Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are those who are sufficiently detached from the things of this world that it does not deter them from following Christ. They are those for whom "love for life did not deter them from death" (see Revelation 12:11), able to follow Christ on the way of the cross. His disciples, his little ones, demonstrated this as they went out without money bags. Like their master, they too had nowhere to lay their heads.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to those like the rich young ruler who received the invitation to follow Jesus but went away sad because his possessions ultimately meant more to him than that invitation. Woe to those rich like the man in the story who lived in luxury but overlooked Lazarus on his doorstep.
Being detached from our own riches, being at least poor in spirit, ought to help us to share the lot of those who are materially poor. Yet even material poverty need not hinder the joy we can have in Christ, because in Christ we can possess even here and now, by faith, the riches of the Kingdom of God.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
When the circumstances of our lives call us to make the choice to hold the things of this life loosely we should not allow ourselves to succumb to negative attitudes or self-pity. We should instead imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose deep faith perceived the spiritual truth amidst apparently difficult worldly circumstances.
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty (see Luke 1:52-53).
When Mary looked around she would still have seen the mighty on their thrones and the rich rejoicing. But she perceived the deeper truth of what God had accomplished in the incarnation of her Son. God already, in choosing to share the poverty of poor and the humility and weakness of the marginalized, had by that very fact lifted up the poor, the weak, and the humble. Our own faith is similarly meant to see beyond the narrow horizon of this present life toward the reality that is as yet "hidden with Christ in God" but which will one day be revealed in fullness. By faith we can begin to live in the 'not yet' even in the here and now. By faith that coming reality can be drawn into our present moment as a dynamic and transformative power.
The risk we face is that we become too satisfied with the things of this world, too sated and numbed, to desire those greater heavenly realities. There really is the risk that we content ourselves with much too little. And this is true even though we recognize that being filled now cannot truly satisfy us. We know how soon we will hunger again., even after the best of meals. We know that we cannot make it through this life with only experiences of laughter. But we can allow ourselves to become content to chase after these things. And we will find that if we do so we will find ourselves more are more at variance from the path of following Christ.
Even as Christians we still have within us an old self that sometimes tries to rise up with its old practices. This happens precisely when the hope of the Kingdom, the promise of the beatitudes, is no longer our primary motivation. When we do not live from the "new self, renewed, for knowledge in the image of its creator" we find ourselves feeling so isolated and defensive that we begin to justify ourselves in giving in to temptations. Because we feel alone there seems to be nothing else for us to do but to seek to gain and defend worldly advantage. But when this new self is our primary reality we no longer feel alone. Jesus has taken our lot upon, becoming "all in all". Because of this we become strong and even joyful to share his lot with him.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
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