simple terms is the truth that
law, justice, order, compassion, economic fairness and mercy
are not only all legitimate categories to consider
but indeed each one complements, modifies, enhances
and enables the others.
These categories are not opposed to one another.
Considered together, they ought to provide a basis
for making sound judgments and policy
both for immigrants and refugees
and those whose borders they seek to cross.

And these categories might be considered
by anyone of humane good will and care for others.
But what of us, what of us who go by the name Christian?
Our faith in Christ draws us beyond the merely humane
and calls us to a love deeper than neighborly concern.

The wisdom of the cross of Jesus Christ is the foolishness by human reckoning that will remain a stumbling block for the ignorant. The consoling teaching of the Beatitudes in today’s gospel is a revelation of the integrity and humility that is informed by the wisdom of the cross. The cross according to Raymund Schwager is both a source of knowledge and a source of life[1]. The wisdom of the cross is the foundation of the beatitudes and somehow it will continue to elude those who consider themselves wise in the sense of the world.

The first reading consciously reminds us of the need to cultivate integrity and humility. Unfortunately these virtues cannot exist amidst a society that is characterized by victimization of the innocent. The relative peace and the mutual suspicion that inherent in victimization will not allow integrity and humility to grow. Likewise in the second reading, St. Paul remind the Corinthians that the cross of Jesus Christ has become our wisdom, our virtue, our holiness and our freedom. What is exposed on the cross is the greatest enslavement of humanity. An enslavement that is responsible for evil in the world. An enslavement that is expelled by the knowledge of it and the life that it poses to prevent.

Only the eyes of faith can behold on the cross, Jesus Christ crucified; the very foundation of the Pauline theology. (1 Corinthians 1:23). The whole of the beatitudes, though prior to the cross, envisage it. Jesus’ decision to preach the coming of the Kingdom of God, is a preempting of the life of the resurrection informed by the wisdom of the cross. To be gentle, merciful, poor in spirit, meek, compassionate, and suffer persecution, is always motivated by the wisdom of the cross. The life of the cross is what we see in the life of Jesus Christ. A life that is opposed to victimization; a life that forgives wrongs in order to reveal the true cause of the crisis.

It takes a tremendous amount of humility to be good parents, to be a good priest, and to be a good Christian. It takes a tremendous amount of humility to realize that we have to do our best in whatever we do, but God is the one who transforms our efforts into success. Good parents trust God to supply that which they lack. They trust God to work through them because they know that without God they cannot provide the best for their children. A good priest has got to realize that no matter how much work he does, as he should, the only part of his work that is worthwhile is that part which is guided by the Holy Spirit. Modern life is often complicated. People try to balance their jobs, their family needs, the latest technological innovation everyone else is convinced is a necessity, the lack of time they have for leisure and their efforts to crowd the little leisure time they have with endless and sometimes mindless activities. People love their children, but are so busy keeping up with the demands of society that they see them less than parents of any other age saw their children.

f, as we read in Zephaniah, that there will be a remnant left which is humble and lowly, then we need to strive for humility and lowliness. I realize that this goes against the grain, but it is against the grain of worldliness. On the other hand, it fits perfectly with the plan of God. At the same time, if we can obtain this level of humility, the Prophet tells us that nothing will disturb us. It is only because of our pride that we are offended by people ridiculing us. It is only because of our pride that we are afraid to live according to the beatitudes due to what people might think.

If we were truly humble, not only would we be living according to the beatitudes, but we would be at peace: at peace with God, at peace within ourselves, and even at peace with the world. The world may not be at peace with us, but we will be at peace with it. If this sounds too difficult or too lofty for us to achieve we need to recall that it is actually because we are weak, lowly, and foolish that we were chosen. So, it should not be too difficult to reach this goal. Just pray for humility and let the Lord do the rest. Be humble, live all the beatitudes, and live like a Saint.

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.

This Sunday’s Gospel is about the Beatitudes through which Jesus shows us ways or keys that open us to happiness. Certainly, it’s not the kind of happiness as the world teaches us. That’s why even the means of realising it is quite different from that of the world. By the Beatitudes Jesus offers us not only a revolutionary meaning of happiness but also the manner of journeying towards it.

You want to be happy? Well, if you can earn a little more and buy more you will have a joyful family. So we roll our sleeves and immerse ourselves in work, 8 days per week, indeed 8 days. Possibly, we gain a little more money and we can consume more but at a price. Not only do we run the risk of burning ourselves out but also we are shocked to realise when it’s too late that our family is beyond repair. In our pursuit for happiness we neglect to watch on the health of our family and relationships. We may have a little more money to spend yet with a burn-out and a fissured family there’s simply no way of enjoying the material goods we may have.

You want to be happy? Get some power and make sure you cling to it as long as you can. Consequently, the world is thrown into senseless and endless wars because of greed people who cannot detach themselves from power. Think of the many forms of injustice that little people suffer economically or politically!  In such circumstances, what kind of happiness can we talk about?

You want to be happy? Excel above everyone else. In the end, we lose the sense of being with others. We no longer appreciate others as companions on the common road to well-being. Not only do we consider them as competitors but we turn them into stepping stones on our way up. We care little the people we crash.  Anyhow, how possible is it to be truly happy with the success built on broken backs of others?

Zephaniah’s words in today’s First Reading plant the decor and outline the roadmap to happiness. He begins saying clearly, “Seek the Lord.” We seek the Lord by being humble and obeying His commandments, seeking refuge in the name of the Lord and avoiding lies. These help us to find true happiness.

Blaise Pascal’s Words in Pensées say it all. “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

Where do people seek happiness today? Some find it in drugs and debauchery and others in some earthly and short-lived pleasures. But the Scripture makes it clear that God is the ultimate source of happiness. Our problem is that we start seeking happiness in secondary instead of primary things. The Bible says God rewards those who seek Him earnestly (Hebrews 11:6).

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives the roadmap for happiness. Beatitude comes from the Latin word “beatitude”, which means happiness. Man naturally desires to be happy. (CCC 1718). The Greek word translated as blessed means, “extremely fortunate, well off, and truly happy.” The Beatitudes respond to a natural desire for happiness which is of divine origin. God has placed it in the human heart to draw man to the One who alone can fulfil it. In the Beatitudes Jesus calls us to abundant happiness that makes us complete and whole; in which we find our true selves and the person God intends us to be. God leads us to transform ourselves, gives us the ability to see what needs to be transformed and to find God’s help in that transformation.

We are invited to live the Beatitudes and to focus on God’s desires for our lives. Living the life of the Beatitudes means seeking God. This leads us to a true inward peace that leads to a desire to be outward peacemakers, to bring reconciliation, seek out opportunities for mercy and compassion and pursue, hunger and thirst for justice and righteousness. One Beatitude is very important for today’s broken world: “Happy are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). In Evangelii Gaudium (the Joy of the Gospel), paragraph 190, Pope Francis encourages us all to seek Peace by “hearing the cry of entire peoples, the poorest peoples of the earth since “peace is founded not only on the respect for human rights, but also on respect for the rights of peoples.”

While many people’s rights are unjustly infringed, Pope Francis alludes to the Beatitude to call for the respect of human rights as the pathway to peace. Knowing that “The beatitude of heaven sets the standards for discernment in the use of earthly goods in keeping with the law of God” (CCC, 1729). Let us seek the Lord of Peace and we shall find true happiness!

Four centuries before Christ, Aristotle stated, “To judge from the lives that men lead, most men…identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure.” The great Greek philosopher did not share that view. On the contrary, for him the happy man “will be engaged in virtuous action and contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and altogether decorously.” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chapter 10)

I sometimes smile to myself when people say that we are falling back into “paganism” or that people today are “acting like pagans.” I know what they are trying to say, that our conduct is often decadent. But the fact is that pagans were probably more serious about virtue than we are today. The thinkers they admired most, like Aristotle or Seneca, placed much emphasis on the pursuit of a virtuous life. They went into great depth analyzing virtues such as courage, justice, prudence and temperance. As I noted at the beginning, Aristotle taught that only virtuous action brings solid happiness. And Seneca stated succinctly, “If virtue precede us every step will be safe.”

The noble pagans were not so far from the teaching we heard in today’s Gospel. They knew that, while rich food, money, sexual activity, mastery over others, and so on, can lead to pleasure, those things do not necessarily bring happiness. They also knew that a person can suffer various afflictions – ill health, loss of financial resources, defeat in battle, death of loved ones – and still possess a true inner happiness. The pagans knew this, but they did not really know why.

Jesus tells us why it is possible to be happy even in the midst of afflictions. First of all, we should note that he assumes the pursuit of virtue. For example that persecution comes “for the sake of righteousness” and that those who speak evil against us, do so “falsely.” But for Jesus, the basis of happiness is much deeper than the tranquil conscience which results from striving for virtue. Jesus adds a small clause: “because of me.” That is, we will achieve happiness if we embrace misfortunes for Jesus.

That statement must have shocked Jesus’ hearers – at least the ones who were paying careful attention. He seems to be implying that we can only be happy if we give our lives completely over to him.

Yes! Strive for virtue – as Aristotle and all the noble pagans advise. But when – like them – we fall short, come to Jesus. Virtue might be its own reward, but it can never be its own end. In Jesus alone is lasting happiness.

What should I do to follow Jesus? How can I decide what Jesus would expect of me in certain circumstances? We could say that following Jesus begins firstly in our mind, in our attitudes, and then flows over into our actions. In the beatitudes, Jesus teaches us the attitudes of a Christian. In the beatitudes, we do not have specific guidelines for every specific situation we encounter but Jesus gives us the underlying attitudes that should inform the decisions we make in our concrete and specific situations.

Some might say that the beatitudes are too idealistic and impossible to live fully. While Jesus is the only one who has perfectly lived these beatitudes because none of us is yet the image of Jesus we are called to be, we all aspire to image Jesus, to be his disciples, so we aspire to live the beatitudes. The more we live the beatitudes, the closer we are to Jesus. Certainly, Our Lady also lived the beatitudes fully, but like all who do so, it was as a result of the grace of Jesus.

In today’s Responsorial Psalm, we have expressed our faith in ten beautiful statements about God. We have said that God is just to the oppressed, that God gives bread to the hungry, that God sets prisoners free. We go on to say that God gives sight to the blind, raises up those who are bowed down, protects the stranger and upholds the widow and the orphan. We conclude by stating that God thwarts the wicked. The Psalmist sums up his faith by declaring that ‘The Lord keeps faith for ever.’ There are times when we wonder are these statements true.

Our own everyday experience, plus what we see on television or at the cinema or read in the newspaper, makes it hard to believe them. Many strangers, widows and orphans are not receiving justice. Many people are starving. There are prisoners of conscience, there are people old and young who are living hopeless lives because they do not see – their eyes remain closed to anything better. Our own personal lives often seem to give us reason to question the kinds of statements we have just made from the psalm. In our extended families and among our friends there is so much hurt caused by what can rightly be called wickedness. Does God really thwart the path of the wicked? On the other hand we are encouraged to believe these statements and to repeat them in our liturgy today because the author of the psalm clearly believed what he was saying, and generation after generation of Jews and then Christians have repeated his words. This way of thinking about God is found also in the words from Zephaniah in today’s First Reading.

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Have you ever had a mountain top experience? When was that time? What was going on? I think we all feel like we spend most of our lives in the valleys of life, going from point “a” to point “b” or in circles as the case may be, however, we all have at least one or two mountain top experiences when God gives us a glimpse of the world around us, where we receive clarity about God’s will for us and direction on where we need to be going in life. We call this Gospel reading from Matthew the Beatitudes. We find the word beautiful in the word beatitude because the beatitudes are Jesus’ recipe for how to live a beautiful life. However, I love how the Gospel reading begins with Jesus situating himself on a mountain to give his famous sermon. If you visit the location of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, you will discover that it is actually only a good sized hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. There is a lovely church on top and a nice trail that leads you down a grassy slope to the shore below. However, Matthew’s exaggeration that this sermon was given on a mountain is important. You see, mountains are places where you cannot climb higher. It is the place where the earth touches heaven. It is from that place where Jesus teaches his followers the spirit and perfection of the Law of Moses rather than the letter. You see, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is the new Moses. Just as Moses received the law from God on a mountain, Jesus is going to give us the perfection of the law from a mountain. Instead of a long list of “thou shalt nots” Jesus is going to give us a long list of “thou shalts”. And by doing this, Jesus is inviting us to have a mountain top look at what is truly important in life.

God made us with a natural desire for happiness, which only he can satisfy. In fact, he himself is its object: he made us for himself.

God offers us this happiness as an utterly free gift. Accordingly, we call it beatitude, from the Latin beatus, translated “blessed.”

In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus proclaims the beatitudes, so called because each begins with “blessed.” To understand them, we must know what “blessed” means.

First, “bless” can mean “praise, extol, adore, call holy,” as in the psalm: “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Second, it can mean “favour,” as in “May God have pity on us and bless us.” Third, it can mean “invoke God’s favour upon,” as when we ask a priest to bless a Rosary.

In each sense, the past participle is “blessed.” Like all such words, it used to have two syllables: bless-èd. In everyday English, this pronunciation was largely abandoned in the 16th century, but it is still common in prayers, like the old forms of “you” and “your” – ”thou,” “thee,” and “thy.”