The Beatitudes

The readings of today’s Mass focus on trust. The first reading from the book of Jeremiah, compares a man who trusts in human beings with the man who trusts in the Lord. The first one is like a bush planted in the desert, dried and barren; the second one is a tree planted on the shore of a river, its roots sucking up water all year around and producing magnificent fruits. The Responsorial Psalm praises whoever leaves things in God’s hands: “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” The second reading from the letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians has the famous sentence of how crucial is Jesus’ resurrection for us: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain.” How important it is for us to be witnesses of Jesus rising from the dead, and walking with us all the time, even in moments of trouble or difficulties, when it looks like he is not there.

We live in a society without hope in God. We have forgotten that we are pilgrims, travellers, and hope is a necessary companion to keep us moving. Peter Kreeft says that “we creatures of time are constantly moving into the future, and our eyes are usually facing forward. Hope is like headlights. It is not easy to drive without headlights in the dark.” Lack of hope is the death of a soul, making it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. Hope is represented as an anchor, the last thing you lose, what is helping you to be grounded. Hope is a virtue we don’t talk about very much.

We Christians believe in another life. That is why we are not too concerned about things here on earth and try to look forward to our encounter with God. People without hope in heaven have only eyes for the here and now; they would like to live for ever. There is a big push among multimillionaires to what is called transhumanism, spending a lot of money to try to download your brain into a computer. I wouldn’t like to live inside a hard disk for ever, waiting for somebody to format it. This life is frustrating and we all have in our hearts a longing for a perfect place, where we can live with God and the people we love for ever.

Today the Gospel reminds us of the Beatitudes. They give us hope of eternal life, connecting life on earth with future rewards. Beatitude comes from Latin “beatitudo”, which means “happiness”. They teach us the secret of how to reach happiness. Everybody wants to be happy, but we look it in places where true happiness does not exist, even going through the process of destroying our lives. Drugs give us a perfect example, of how people are trying to get that moment of bliss that can never be achieved, and we cook our brains along the way. We all have the experience of chasing things that we thought they were going to make us happy, and how we were always disappointed in the end.

The Beatitudes are paradoxes, ideas that seem to be going one way, but deep down they offer the opposite. They are difficult to grasp, a bit elusive, and we need to trust in the Lord that they are going to produce the fruits they promise. They reflect famous sayings like “less is more”, or “the more you give, the more you get”. Experience and common sense help us to discover the hidden truth of their wise reward. We all know that happiness goes through a narrow gate, climbing up an incline steep, while the road to perdition is wide and easy, going down like a run away train.

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