10th June >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 5:1-12): ‘Happy those who mourn; they shall be comforted’. (2024)

10th June >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 5:1-12): ‘Happy those who mourn; they shall be comforted’.

Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 5:1-12How happy are the poor in spirit.

Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them:

‘How happy are the poor in spirit;theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Happy the gentle:they shall have the earth for their heritage.Happy those who mourn:they shall be comforted.Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right:they shall be satisfied.Happy the merciful:they shall have mercy shown them.Happy the pure in heart:they shall see God.Happy the peacemakers:they shall be called sons of God.Happy those who are persecuted in the cause of right:theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven: this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.’

Gospel (USA)Matthew 5:1-12Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Reflections (8)

(i) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, Saint Paul blesses God as ‘the God of all consolation who comforts us in all our sorrows’, and in the gospel reading Jesus declares, ‘Happy are those who mourn: they shall be comforted’. We can find ourselves sorrowing and mourning for many reasons. We mourn when someone close to us is seriously ill or dies. We mourn when we look out on our world, our city, our neighbourhood, and see the harm that is being done to people by violence, drugs, neglect and poverty. Our feelings of sadness and even despondency can cause us to turn in on ourselves and drain us of energy. Yet, Paul and Jesus declares that God is with us at such moments, working to console us, to encourage us, to help us to keep going so that we can change things for the better. If we turn to the Lord at such times of sorrow and distress, rather than turning in on ourselves, we will find a consoling strength that we could never find in ourselves. The Lord works to console us in such moments, so that, as Paul reminds us in that reading, ‘we can offer others, in their sorrows, the consolation that we have received from God ourselves’. God consoles us to bring his consoling presence to others. God consoles us so that we have the energy to keep hungering and thirsting for what is right, in the words of the gospel reading, rather than allowing what is wrong in our world to dishearten us. God strengthen us with his consoling presence so that we can be peacemakers in our world where conflict is so much in evidence. If our suffering and sorrow open us up more fully to the Lord’s consoling presence, then they can become a blessing not only for ourselves but for others.

And/Or

(ii) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Portrait painting is a very specialized skill. When I am in London I love to visit the portrait gallery just off Trafalgar Square. There are wonderful portraits there of all kinds of people from the present time back through the centuries. People like to have their portraits painted. If you are ever in Rome and you go to Piazza Navona you will find people sitting to have their portraits pained by local artists. I like to think of the beatitudes as painting a portrait. When Jesus spoke those beatitudes he was painting a portrait of himself. He is poor in spirit, in that he depends on God for everything; he is gentle and humble of heart; he mourns because God’s will is not being done on earth as in heaven; he hungers and thirst for what is right, for what God wants, and is prepared to suffer to bring that about; he is merciful to the broken and the sinner; he has a purity of intention, wanting only what God wants; he works to make peace between God and humanity and among human beings. In painting a portrait of himself, Jesus was also painting a portrait of his followers. It is our portrait, and we are called to try and fit that portrait. We cannot become the person of the beatitudes on our own; we need the help of the Holy Spirit who works within us to mould us into the image and likeness of Christ.

And/Or

See Also

Racial Attitudes in Churches of Christ

(iii) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

For the next couple of weeks the gospel reading will be taken from the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes which is this morning’s gospel reading come at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus puts before his disciples, before us, a very demanding way of life. In the Beatitudes he declares that those who embrace such a way of life are blessed, are fortunate. If Jesus can convey a sense that those who follow the way of life he is about to outline are truly blessed then such a way of living will become something we want rather than just something we are required to do. The values of the beatitudes are the core values of the Sermon Jesus is about to preach. If we allow our lives to be shaped by these values, then we are indeed blessed, even though that may not be at all obvious to others, or even to ourselves. Jesus is suggesting that we don’t find authentic happiness, the state of being blessed by God, by pursuing happiness. Rather, to find real happiness we have to set our sights on something beyond happiness, on those kingdom values that Jesus proclaimed by his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and by his life and his death.

And/Or

(iv) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

This morning’s gospel reading is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. It is a very striking beginning. The Beatitudes express in a very succinct form the vision of Jesus for human living, and, in particular, for living as his followers, as his disciples. The qualities Jesus refers to in those nine beatitudes find fullest expression in Jesus’ own life. He was ‘poor in spirit’ in that he recognized his dependence on God his Father for the work he was sent to do. He was ‘pure in heart’ in that his heart, his desire, was focused on doing God’s will and on the coming of God’s kingdom. He was ‘merciful’ in that he brought God’s merciful love to those who were broken in body, mind, heart or spirit. He ‘hungered and thirsted for what is right’, for what God wanted, and was prepared to be persecuted for being true to that deep hunger and thirst. When we look at the beatitudes, we are looking at Jesus, but we are also looking at the person that Jesus is calling us to become. To live the beatitudes is to become, in the words of Saint Paul, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. When we live the beatitudes, as Jesus did, we will be truly blessed, because we will receive in abundance from God, ‘we will be comforted, we will be satisfied, we will have mercy shown us...’ This is indeed a gospel passage that is worth pondering, allowing it to seep into us so that it really shapes us.

And/Or

(v) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this morning is one of the most familiar texts in the gospels. It’s very familiarity can blunt our awareness of how radical a message is being spoken. Jesus declares blessed those who live according to certain values and attitudes. They are blessed, not so much because of their present situation, but because of a future situation that God will bring about for them. The poor in spirit are those who are aware of their own lack of resources and look to God for salvation. The ‘gentle’ are the opposite of those who are grasping; they are unselfish rather than on the make. Those who mourn are those who are disturbed by the present state of the world and long for its liberation from poverty, violence and disease. Those who hunger and thirst for what is right are people who have a longing for the justice that God desires for all people and actively pursue it. The merciful are those who bring God’s merciful love to the broken in body, mind and spirit. The pure in heart are those who are totally dedicated to God and to God’s cause; they are single-minded in their pursuit of what God wants for the world. The peacemakers are those who actively work for a peace based on God’s justice. Having declared all of the above categories of people blessed, Jesus concluded by declaring blessed those who are prepared to suffer persecution in the pursuit of what is right, of what God desires for his world. It has been said that the one person who gives full expression to all of the attitudes and values expressed in the beatitudes is Jesus himself. He above all is the one who is poor in spirit and gentle, who mourns for the way things are and who hungers for what is right, who is merciful and pure in heart, who is a peacemaker and is prepared to suffer in the cause of right. At the same time, Jesus is offering us in the beatitudes a vision for human living to which he calls us all to aspire. If the beatitudes are Jesus’ own self-portrait, they are also a portrait of his disciple. Later on in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus will say, ‘Learn from me’. He can learn from him how to live the beatitudes and his Spirit will empower us to live them.

And/Or

(vi) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

The Beatitudes are one of the best-known texts in the gospels. Jesus declares ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ those who live by a certain set of values that Jesus himself gives expression to in his own life. They are ‘blessed’ not such much because of their present situation but because of the ultimate future which these values open up for them in eternity. Jesus promises that for those who live by these values, ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. He outlines a set of attitudes and values that leads to life in God’s kingdom. He is describing the way of life which God desires for us and which Jesus himself lived to the full. Jesus is giving us a portrait of both himself and of his disciples. Such people will be poor in spirit, acknowledging their poverty before God and their need of God. They will be gentle rather than arrogantly insisting on their own way. They will mourn because the world is out of sorts and not as God wants it. They will have a deep hunger and thirst for God’s justice to come into our world. They will reveal God’s merciful love to the broken and work for peace and reconciliation in the world. They will have that purity of intention which keeps putting what God desires first. They are ready to suffer for the sake of a right and just way of life for all. Jesus promises that if we travel this path as he did, then we will come to share in the fullness of God’s blessing.

And/Or

(vii) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus declares blessed or fortunate those who embrace a certain way of life. He is saying that those who live according to these values and attitudes are blessed not because of their present situation but because a future situation that will come about for them through the power and fidelity of God. Those who live according to these values are blessed because of the future that God has in store for them. In the present they may not seem blessed to others. How can it be said that those who mourn are fortunate or blessed? Jesus is saying that those who experience sadness because of the present state of the world and who, as a result, have a passionate commitment to justice, who hunger and thirst for what is right, and are prepared to be persecuted in the cause of right, will be comforted, will be satisfied, in the kingdom of heaven. The attitudes and values that Jesus espouses in the beatitudes make people vulnerable in the eyes of the world, being poor in spirit, gentle, merciful to others, pure in heart. They are not a recipe for getting on in the world. They are the opposite of the competitive and grasping spirit that stops at nothing to get ahead, that will allow no one to stand in the way of reaching the top. These are all attitudes and value that give space to God in one’s life and, thereby, promote the coming of God’s kingdom, the doing of God’s will, in the world. God in Jesus looks upon such people and says to them, ‘Congratulation! You are indeed blessed, because you are living as I intended, as sons and daughters of God, and you will know a happiness that this world cannot give’. Jesus is saying that this is the path to happiness not just in the next life but in this life too.

And/Or

(viii) Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

This morning we begin to read from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. We will be reading from this letter for the next several weeks. It is a powerful letter and is well worth reflecting upon. In today’s first reading, Paul declares that in the midst of suffering and sorrows the God of consolation is always present to us. God consoles us in our sorrows, so that we can be a consoling presence to others in their sorrows. We all go through our own suffering and sorrow at different times in our lives. If we allow God to touch our lives in those moments with his consoling and strengthening presence, then we will be empowered to support others as they go through their own valley of darkness. Paul knew great hardship and suffering, but he experienced the Lord’s strengthening and consoling presence in the midst of it all. That is why he could be such a source of encouragement to his churches when they were struggling. In today’s gospel reading, which is well-known to us as the Beatitudes, Jesus says, ‘Happy those who mourn; they shall be comforted’. It seems strange to declare those who mourn ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’. Yet, Jesus is saying they are happy because in their sadness and pain they can experienced God’s comforting and consoling presence in a much fuller way that if all was well. The darker experiences of life can open us up to God’s loving and sustaining presence and enable us to bring the Lord’s comforting presence to others in their times of sorrow and distress.

10th June >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 5:1-12): ‘Happy those who mourn; they shall be comforted’. (2024)