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This from Bishop Robert Barron in his video sermon for last
Sunday’s gospel. He titled the video The Key to Happiness. Catch his insights on the video or by reading here.
Friends, we have one of the great passages in the New Testament today for our reading, namely, the Beatitudes, taken from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthews, the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
Beatitudo just means happiness. I don't care who you
are, what your background is, that's the one thing we all want. Everyone has
that in common. We all want beatitudo. We all want to be happy.
Well here's [Jesus, God] telling us how to be happy. So we
should pay close attention.
Living for the sake of the other
He says, first, “How blessed, happy … are the poor in
spirit. The reign of God is theirs.” Why is this the first beatitude? Well,
because pride's the greatest sin. What does pride say? Basically, I gotta fill
myself up to be happy. I've got to aggrandize my ego. I've got to fill myself
up with good things.
The basic spiritual principle is no, it's actually by emptying the self out that …
I become happy. It's by letting go, emptying out, living for the sake of the other.
Not filling up the cage with all sorts of things but rather giving oneself.
So being poor in spirit means – don't think of it primarily
in sort of monetary terms – it's a spiritual idea. Poor in spirit [means] the
more I give my life away the happier I become.
Sorrowing for their sin
Next, “Blessed are the sorrowing. They will be consoled.”
I know this can sound a little odd, like is this sort of a masochistic idea or
sadistic idea…[but] the great spiritual tradition read it this way: How happy
are those who are sorrowing for their sin.
We feel bad about all kinds of things. We feel bad because
our dreams haven't come true. We feel bad because we didn't get the job we
wanted. We feel bad because this relationship fell apart. But what's the one
thing we should really feel sorrow over? Our own sins.
What do you mean? I'm okay and you're okay; I'm beautiful in
every single way. Our culture today is telling me never to be sorry about my
sins, never feel bad about myself. No, affirm myself at every turn. How's that
working out for you? Look around the culture. How's that working out for us? Affirming
ourselves at every turn, never admitting any kind of problem, to make you happy.
It makes you miserable!
The key to happiness is being sorrowful for the right thing.
Sorrowing for our sins – “they shall be consoled” the Lord says. Quite right. That's
the first step toward repentance and toward the acceptance of forgiveness. How
often do we think that the key to our beatitudo is being forgiven for
our sins? Our sins are like a great burden, our sins are like chains.
The first step in losing those chains is to be sorry for our
sins and thereby be open to forgiveness.
The goal is to empty ourselves
Third beatitude: “Blessed are the lowly. They shall inherit the land.” Again, it's so counterintuitive. Who inherits the land? The last time I checked it was powerful people, self-assertive people, those with no concern for the other. The Nietzschean Superman, the “I”, the “will to power” and “Don't get in my way. I'm the one that will inherit the earth”. Powerful nations willing to wield great weapons of destruction against their enemies. They're the ones who inherit the land.
No! says Jesus, rather the lowly. Think of it this way. Those
who have emptied themselves, forgotten about themselves, are the ones who
actually are closest to the earth. They're closest to reality. We're talking here
about humility.
Don't think of that phony humility – someone who's humble
says, “I'm not preoccupied with my own ego, how I'm doing, what impression I'm
making. Rather I forget about all that. I get that monkey off my back and I lose
myself in whatever I'm doing.
Notice, please, I'm lowly and therefore I'm close to the earth.
Humble is from the Latin hummus and humilitas. Hummus means the
ground, the earth.
When I'm preoccupied with my ego and my status, and how I'm
doing, I'm divorced from reality. But when, in the simplest way, I forget about
myself and I give myself to a book, or a person I'm talking to, or a task I
have I become happy. Isn't it true? Think about it: The best moments in life are
when you're least aware of yourself, least aware of your hang-ups and preoccupations.
How happy are the lowly. They, indeed, will inherit the land.
Everyone's got a hungry heart
“Blessed are they
who hunger and thirst for holiness. They shall have their fill.” We're
hungry and thirsty for so many things, aren't we? I'm hungry for success. I'm hungry for more
power. I'm hungry for material goods. I'm physically hungry for food. I'm
hungry for attention.
Right. All these things we have – these hungry hearts, as
Bruce Springsteen said. Everyone's got a hungry heart. We're always looking for
what's going to satisfy us.
One of the most important questions to ask about yourself is
this: what are you primarily hungering for? So amidst all these different
hungers is there one that you really want? Is it success, money, power, fame?
The Lord says none of those will make you happy. They won't
give you beatitudo. Now they're not bad in themselves… but the primary thirst
of your life should not be for those things but should be for holiness.
What's holiness? Friendship with God. That's the one thing
you should want above all as you're facing a decision in life. “Hey if I decide
this it'll make me richer”. Yeah, but will it make you more of a friend of God?
“If I choose that, it's going to make me more famous, for sure.” But will it
make you a friend of God? “Boy, that's going to make everyone like me.” Yeah, I
know, but will it make you more a friend of God? That's all you should be
worried about.
So how happy are those who hunger and thirst for holiness? Listen,
they shall have their fill because every other thing you hunger for in life you
get it and it's fine, but it wears off. It goes away. It effervescences. But your hunger and thirst for holiness, friendship
with God, doesn't fade away, it intensifies.
What love looks like in a world of suffering
“Blessed are they who show mercy. Mercy shall be theirs.” Mercy is hesed in the Hebrew, misericordia
in Latin. Mercy is what God is. He's
marked by tender mercy as in that beautiful translation of hesed that's
in the King James Version of the Bible – the tender mercy of God.
What is that? Well, it's compassion. Look at that word compassion
from compassio in Latin. That means to suffer; misericordia means
the pain in your heart. It's the suffering that you feel in your own heart when
you identify with the suffering of somebody else. That's what love, willing the
good of the other, looks like in this world of suffering. You enter in a
sympathetic way. Look at that word again – sympathia means to suffer
with. You enter in a sympathetic, compassionate, merciful, way into the
suffering of the world.
You know how many of us want to run from the suffering of
the world: “Take me away from that”, “Make me immune to that” “Give me
something that will drug me so I don't experience
it.”
Says the Lord: “The happier you will be if you identify in
love with the suffering of the other.” Wait, trust me everybody! Your whole
life will change if you let that sink in. If you say my task today is to, when
I see suffering, to enter sympathetically into it. That to be merciful.
But if there's no anchor in your life...
“Blessed are the single-hearted for they shall see God.”
That's lovely. The single-hearted…That great
line from Kierkegaard, the philosopher, [that] the saint is someone whose life
is about one thing. That means he's a gathered person; he's involved with all
sorts of things, might have a very busy life, but all of it is centered around
one thing. It's the anchor in the rose window, around which the whole design is
arranged.
If you can't name what that is for you, you won't be happy.
If you say, “I'm a busy guy. I'm doing this and this, and [I’m] all over the place
and, boy, I'm admired and look at all that [I’m] accomplishing.” Yeah, but if there's
no anchor in your life, there isn't one thing that gathers all the things that
you do, then you'll be like the demoniac
in the gospel: “What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us?” Right. That's a single person talking but he speaks in the splintered plural.
How blessed are the single-hearted! What's the one thing you
want amidst all the desires of your life? It should be to please God. Again it's
related to what I said earlier: If you're doing X Y and Z, but in all that am I
pleasing God? That's the one thing that matters: a single heart.
“Blessed, too, are the peacemakers. They shall be called the
children of God.” Shalom, that lovely word that echoes up and down the
scriptures. The risen Christ says it to his disciples: “Shalom, peace.” God
makes the world in a great non-violent act, not suppressing some rival power. The
crucified and risen Jesus returns not in avenging violence but in forgiving
love.
God is peace. One of the great marks of his followers is
that they are makers of peace. Not only are they peaceful themselves but they
produce peace. Try it sometime if you find yourself unhappy. How much time do
you spend in the course of the day making peace. Not just tolerating wickedness,
or not looking the other way, not walking away from it but entering mercifully into
it and making peace.
Trust me. It'll make you happy too. That's Jesus’ point.
Woe to you if everyone speaks well of you
“Blessed are those persecuted for holiness’ sake, the
reign of God is theirs.” Again, how counter-intuitive! Who wants to be
persecuted? But if you're persecuted for righteousness sake that means you're
walking the right path. We're living in a fallen world. We're living in a
compromised world. If nobody ever criticizes you, you are not in a good
spiritual space. Woe to you if all men speak well of you, says the Lord. They
treated the false prophets in just that way.
One of the great marks that you are on the right path, the
path of happiness, is that you [have to] endure persecution. Do it as a happy
warrior, not falling into resentment, but saying “Hey, that's a sign that I'm
on the path the Lord wants me to be on.”
Go to Matthew Chapter 5. Walk through these. They are the key to what we all want – beatitudo.
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Thanks to Bishop Barron for unveiling God's word for us in such a penetrating way.
Ω Another inspiring consideration of the Beatitudes can be found on the Living Space website here. These eight statements are key to being not only a good Christian, but also a human being who knows how to live one's life fully, to live abundantly. Read these principles and learn how to enjoy the adventure that is life in response to God's call to grow closer to Him.
Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, read the same posts at my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.
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