The Beatitudes

 

SERMON BY FATHER JONATHAN E MOORE - LINK HERE

THE BEATITUDES

The Values of the Kingdom of God

 

The Kingdom of God is the very heart of the teaching of Our Blessed Lord; one third of all the recorded sayings of Jesus relate to it. The expression “Kingdom of God” is to be found 162 times in the New Testament. Our Lord taught in parables, and thirty three such stories are recorded in the Gospels. Of those thirty three, fifteen relate to the Kingdom of God, and are generally known as “The Parables of the Kingdom”. You will doubtless know them all by heart:-

 

The Sower

The Hidden treasure

The Pearl of Great Price

The Growing seed

The Mustard seed

The Leaven in the dough

The Lost sheep

The Lost coin

The Prodigal Son

The Good Samaritan

The Unforgiving Servant

The Unjust Judge

The Pharisee and publican

The Friend at night

The Two Debtors

 

Just what do they tell us about the Kingdom of God? What is it, and where is it to be found?

 

The basic meaning of the Kingdom is to be found in Saint Matthew’s version of the Our Father, where Jesus tells us to pray:-

 

“Thy Kingdom come,

Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.“

 

The Kingdom of Heaven means the realisation of God’s rule on earth.

 

Looking at the laws of nature, science and the known universe, it is clear that an underlying law is at work. Saint Thomas Aquinas cited this as one of his five demonstrations of the existence of God - order and beauty in creation. There is only one place where that divine law is not automatically kept, and that is in human society! God created us as intelligent beings with free will. We can choose whether we let God rule in our lives or not. 

 

The philosopher Emmanuel Kant wrote:

 

"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." There is an awareness of God’s Natural Law in every human heart, but Original Sin bends our inclination away from it.

 

So how do we make the Kingdom of God happen in the world around us? Jesus told Pilate “My Kingdom is not of this world”. We cannot reproduce a heaven on earth, many political ideologies have promised to do so, but all have failed. God’s Kingdom cannot be imposed through conquest or coercion.

 

There is only one way the Kingdom of God can come on earth. Take time this week to read through some of the parables I mentioned earlier on. They all have this in common:

 

They are all about individual human beings and the decisions they make.

They involve experiencing loss, seeking, finding, and choosing the greatest good.

 

The Kingdom of God is accepted or rejected in each individual human heart.

 

When Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God in His great Sermon on the Mount, He began with the eight Beatitudes, which are often called the “Manifesto of the Kingdom of God”.

 

There’s an easy way to remember them in just eight words, what I call the 4 P’s, 3 M’s and 1 J (or “R”)

 

There are variations in the translation of this text, but I have chosen the Douay Rheims translation of Saint Jerome’s Vulgate in the Vatican Editio Typica of 1982. If you prefer “Righeousness” to “Justice” as a Kingdom value, then please use “R” instead of “J “. I feel that our world needs more Justice and less of what some people choose to call “Righteousness”.

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven - the Douay Bible adds this footnote:  "The poor in spirit": That is, the humble; and they whose spirit is not set upon riches.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land. 

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. 

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy

Blessed are the pure of heart: for they shall see God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God. 

Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake”.

 

Every Christian should really know the Beatitudes as well as they know the Ten Commandments.

 

Remember them in just eight words, (4 P’s, 3 M’s and 1 J (or “R”).

 

Poor

Pure

Peacemaker

Persecuted

Meek

Merciful

Mourning

Justice/Righeousness

 

We are all well used to examining our conscience in the light of the Commandments, but we really ought, with equal diligence, to be examining our basic attitudes in the light of the Beatitudes.

 

It is one thing to go through a list of sins and say at the end “I’ve done none of those things” - highly commendable.

 

But if you go through the Beatitudes and then say “I don’t do any of those things!”, then it’s quite a different story, as we read in the 5th Chapter of Matthew.

 

I would commend this very simple little spiritual exercise to you.

 

Firstly, if you don’t already know the Beatitudes by heart, please commit them to memory - my 4 P’s, 3 M’s and one J might help in that.

 

Secondly, each time you pray the Mysteries of Light, choose just one of those eight Beatitudes, and hold it in your mind during the Third Mystery.

 

Choosing to live the values of the Kingdom is the only way to taste heaven while still on earth.