Dear Friends,
Thank you for the birthday wishes, cards, and gifts. You are all so kind and generous. As I have told people my age (35), I can’t believe old/young I am.
For the next eight weeks, this bulletin column will approach the topic of the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5. Unlike the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes are not primarily moral injunctions because they first and foremost reveal to us who our Lord Jesus Christ is. Jesus is the perfect personification of being poor in spirit, meek, merciful, a peacemaker, pure in heart; Jesus is one who mourns, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and is persecuted for the sake of righteousness. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that if we want to find true joy we should love what Christ loved on the Cross and despise what He despised on the Cross: the Beatitudes exemplify what Jesus Christ loved and what He despised on the Cross. The Beatitudes, then, show us how to be more like Jesus Christ, which is the goal of life. In another way, Pope Benedict XVI stated, “The Beatitudes express the meaning of discipleship.”
We begin with the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There are many forms of poverty, and it is a physical and spiritual phenomenon. Poverty can be a lack of material and monetary resources; an illness; loneliness; aging (in that strength fails, capabilities diminish, the number of acquaintances thins out, life-span shrinks); sin and error; failures in career, in family life, in legitimate projects and ambitions. Because of that, this beatitude is addressed to all, to every person, for poverty is a part of the human condition. We all encounter and experience poverty in one form or another at some stage in life.
While we have discussed that everyone faces poverty, we still have not yet discussed the poor in spirit. Those who are materially poor may not be poor in spirit, and those who are materially wealthy can and may be poor in spirit. Scripture is full of warnings against greed and excessive wealth. Pope Benedict XVI explains why material poverty can be just as dangerous as material wealth: “The heart of those who have nothing can be hardened, poisoned, evil—interiorly full of greed for material things, forgetful of God, covetous of external possessions.”
Who are the poor in spirit? The poor in spirit are those who have the courage to accept poverty in their lives and come to love it. They are free from attachments to wealth and possession, living detached from them. While they may not reject and renounce possessions, they do not clutch and grasp after wealth and possessions. The poor in spirit recognize that everything they have, whether great or small, comes from God. The poor in spirit are the ones who come to God with empty hands, not with hands that grasp and clutch, but with hands that open and give and thus are ready to receive from God’s bountiful goodness. St. Ignatius Loyola spoke of a holy indifference, accepting health, illness, wealth, poverty, good, and bad. The poor in spirit live out this holy indifference, accepting whatever God gives them. Being poor in spirit brings about a freedom for service, for mission, for meditation and contemplation, and being poor in spirit engenders ultimate trust in God in a person.
Jesus lived material poverty and was poor in spirit, and the Son of God entered the world in poverty for our sake and for our goodness. St. Paul tells us in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,” and St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Jesus took on bodily poverty, in order to enrich us spiritually.”
We are saints under construction, striving to be poor in spirit. Have a great week!
In Christ,
Fr. Matt