Beatitude (Mid-week Message)

Beatitude

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

October 9, 2013    
 

“Blessed are you poor, for God’s Reign belongs to you.

Blessed are you who are in want…  Blessed are you who weep…. “ (Luke 6:20-21)

Richard Rohr, in his book The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad, 2009), says that Jesus, almost alone among the religious founders, “found God in disorder and confusion—and told us that we must do the same or we must never be content upon this earth” (p.16). 

There are many ways we try to hide from the truth that despite whatever problems we face, already we are blessed, we are beloved.  Sometimes we pretend that some authority—whether the Bible, or the Church, or some program of practice or action—has all the answers that will fix things for us or fix us ourselves.  We think the answer to our problems lies out there.   We busy ourselves, whether with pleasurable distractions (very good or large amounts of food and wine, hobbies, sports, or cultural events) or frenetic activity aimed at bettering ourselves or others (physical training, enrichment education, service and charitable projects, or even dabbling efforts at “spirituality.”)

But here’s the thing—Jesus’s basic proclamation is that the Reign of God has already come near, is already in our midst.   Christian faith is that the work of God’s rescuing us has already been done by Jesus.  Christ is our peace, our Sabbath, our Passover meal.  The Peace of God is already accomplished and available for us. It is like a treasure buried in a field, like a seed that grows on its own.  When Jesus preaches “Repent (literally, ‘change your minds’), for God’s Reign has come close” he is asking us to change our basic perspective, not just amend our behaviors.  

The shift of optics where we see in a flash glimpses of the beatific vision, where we know how it was that Jesus saw blessedness even in wretchedness, is a gift from God.  There is no formula for “achieving” it.  But like all gifts, we must have empty hands reached out to receive.   Full hands cannot grasp new gifts.   The focused and ordered use of spiritual practices—prayer, meditation, regular study, receiving spiritual guidance and direction, and performing the corporeal acts of mercy such as alms-giving, standing with the down-trodden, and thankful sacrifice of our time, talents, and wealth to God—are ways to empty our hands.  But they must not be taken as steps to achieve enlightenment, things we do with our time and money in order to win God’s blessing, lest they be merely the frenetic activity of self-distraction we see all about us.  We already have God’s blessing.  Spiritual practice, a rule of life, must be at the center of our desires and relationships to help us recognize this truth that is already here.

Grace and Peace,   

Fr. Tony+