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The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Gospel, First Reading & Psalm

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Second Reading

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GOSPEL, FIRST READING & PSALM TRANSCRIPT (Subscribe or Login for Full Transcript):

Okay, so a couple of questions.  What would the Beatitudes have meant to Jesus’ first audience?  Remember, all of his disciples — this is to whom he is speaking here — are Jews.  So his first disciples are all Jewish disciples, they are coming out of a Jewish worldview.  What would these Beatitudes have sounded like in their ears in the first century A.D.?  Second, what do they mean for us today?  What's the meaning of each one of these expressions?  What does it mean to be poor in spirit?  What does Jesus mean by calling people to be meek?  What does that word meek even mean?  What does he mean when he says pure of heart?  So what we are going to do is we are going to look at each one of these passages and try to at least briefly make a comment.  Now a caveat here, you could write a whole book just on the Beatitudes, so we don’t have time for that.  I just want to give you at least a few insights into each one of them and also show you how the Catechism interprets these very important texts.  So let’s begin.

The first point is the setting of the Beatitudes.  It's not insignificant that Matthew begins by telling us that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount on the top of a mountain.  The reason that this is important is that any first century Jew would have immediately thought about Moses going to the Mountain of Sinai in order to receive the old law.  So when you look at the Gospels, there are lots of clues that Jesus — especially in the Gospel of Matthew — is being depicted as a new Moses.  So for example, he's rescued when he's a baby from a wicked king who wants to kill him and all the boys — sounds like Moses and Pharaoh.  He goes out into the desert and he feeds people with miraculous bread from heaven — sounds like Moses in the wilderness.  Well the same thing is true about the Sermon on the Mount.  Just as Moses went up Mount Sinai in order to get the 10 Commandments, the old law, so now Jesus, the new Moses, goes up to the top of this mountain in Galilee in order to to give his disciples the new law, the law of the Gospel.  So Jesus is a new Moses here.  However, it's important also to note though that there's both a difference and a similarity.   The difference here is significant.  If you go back to the book of Exodus in Exodus 19 and 20, Moses, when he gets the 10 Commandments, the old law, he brings it down to the bottom of the mountain and gives it to the people at the bottom of the mountain.  But when it comes to Jesus, the new Moses, with the new law of the Sermon on the Mount, he actually doesn't deliver it at the bottom of the mountain, he gives it at the top of the mountain.  So he's bringing the disciples up to a higher law, a higher commandment, because Moses’ law was ultimately oriented toward the kingdom of Israel, toward the earthly kingdom in Jerusalem, but Jesus's new law is going to be ordered toward the kingdom of heaven, a heavenly kingdom.  So there's a similarity but there is also a big difference here with regard to Jesus as the new Moses of the new mountain giving the new law.  That is the first point.

Now for the second point.  The first part of the new law — I mean Jesus could have started anywhere — the first thing he does is he gives this list of beatitudes.  That shows you just how important the Beatitudes are.  In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 1716 calls them “the heart of Jesus’ preaching.”  So these eight Beatitudes are literally the the center of all of Jesus’ teaching and they give life to Jesus’ teaching —  just like the heart gives life to the body — so we really want to pay attention to them.  But one of the first problems that we deal with is that the translation of the Beatitudes doesn't quite get at their deeper meaning.  So for example, most English translations of the Bible — like the one I just read, the Revised Standard Version — says “blessed are the poor in spirit” or “blessed are those who mourn” and “blessed are the meek” so on an so forth.  But the actual Greek word here is not the standard word for blessing.

The Greek word being translated as blessing here is actually makarios, which means happy.  That is the literal translation of the word.  So when you read the Beatitudes it's not just a list of blessings, it's actually a description of how to be happy, it's the secret of happiness.  And you can see this much more clearly if you read a Latin translation of the Bible like the Latin Vulgate, because the Latin word is beatus, which means happy, and that's where we even get the word beatitude from.  You might have wondered, why do we call these Beatitudes?  Well it's not because we are supposed to be this attitude — that's what I thought when I the kid, in catechism I thought “okay, well this is the attitude I am supposed to have.”  That is partly true, but that is no what the word means.  Beatitude means happy or happiness, and so these eight beatitudes are a description, given to us by Jesus, of true happiness, of how to be happy.  Which, before we even look at them, just think of that for a second.  Everyone, every single human being created, desires happiness, seeks after happiness.  So the first part of the first sermon Jesus gives…what is he going to start with?  The desire of every human heart, with happiness.  So now he is going to describe to us how to be happy.

Here is the list.  Now, as soon as I say that, these are strange statements about how to be happy.  So let's walk through them together and see if we can unpack these kind of paradoxical mysteries.  There are eight Beatitudes traditionally  — the way they are counted — and these are they:  First and foremost, the “poor in spirit.”  What does it mean to be poor in spirit?  Well as St. Augustine and other commentators have pointed out, this is a reference to people who are spiritually humble.  The Greek word ptōchos that is used for poor here literally means “dependent” or “needy”.  It's the kind of poverty that places you in a position of absolute dependence on others.  So Jesus, when he says poor in spirit. what he's describing is someone who recognizes their own spiritual poverty.  In other words, in terms of spiritual poverty, I have nothing in the bank, I'm completely dependent on God.  That is the essence of humility.  It's the opposite of spiritual pride, which takes place when someone thinks that, from a spiritual point of view, they are very wealthy, that they're filled with virtue and they are filled with goodness and they are filled with magnanimity and they are so much better than everyone else.  So the first key to being happy, according to Jesus, is recognizing one's own spiritual poverty.  Being poor, not just in material wealth, but being poor in spirit.

Number two, the second group: “Blessed are they who mourn” or “happy are they who mourn.”  Here St. Augustine and other commentators say that Jesus is describing those who lament the sufferings, the sin and the death that are part of this present life.  So someone who mourns is someone who is experiencing the pain of loss, whether lamenting their own sinfulness or the sinfulness of others, lamenting their own suffering or the sufferings of others, and especially of course the primary expression of mourning is mourning for those who have died.  What does Jesus say?  “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  He points to a promise of comfort beyond the sufferings of this life.

The third group he describes: “happy are the meek.”  This one often throws people off.  We don't use the word meetk very much anymore.  What does the Greek word mean?  The Greek word for meek here is praus, and it literally means “gentle.”  This is the description, St. Augustine says, of those who yield to insults and who conquer evil with good — we are going to see Jesus describe that later on in the sermon itself.  So a person who is gentle is someone who is patient with others and who doesn't retaliate whenever they experience insults, persecutions, slander or other forms of harm from other people.  “Blessed are the meek.”  Why?  Well “they shall inherit the earth.”  Well that is a very paradoxical thing to say.  If you look at our world, who is it that inherits the earth and inherits the land?   Well it is the powerful, it's the violent, it's those who engage in war in order to take over other people's lands.  But Jesus is saying “no, no, no, happy will be the meek, they're going to be the ones who inherit the earth.”

The fourth category: “happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  Who is Jesus describing here?  Well he's describing those who literally are starving or thirsting for righteousness and justice.  The Greek word here for righteousness. dikaiosuné, has both those meanings: righteousness, in the sense of holiness, being right with God, but also justice, in the sense of doing right towards others.  Obviously if you look around the world, there are innumerable acts of injustice, an unimaginable amount of sin and a lack of holiness, and so what Jesus says here is that those who hunger and thirst, who are starving for justice in the world, they will be satisfied, they will be filled.

The fifth category: “happy are they who are merciful.”  This one I think we can understand pretty well because we still use the word mercy today.  What does it mean to be merciful?  It means to forgive others faults, to forgive others sins, even when they don't deserve it, in fact especially when they don't deserve it.  That's the quintessential aspect of mercy.  And so what Jesus is saying here is that people who are merciful are happy, because they shall obtain mercy from God, they shall be forgiven by God even when they don't deserve it.

The sixth Beatitude: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  What does this mean?  Well again, the Greek word kind of helps us here.   Katharos is the word for pure and it means clean or undefiled.  So what Jesus is describing here, according to St. Augustine, is that people who act with integrity and who avoid compromise in their hearts, who keep their hearts and their minds free from sin and free from the defilements of the world, they shall see God.  So he is talking about a certain purity of heart, a certain cleanliness of heart, that prepares us to see the one who is all holy, to see the one who is completely free of all evil, in whom there is no darkness at all, namely to see the face of God in the beatific vision.

Number seven: Jesus says “happy are the peacemakers.”  Who are the peacemakers?  This is pretty easy to understand.  It's those who reconcile, who seek reconciliation with others, who seek peace with others, and also those who seek to foster reconciliation between others as well.  This is a very important idea in first century Judaism.  The word shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is to this day still a standard Jewish greeting.  So when you greet someone you don't say hello, you say shalom, which means peace to you.  So Jesus here is taking something very common in Judaism and making clear that those who make peace with others and who foster peace, they shall be called sons of God.  So they have a special way of imaging God in seeking peace in this world.

Then finally the most paradoxical, strangest and surprising of all of Jesus’ Beatitudes is the eighth Beatitude, when he says “happy are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”  So this would describe any group or any person who is slandered or falsely accused or reviled specifically for either the sake of righteousness, in other words for doing the right thing, or, Jesus goes on to say, for his sake, in other words, for bearing witness to Christ, for being a disciple of Jesus.  If you are reviled or slandered or falsely accused because of your righteousness or because of being a disciple of Jesus, then you should count yourself happy because “yours is the kingdom of heaven” and because that's what they did to the prophets in the Old Testament.  So one of of the signs of being a true prophet is that people speak falsely against you, they speak ill against you, they speak evil against you, just as they did Jesus himself.

Okay, so that's the basic meaning of each of the eight Beatitudes. One last point I want to make here.  I want to stress that the promises that Jesus attaches to the Beatitudes are eschatological.  In other words, they point forward to the end of time, the resurrection of the dead, and the light of heaven — the life of the world to come.  So for example, when Jesus says “blessed are they who mourn, they shall comforted,” he's not just talking about consolation and comfort in this life.  This does happen, but that's not the main point of the beatitude.  The main point is the consolation and the comfort of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, when all of your loved ones that you've lost and mourned for in this world will be raised up, body and soul, and you will be with them for all eternity, body and soul, with the Trinity, in the Trinity, in the life of the world to come.  When he's talking about “blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth,” he doesn’t mean they are going to get a big piece of real estate in this world, he's talking about inheriting the world to come.  That was a standard Jewish image for the new creation, the new heavens and new earth that Isaiah, and other prophets, said would happen at the end of time after the resurrection, that the whole world would be made new through the Messiah.  The same thing, when he talks about “blessed are the pure in heart” what does he say?  “They shall see God.”  That just doesn't mean that they will see God in other people in this life or see God in the beauty of nature, he's talking about seeing God face to face in the beatific vision.  And you can go on through with every one of these and it works that way.  Being called “sons of God,” that means being part of the life of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, being sons in the son in the kingdom of heaven.  You can see that because the first beatitude and the last beatitude have the same promise.  It begins with “they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven” and ends with “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  So the kingdom of heaven frames the promises that Jesus is making.  Everything he's saying here is not that you're not going to suffer in this life,  you’re not going to mourn in this life, you're not going to to be persecuted in this life.  To the contrary, those are precisely what you will experience in this life, but in the kingdom of heaven all of that, all of that, shall be undone in the kingdom of heaven.  As the book of Revelation says, “every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more mourning or crying or pain anymore, because Christ will make all things new.”  That's the kind of happiness, that is the ultimate happiness, that Jesus is describing for us in the eight Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

SECOND READING TRANSCRIPT (Subscribe or Login for Full Transcript):

So let’s read what Paul has to say, and we’ll try to unpack it. In chapter 1, verse 26, Paul says this:

For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.”

So that’s the passage for today. What’s going on here? Well, if you recall, Paul writes the letter to the Church at Corinth, which is a relatively young church. And one of the things that’s been happening in his absence from the Church at Corinth is that the figure of Apol’los has come to Corinth. And as we mentioned in previous videos, Apol’los was an Alexandrian believer in Jesus. He came from the city of Alexandria, and he was known for his eloquence and his wisdom.

And in ancient terms, recall—in an ancient context, recall—that if someone was wise or eloquent, it would frequently be linked with their identity as having studied philosophy or actually being a philosopher. Think about the word philosophy...literally means a “friend of wisdom.” Philos is the word for “friend”; sophia is the Greek word for “wisdom.” So a philosopher is someone who is wisdom’s friend.

Sometimes people translate philosopher in English as a lover of wisdom, but literally it’s the friend of wisdom. And so Apol’los appears to be a kind of philosopher figure who comes from Alexandria in Egypt, which was a great intellectual center in the ancient world. So Athens was known for its philosophers. Alexandria was also known for its philosophers and for people who sought wisdom—people like Philo of Alexandria who was obviously trained in hellinistic moral philosophy, even though he was a Jewish figure.

So Apol’los is a similar figure to that, and it appears that some of the Corinthians have not only begun to set up divisions amongst themselves—some of them saying, “I’m with Paul” or “I’m with Apol’los”—but some of them have apparently (we can infer from this) critiqued Paul. Because Paul is not as eloquent as Apol’los. Paul is not as philosophically trained as Apol’los. And some of them appear to be using that against Paul. So what Paul is doing is kind of responding—not explicitly but implicitly—to the critique by reminding the Corinthians that they themselves...they’re not wise men. They’re not a bunch of philosophers. They are not wise according to the standards of the world. Not many of them are powerful, evidently, according to the standards of the world...or of noble birth.

So he’s kind of giving us a little window here into the demographic of the Church in Corinth...and by inference into the demographic of lots of other Christians in the first century AD. We know from other New Testament documents, as well as later Church historians, that Christianity spread most rapidly not among the proud and the wealthy—although there were wealthy people who believed and who patronized, who provided for the Church—but among the poor, among slaves, among women.

We actually have certain critics of the early Church—like Celsus and Porphyry, these were pagan critics of the Church in the second, third centuries AD—who criticized Christianity because it was so popular among the lower classes. And yet, what Paul’s doing is kind of turning that on its head and saying, “Look, not many of you were wise. Not many of you were powerful by worldly standards.” But that’s precisely the point of the Gospel...is that God chooses the foolish. God chooses the lowly and exalts them above the powerful and makes them wiser than the wise and the philosophers by giving them the revelation of the truth of the Gospel—that God has come into the world as a lowly carpenter from Nazareth. It’s precisely this carpenter from Nazareth who suffers a slave’s death on the cross, who is in fact the king of the universe...who is in fact the king of glory...who is in fact the Messiah, not just of Israel, but the king of the nations.

So there’s this paradox that’s built into the very Gospel itself. It’s ultimately the paradox of the cross—that the mystery of the incarnation and the mystery of the cross are both mysteries (as Paul will say in Philippians) of God’s self emptying. The fact that Christ Jesus, although He was in the form of God, didn’t count equality with God something to be grasped, but He empties Himself and He takes the form not just of a human being—He’s born in the likeness of men as Paul says in Philippians—but He takes the form of a slave.

So Christianity is a slave’s religion, because its very founder takes the form of a slave when He takes the death of a slave on the cross at Calvary. So all of that is kind of swirling underneath the text here. So Paul’s responding to what was likely a critique of perhaps Him or maybe other Christian leaders—like Peter, Cephas, who’s mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1—as not being very wise by worldly standards. Paul turns that argument around and says, “Well, look at the nature of the Gospel itself. God has chosen what seems to be foolish and what seems to be lowly as the very mechanism, as the very instrument by which He will bring salvation to the whole world.”

Therefore it’s fitting that the Corinthians themselves—who aren’t wise by worldly standards, who aren’t noble by birth—are the ones that God chooses to be His emissaries...to be His members of the body of His Son.

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