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Commentary on Hosea 5:15—6:1-6

Both readings today are about our attitudes in relating to God in prayer. The passage from Hosea in the First Reading used to be read every Good Friday. As is described in the Vatican II Missal:

“…the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah) are criticised for their shallow religion and trust in animal sacrifices. God wants a life of sincere service.”

The prophet here composes a penitential prayer and puts it into the mouths of God’s people, who are terrified by threats of punishment and of being abandoned by God. They exhort each other to return to Yahweh, but the return is only superficial—there is no real repentance.

The people say:

Come, let us return to the Lord…

Though this is their call, it lacks sincerity. The people complain that God has treated them roughly, but they are confident that he will heal them again.

…he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.

Some have seen in these words a reference to the resurrection of Christ, by which God’s healing will be brought back to his people.

…he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.

Israel believed that, as surely as the seasonal rains fell and revived the earth, God’s favour would return and restore her, and that his anger would come to an end.

The reason for God’s toughness is the superficiality of their commitment to him. Their:

…love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.

God sees through the emptiness of their pious expressions:

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim [the northern kingdom]?
What shall I do with you, O Judah [the southern kingdom]? Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.

They have used high-sounding words of repentance, but their actions have not been in harmony with utterances.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.

Not literally killed them, of course, but condemned their sinful behaviour.

God now spells it out clearly (and this sentence is quoted twice in Matthew’s Gospel):

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

What God has wanted from them is genuine loving actions, not empty rituals, however piously performed. Knowledge of God is not simply knowledge about God, but a knowledge implying a deep interpersonal relationship instead of ostentatious holocausts.

This is what we see criticised in today’s Gospel too. And, for us, it is not the Masses we attend, or the prayers we say that count most, but the genuine love of God shown by the way we live our lives and the way we relate to the people around us. Our prayer must flow out of such a lifestyle and, at the same time, bring about such a way of living.

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Commentary on Mark 12:28-34

In the Gospel, we find one of the rare meetings between Jesus and a teacher of the Law which is not confrontational. The man seems genuinely interested in Jesus’ answer to a question that was often asked by interpreters of the Law. Again, and rather unusually, Jesus answers the question directly.

In fact, he gives a double answer. In doing so, he links, in a special and indivisible way, a total love of God with love of those around us. The scribe is impressed. He fully endorses what Jesus has said, and even adds that such love transcends any purely religious activity. Jesus is also impressed, and tells the scribe that he is very close to the Kingdom of God.

Jesus says this because the scribe puts love of God and neighbour at the very centre of living, but he will not be fully in the Kingdom until he becomes a follower of the Way of Jesus. Whether that happened or not we do not know.

What we do know, is that we today are being called to follow Jesus in a total commitment of heart, mind and strength to loving God, and to loving unconditionally every single person we come in contact with. Lent is a good time for us to evaluate how we are doing in this regard.

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Commentary on Hosea 14:2-10

Both of today’s readings are about our total commitment to God. Regarding the First Reading, the Vatican II Missal tells us:

“More than any other prophet, Hosea tells about God’s love for his people.”

After many negative words from the prophet to God’s people, Hosea in this last part of his book sounds a note of hope, which he had already hinted at earlier. Today’s passage is a liturgical prayer expressing sincere repentance, concluding with a firm promise of God’s blessing.

In this closing passage of his book, Hosea calls the people back to God. The troubles they have been experiencing are due to their alienation from God. If they will only come back to him, where they belong, their lives will flourish. God is only too anxious to shower his love and gifts on them.

Hosea urges the people to say:

Take away all guilt;
accept that which is good,
and we will offer
the fruit of our lips.

In other words, expressions of true repentance will take the place of purely external rituals.

There is there not much good in looking for help from powerful neighbours like Assyria, nor from those who “ride upon horses” (perhaps a reference to Egypt). Rather, God is the one in whom “the orphan finds mercy.”

God will bring his healing:

I will heal their disloyalty;
I will love them freely…

These gifts and their results are expressed in lovely phrases taken from plant life:

I will be like the dew to Israel;
he shall blossom like the lily;
he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon.
His shoots shall spread out;
his beauty shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.
They shall again live beneath my shadow;
they shall flourish as a garden;
they shall blossom like the vine;
their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

God then compares himself to the greenness of a cypress tree (and this is unique in the Old Testament), a source of life and fruitfulness for his people.

If we could learn that only through the way of life which God proposes can we find the true fulfilment of our deepest longings, then we will experience a deep happiness throughout our life. During this Lent let us open our hearts to a total and unconditional love of God and of those around us.

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Commentary on Matthew 5:17-19

In Matthew’s Gospel especially, Jesus is shown as not being a maverick breakaway from the traditions of the Jews. He was not a heretic or a blasphemer. He was the last in the great line of prophets sent by God to his people:

…he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ (Matt 21:37)

So in today’s passage, Jesus strongly emphasises that it is not his intention to abrogate the Jewish law, but rather to develop and complete it. In the verses that immediately follow today’s passage, Jesus gives six very clear examples of what he means. He quotes a number of moral situations contained in the Law, and shows how he expects his followers not only to observe them, but to go much further in understanding their underlying meaning.

The Law is not to be downgraded in any way. Rather, it is to be transcended to a higher level. Up to the time of Jesus—and this is clearly exemplified in the Pharisees and scribes as they appear in the Gospels—perfect observance of the Law focused on external acts. Jesus will show that true observance must also be in the heart and mind.

Christians, too, can become obsessed with external observance of Church laws and regulations. It can become a source of scrupulosity and fear. This can happen during the Lenten season when we are encouraged to do ‘penitential acts’. We need to remember that these acts do not stand on their own. They only have meaning if they deepen our relationship with God. In all things, our ultimate guide must be the law of love. No truly loving act can ever be sinful, although at times it may violate the letter of a law.

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Commentary on Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9

Moses reminds the Israelites of the great treasure they have in their laws and customs, a treasure full of “wisdom and discernment”. These laws are life-giving and will bring the people closer to their God:

For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

Other Jewish traditions from this period often emphasise the distance between God and man, indicated by the reluctance even to utter the name of God (as we see even in Matthew’s Gospel).

However, Deuteronomy calls attention to the loving intimacy between God and the people among whom he lives. His enduring presence was symbolised by the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in the centre of the Israelites’ camp, and by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, which indicated God’s accompanying presence with his people at all times.

God’s love for humanity will find its supreme expression, however, in the Incarnation, when the Word of God “became flesh and lived among us” as one of us—a concept many devout Jews would find very hard to accept.

But it is in the Law, too, that God is with his people. Through its observance, they express their closeness to him. Yet Jesus was to make radical modifications to this Law to bring it to even greater heights of sensitivity and accountability.

The greatness of any society can in part be measured, first, in the quality of its legal system and, second, in how its laws are administered and observed. This involves close cooperation between law-makers, enforcers of the law, interpreters of the law and observers of the law.

But above everything else, as Jesus clearly indicates in today’s Gospel, is the law of love which does not abrogate, but goes far beyond the Mosaic Law and includes a deep sense of justice, of compassion and unity between people.

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Commentary on 1 John 5:1-5; John 15:1-8

In the Gospel Jesus compares himself to a vine tree. The passage comes from the long discourse which Jesus has with his disciples at the Last Supper on the eve of his suffering and death. He begins by saying:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.

This is the last of seven ‘I AM’ statements made by Jesus in the course of John’s Gospel.

The ‘I AM’ is the name of God, and makes one think of the time when Moses was before the burning bush from which a voice came telling him to undertake the mission of liberating his people from slavery in Egypt. But Moses objected:

If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them? God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ (Exod 3:13-14)

In today’s passage Jesus speaks of himself as the True Vine, or rather as the main stem or trunk of the vine. On the vine there are many branches. Some of these branches are laden down with fruit, while others may not produce any fruit at all. But even the branches which bear fruit will be pruned so that they will produce even more fruit. This pruning can be identified with the trials that even the most committed of Christians is bound to experience in the living of a Christ-centred life. On the other hand, no branch can bear any fruit at all unless it is part of the vine.

It all clearly applies to our relationship with Christ. Separated from him, we are not able to bear fruit. Jesus says he is the source of all our life and of every good thing we do because:

…apart from me, you can do nothing.

A branch that becomes separated from the trunk that is Jesus will wither and die. It will only be of use for the bonfire.

Cyril, as bishop in Jerusalem, faced a good deal of ‘pruning’ in being a fruitful branch on the vine. He endured a great deal of opposition and misunderstanding, but through it all remained faithful to his Lord.

The First Reading is from the First Letter of John. This letter is very much concerned with the thinking of the Gnostics, a group of Christians who wanted to deny the reality of the material body of Christ. So today’s passage begins:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.

And the last sentence reads:

Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

In other words, it is an affirmation that Jesus is truly and fully and in every way the Son of God, who shares in himself the divine nature of God and our own human nature.

In the time of Cyril, the prevailing heresy was that of the Arians, whose position was the opposite of the Gnostics. The Arians denied that Jesus shared the divine nature with the Father and that he was only human. The reading from 1 John equally attacks both the Gnostic and Arian positions.

Let us, then, acknowledge the true divinity and the true humanity of Jesus. It is only this that gives the Incarnation its full meaning, so that Jesus becomes the Bridge linking our God with our human selves and the world in which we live. It is through Jesus that God comes to us, and through Jesus and our imitation of him that we go to God.

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Little is known of the life of Cyril before he became bishop. It is believed he was born about the year 313 or 315 AD. He was raised in Jerusalem and given a good education, especially in the Scriptures. About the year 335, he was ordained deacon by St Macarius of Jerusalem, and ordained priest about eight years later by Bishop St Maximus. He was given the task of catechising during Lent those preparing for Baptism, and during the Easter season, the newly baptised. His catechetical texts remain valuable as examples of the ritual and theology of the Church in the mid-fourth century.

About the year 350 he succeeded St Maximus as Bishop of Jerusalem. Through the nature of his conciliatory disposition, while opposed to Arianism, he was not quite ready to accept the uncompromising term homoousios (from the Greek meaning ‘consubstantial’ and indicating that Jesus shared the same divine nature with the Father).

But he distanced himself from his archbishop, Acacius of Caesaraea, who favoured the position of Arius, and Cyril favoured the so-called Eusebians who were anti-Arian. This displeased Acacius, and a council held under Acacius accused Cyril of insubordination and selling church property to help the poor. He was forced to retire to Tarsus. Then in the following year, the Council of Seleucia, at which Cyril was present, deposed Acacius.

In 360 AD, Acacius was again in control and Cyril was sent away for another year, until the accession of the emperor Julian allowed him to come back. Then in the year 367, the Arian emperor Valens banished him again. But Cyril was able to return with the accession of the emperor Gratian, and returned to find Jerusalem torn with heresy, schism and strife, and wracked with crime. Even St Gregory of Nyssa, who was sent to help, left in despair.

Cyril and Gregory both went to the (second ecumenical) Council of Constantinople, where the amended form of the Nicene Creed was promulgated. Cyril now accepted the word ‘consubstantial’. Some said it was an act of repentance, but the bishops of the Council praised him as a champion of orthodoxy against the Arians. Though not friendly with St Athanasius of Alexandria, the greatest defender of orthodoxy against the Arians, Cyril may be counted among those whom Athanasius called “brothers, who mean what we mean, and differ only about the word” (i.e. ‘consubstantial’).

He remained in his post until his death in 386. In 1883, St. Cyril was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII.

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José de Anchieta Llarena was born on 19 March 1534 in San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain, to a well-off family. His father, Juan López de Anchieta, was a landowner from Urrestilla, in the Basque country, who had escaped to Tenerife after taking part in a failed rebellion against King Charles V. His mother, Mencia Díaz de Clavijo y Llarena, a descendant of the conquerors of Tenerife, came from a Jewish family and was related to the family of Ignatius Loyola.

Anchieta went to study in Portugal when he was 14 years old, in the Royal College of Arts in Coimbra. He was intensely religious and sought admission in 1551 to the Jesuit College of the University of Coimbra as a novice. During his studies, the young Anchieta became quite ill, with an affliction of the spine which tormented him throughout his life, but he was considered an exceptionally intelligent student and a gifted poet. He learned to write in Portuguese and Latin as well as in his mother tongue.

In 1553 Anchieta travelled to Brazil as a missionary of the third group of Jesuits sent to the New World, accompanying Duarte da Costa, the second governor-general nominated by the Portuguese crown. After a perilous journey and a shipwreck, Anchieta and his small group arrived in São Vicente, the first village founded in Brazil, in 1534. There, he had his first contact with the Tapuia Indians living in the region.

In the same year, Anchieta with 12 other Jesuits were sent to a plateau in the Serra do Mar and there established a small mission station. Here, Anchieta began, with his Jesuit colleagues, the work of conversion, baptism and catechesis and education for which the Jesuits were well known. Anchieta taught Latin to the Indians and began to learn their language, Old Tupi, and to compile a dictionary and a grammar, which was the custom of Jesuit missions whenever they made contact with a local people. The Jesuit College of São Paulo of Piratininga, as it was called, soon began to expand and to prosper.

Meanwhile, due to the killings and ransacking of villages by the Portuguese colonisers, the local tribes in present-day Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo united in a confederation against them and supported the French colonisers. Anchieta, who was totally opposed to the Portuguese behaviour, strongly opposed Governor-general Duarte and initiated peace negotiations with Tamao people during which his knowledge of the Tupi language was crucial.

After many incidents during which Anchieta and his colleague, Manuel da Nobrega, were almost killed by the native people, he finally gained their confidence and peace was established.

Peace was broken, however, when it was decided to expel the French colonisers permanently. Anchieta was with the Portuguese forces, acting as both surgeon and interpreter, and took part in the final, victorious battle against the French in 1567.

With the coming of peace, a Jesuit college was founded in Rio de Janeiro under the direction of da Nóbrega and Anchieta was invited to join him, succeeding him after his death, in 1570.

Despite his precarious health and the hardships of travelling by foot and boat, for the next 10 years Anchieta travelled widely between Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Espírito Santo and São Paulo, consolidating the expanding missionary work of the Jesuit missions. In 1577 the fourth superior general of the Jesuits, Everard Mercurian, appointed Anchieta provincial superior of the order’s members in Brazil.

With his health in decline, Anchieta asked to be relieved from his respnsibilities in 1591. He died in his country of adoption on 9 June 1597, at Reritiba, Espírito Santo, mourned by more than 3,000 native peoples, who so much valued all he had done for them both spiritually and in the promotion of their human dignity.

During and after his life, José de Anchieta was considered to have almost supernatural powers. Many legends formed around him, such as when he supposedly preached to and calmed down an attacking jaguar. To this day, a popular devotion holds that praying to Anchieta protects against animal attacks.

José de Anchieta is celebrated as the founder of Brazilian literature and, with da Nóbrega, Apostle of Brazil. He has given his name to two cities, Anchieta, in the State of Espírito Santo (formerly called Reritiba, his place of death), and Anchieta, in the state of Santa Catarina, as well as many other places, roads, institutions, hospitals, and schools.

He was canonized on April 3, 2014 by Pope Francis.

In the Jesuit tradition, Anchieta kept in constant touch with his superiors in Europe, communicating mainly by letters, writing in perfect Spanish, Portuguese, Latin and Tupi. He also wrote theology, religious instruction, drama poetry, and the first published work on the Old Tupi language.

He was a writer of music and a dramatist, teaching Christianity to the local people through music and theatre. He wrote a famous poem to the Virgin Mary, allegedly writing it every morning on the wet sand of a beach at Iperoig and committing it to memory until he could much later transcribe its more than 4,900 verses to paper. Because of all this, Anchieta is the patron of

literature and music in Brazil. He was also a keen naturalist, describing several hitherto unknown plants and animals, and was an excellent surgeon and physician.

His clear and detailed reports help us now to understand the lifestyle, knowledge and customs of the native peoples and Europeans during his time, as well as the marvels of Brazil’s wildlife and geography.

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Colmcille (also Columcille or Colum Cille) was born on 7 December, 521, near Lough Gartan in County Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. On his father’s side he was a great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a high king of Ireland in the 5th century. His original name was Crimthann, meaning ‘fox’. He could have been called that because of his red hair. Colmcille (Dove of the Church) was the name given to him as a monk and he is also known as Columba, the Latin word for ‘dove’.

Already in his time in Ireland, there were many monastic settlements which were centres of learning and holiness. He began his studies at the monastery of Moville in County Down, which had been founded by St Finian. He later studied at the famous monastery of Clonard, near Kinnegad in County Meath, which was founded by another St Finian (no relation to the first). In the 540s, Clonard was regarded as one of the finest centres of learning in Europe. It is said that the average number of scholars under instruction at Clonard was about 3,000. Twelve students who studied under St Finian became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland and Colmcille was one of these. There he became a monk and was ordained as a priest. It was also there that he met St Ciaran, who later founded Clonmacnoise, another famous monastery on the banks of the River Shannon. From there, Colmcille moved to the monastery of Glasnevin (near Dublin), founded by St Mobhi, where he met many learned and holy people.

Legend has it that around the year 560, Colmcille became involved in a quarrel with St Finian of Moville over a book of the psalms. Colmcille copied the original at the scriptorium (the place in the monastery where texts were hand copied), intending to keep the copy for himself. Finian disputed Colmcille’s right to keep it. The dispute became so serious that it resulted in armed conflict, the Battle of Cul Dreimhne in 561, in which many lost their lives, but Colmcille was able to keep his copy. The book has since become known as the Cathach or ‘Battle Book’ of St Columba. Legend has it that a special shrine (Cumhdach) was made for the Cathach. Following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, it was taken to France by the O’Donnell family (also from Donegal), but was brought back to Ireland in 1813. It is now in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin and is the oldest surviving manuscript of the Psalms.

A synod of clerics and scholars threatened to excommunicate Colmcille for the deaths in the battle, but St Brendan of Birr spoke up for him with the result that he was allowed to go into exile. Colmcille suggested that he would work as a missionary in Scotland to help convert as many people as had been killed in the battle. He left Ireland in 563 with 12 companions for the west coast of Scotland, “wishing to be a pilgrim for Christ”.

It is said that he first landed at the southern tip of the Kintyre peninsula, near Southend. However, as he was still in sight of Ireland, he moved further north up the west coast of Scotland. He was granted land on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland which became the centre of his evangelising mission to the Picts. But there were also many Irish emigres who had been in the area for a long time. He provided the only centre of literacy in the region, and his reputation for holiness led to his role as a peacemaker between the tribes. There are also many stories of miracles in his missionary work. He later played a major role in the politics of Scotland. He founded several churches in the Hebrides, and worked to turn his monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries. He wrote many hymns and is credited with transcribing 300 books. He seems to have returned to Ireland only once, towards the end of his life, to found the monastery at Durrow, a few kilometres north of Tullamore in the Irish midlands. The site at Durrow was given to him by the King of the southern Ui Neill kingdom of Tethbe. Durrow (Dearmach), means ‘Field of the Oaks’.

Other monasteries said to have been founded by him were at Raphoe and Kells. The latter was to rival and later surpass Durrow as a centre for piety and culture (both monasteries produced the famous manuscripts carrying their names). After this, he founded Clonmore in County Meath. Later he made a foundation on Lambay Island, off the coast of County Dublin. The site opposite Lambay had a well that was renowned for its clear water. Colmcille blessed the well, which was called sord, an old word meaning ‘pure’. Because of this the monastery became known as Sord Colmcille, from which the present town of Swords in County Dublin gets its name.

Colmcille died on Iona in the abbey he had founded on 9 June, 597. Iona remains today a very popular place for pilgrimage.

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Commentary on Matthew 5:1-12

Today we begin reading from Matthew’s Gospel and will continue to do so for several weeks to come. We begin with chapter 5 and the Sermon on the Mount.

In reading Matthew’s Gospel, we need to remember that it was directed primarily at a readership with a Jewish background, and in this it differs greatly from Mark’s Gospel. One of Matthew’s aims is to present Jesus as the new Moses, transcending, but not putting aside the law given to the Israelites by the first Moses. And as the Law of Moses is contained in what we call the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the law or teaching of Jesus is presented uniquely in this Gospel by five long discourses.

The first of these is the Sermon on the Mount and it consists mainly of the qualities which are expected of a follower of the new Law, and the new Moses—Jesus. It begins with what we call the Eight Beatitudes. It could be said that these have been greatly under-rated in the life of the Christian churches, Catholic and otherwise. Most people tend to see the centre of Christian living in the Ten Commandments, and yet they really belong to the Hebrew (Old) Testament; they are part of that Law which the coming of Jesus did not nullify, but transcended. They are, of course, still valid as moral guidelines, but in many ways, they fall far short of the expectations presented by Jesus in the Beatitudes.

It would seem, in fact, that Matthew is presenting the Beatitudes as taking over the role of the Commandments, and this is indicated by the prominent place they have in forming the opening of the first discourse. They are, as it were, a manifesto of Jesus’ message and his call to see the world in his way. They express the necessary attitudes of those who belong to the Kingdom. Those who have these attitudes already have entered that Kingdom.

Perhaps a few words about the ‘Kingdom’ are in order. In many ways, Matthew’s Gospel can be called ‘a Gospel of the Kingdom’. The phrase that Matthew consistently uses, however, is ‘Kingdom of heaven’. For many people this can be misleading because it causes them to think that Jesus is talking about the next life, our life in ‘heaven’. As a result, the Beatitudes are sometimes interpreted as conditions to be observed by those who want to go to heaven after they die.

This may be a serious misreading of the text. Matthew uses the term ‘Kingdom of heaven’ because, mindful of the Jewish background of his readers, he does not like to mention the name of God directly. He uses other circumlocutions in the course of his Gospel to get around using God’s name, as when he has Jesus say:

…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven…
(Matt 16:19)

By using passive voice in the second half of the statement, he avoids mentioning the Doer—God. The other Gospels have no hesitation in talking about the ‘Kingdom of God’, and it is important to understand that is also what Matthew means.

What is this Kingdom? It is not a place. The Greek word, basileia, is an abstract word which means ‘kingship’ or ‘reign’ rather than ‘kingdom’, which suggests a territory. ‘Kingship’ or ‘reign’, on the contrary, suggests power. To belong to the Kingdom or Kingship of God, then, is to put oneself fully, consciously and deliberately under the power of God—to experience that power and be empowered by it. That power is above all the power of agape-love.

When we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “your Kingdom come”, we are not talking about a future life after death, but praying that people everywhere put themselves under the loving power of God in the here and now. That is made clear by the petition immediately following: “your will be done on earth…” Our first call as Christians is to belong to, to enter that Kingdom, and not just to be a member of the Church.

The Church is, in so far as it is faithful to the call of Christ, part of the Kingdom, but the Kingdom extends far beyond the membership of the Church. The Church is, as it were, the sacrament or visible sign of the Kingdom. There are many examples in our present time of people, who are not even Christian, who are very much full of the spirit of the Kingdom, more so perhaps than many who are baptised. An example from the past is Mahatma Gandhi, who was particularly fond of the Beatitudes and identified with them.

Today’s text begins with Jesus seeing the crowds and going up a hill. Moses, too, delivered God’s law from an elevated place, Mount Sinai. In neither case can we identify the actual mountain or hill, although traditionally, of course, there is a hill near the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee that has been called the Mount of the Beatitudes.

In the traditional way of a teacher, Jesus sits down to teach. We see him doing the same in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:20). He is joined by his disciples, and it is not clear whether they were the primary object of his teaching, or that the crowds were also included. The teaching, of course, is directed to followers and, in particular, to those reading the Gospel.

Jesus begins the discourse with the wonderful words of the Beatitudes. There are eight of them, each one beginning with the words, “Blessed are those…” ‘Blessed’ is also translated as ‘Happy’ and is from the Greek adjective makarios which includes not only the idea of happiness, but also of good fortune, of being specially blessed. So we can also translate it as “Happy are those…” or “Fortunate are those…” It is important to realise that being a follower of Christ is intended to be a source of deep happiness and a realisation that one is truly fortunate to have discovered this vision of life.

At a first reading, the Beatitudes seem to fly in the face of commonly accepted ideals of the good life. It takes a deeper reading to see their inner truth.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The Gospel in general shows great concern for the poor, that is, all those people who are deprived of what they rightfully need to lead a life of decent dignity. Why should the poor be particularly blessed? As people living in deprivation, obviously they are not. But in terms of the Kingdom, they are blessed because in the Kingdom, where love, compassion and justice prevail, there is no place for such inequality. The Kingdom is an environment of interlocking relationships where people take care of each other, and where the resources of all are shared according to the needs of all. The Kingdom is a place of blessings and happiness for the poor because it spells the end of their poverty. The poor are the “little ones” that Jesus speaks about as qualification for entering the Kingdom. They are the “last” who will be first. And, while ‘poverty’ in a wider sense can be applied to all, Jesus is thinking especially of the material simplicity that he expects from his disciples, a poverty which he himself experienced with “nowhere to lay his head”. Wealth can only mean depriving the needy of what they should have.

Matthew is unique in using the term “poor in spirit”, and it is a significant addition. While the Gospel in speaking of the poor is mainly and rightly concerned with the materially poor, Matthew’s phrase can broaden the concept. Because in reality, there are many other ways in which people can be deprived and regarded as poor. We are more sensitive to this in our own day with our deeper insights into psychological and sociological factors. People can, although materially well-off, be literally poor in spirit. That is, they have little spirit, very little happiness, lives of full of stress and anxiety and anger and resentment. These are all the result of our highly competitive, each-person-for-himself society, which is everything that the Kingdom is not. Taken in that sense, the Beatitude applies to a very large number of people.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
The word “meek” is variously translated as ‘gentle’, ‘lowly’ or ‘humble’. The Greek word comes from the noun prautes. The beatitude is reminiscent of a phrase in Psalm 37:

But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant prosperity. (Ps 37:11)

Perhaps ‘gentle’ is the better rendering. It suggests someone who is kind and caring and not particularly assertive and dominating. In our rough and tumble society, such people normally get pushed aside and can thus be classed among the ‘lowly’ and the ‘humble’. But they are not necessarily ‘meek’, which suggests people who allow themselves to be trampled on. Rather, they belong to those who subscribe to active non-violence. That is, they will never resort to any form of violent behaviour to achieve their goals, but they are active and pro-active, not passive—or meek. We might think of a historical figure like Martin Luther King, Jr. To be ‘gentle’ in this sense requires a great inner strength and, of course, in the Kingdom there is a very desirable need for such people. It is there that they will come into their own.

In some texts this Beatitude is interchanged with the following and sometimes it is presented as an addition to the first about the “poor in spirit”, where ‘gentle’ is understood as ‘lowly’. In this case there would only be seven Beatitudes, a more biblical number.

Blessed (Happy) are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Mourning and happiness would seem to be contradictory to each other. It does not say what the mourning might be about. It could be the death of a family member or a loved one, but it could be something quite different altogether.

Again we have to see the beatitude in the context of the Kingdom. There, those who mourn—for whatever reason—can be sure of experiencing the comfort and support of their brothers and sisters. That is something that they cannot be always sure of in a world where people are too busy taking care of their own immediate interests. Mourning by itself is never a happy experience, but it can become a blessing when surrounded by the right people as their love and concern are poured out.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘What is right’? ‘What is just’? Righteousness, meaning ‘being just’ or ‘being right’ (it is also synonymous with ‘justice’ in some translations) is when each person is accorded what ‘belongs’ to them. A just or righteous world is a world of right relationships; in the Kingdom, that is realised. And so, those who truly hunger and thirst to see justice done in our world for every single person will see their dreams and hopes come to fruition.

It is a hunger and thirst which everyone of us should pray to have. Only when we all have that hunger and thirst will justice be achieved and the Kingdom become a reality. We have made progress over the years, but we still have a long, long way to go.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Mercy, compassion, the ability to forgive fully—the Kingdom is a world full of mercy and forgiveness. And just as we will be ready to forgive others, we will find that others will be ready to forgive us when we fail in our responsibilities towards others. In the Lord’s Prayer, which is a prayer of the Kingdom, this is what we ask for:

…forgive us our sins because we forgive the sins of those who have offended us.

In fact, it should be impossible for those who belong to the Kingdom to be offended, and forgiveness should come easily to them. That does not mean, of course, that we condone every wrong. The question of justice always remains. But condemning wrong does not exclude healing wounds caused by the hurt which wrongdoing causes. And mercy understood as compassion is a particularly desirable quality in a Kingdom person. Such a person not only experiences pity for those who suffer, but knows how to enter into and empathise with what they are going through. This was a quality found again and again in Jesus himself.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Pure’ here is not referring primarily—or solely—to sexual purity, as is sometimes thought.* The pure in heart are those whose vision is totally free of any distortion or prejudice. They see things exactly as they are. As a result, they have little difficulty in recognising the presence and the action of God in the people and the environment around them. This purity of heart, this ability to be able to see with perfect clarity, is truly a gift. It requires a high level of integrity on our part, but the rewards are enormous.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Surely this is one of the most beautiful of the beatitudes and the one we would all love to have applied to ourselves. In a world so full of divisions and conflicts of all kinds, the role of the peacemaker is so much needed. It is something we can all do, starting in our own homes, then in our working places and the wider society. It is something we can do as individuals and in groups, as parishes and churches. And, how true that, as peacemakers, we can be called “children of God”! The Letter to the Ephesians speaks beautifully of Jesus as making peace and breaking down walls between people, by his death on the cross (see Eph 2:14).

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Most people would hardly regard being persecuted, which could involve prison, torture and death, as a source of blessedness in the context of ‘happiness’. But it is not the persecution that triggers the happiness, it is the reason why it is willingly undergone.

Right from the beginnings of the Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, Christians rejoiced to be found worthy to suffer with and like their Lord in the proclamation of his message and way of life. That way of life was so precious to them, such a source of meaning, that they were more than willing to give their lives to defend it.

In prison, they sang songs and prayed, as did many civil rights leaders (most of them committed Christians) in the United States who would sing “We shall overcome” as they rode the paddy wagons to jail. It is a much more painful experience to compromise with our deepest convictions in order to avoid criticism or physical suffering. They are indeed, as Jesus says, the successors to the great prophets of the Hebrew Testament. Truly happy are those, who with integrity, can stand by their convictions whatever the cost.

Some people have seen in these Beatitudes a portrait of Jesus himself, and certainly The Beatitudes should be the portrait of every Christian and of every Kingdom person. They are the charter that people everywhere (and not just Christians) are called to follow. They go far beyond what is demanded of us in the Ten Commandments. The Commandments are not so difficult to follow and, in so far as several of them are expressed in the negative (‘Thou shalt not…’), they can be observed by doing nothing! There is no way, however, that people can ever say they observe any Beatitude to the fullest. They always call us to a further and higher level.

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*From the Catechism of the Catholic Church #2518: “Pure in heart” refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.”