The Beatitudes!!!

One of our guides for living is what we will listen to this weekend. Our gospel is: Matthew 5:1-12a, the Beatitudes. Jesus went up the mountain, he saw the crowds, and he began to teach them. According to one of the homily helps, "the Beatitudes are much older than the gospel. Jesus uses Beatitudes to instill hope in people whose lives have given them little to hope for" (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, Jan. 30). The structure says it all: "The first part of each Beatitude describes a serious condition of diminishment ranging from poverty to persecution. The good news, however, is found in the second part of each Beatitude" (SAMP, Jan. 30). The Beatitudes are a way of life and they give us hope. As Pope Benedict XVI says, "The individual beatitudes are the fruit of Christ looking upon his disciples. The Beatitudes express the meaning of discipleship... What the Beatitudes mean cannot be expressed in purely theoretical terms; it is proclaimed in the life and suffering, and in the mysterious joy, of the disciple who gives himself over completely to following the Lord" (Magnificat, 403-4). The Beatitudes are a wonderful teaching for us and a way of life. Pray that we may have the grace to live the Beatitudes each day and be an example to others. Have a blessed weekend!!!