At the beginning of his famous commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Saint Augustine maintains that: “If anyone piously and earnestly ponders the Discourse which Our Lord Jesus Christ delivered on the Mount – as we read the Gospel According to Matthew – I believe that he will find therein, with regard to good morals, the perfect standard of the Christian life.” Many Catholic spiritual writers have affirmed Saint Augustine over the centuries in this regard.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:1 – 7:29), the most quoted part of the Bible, begins with messages of comfort, the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12).
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted
for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter
every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.
The word “Beatitude” refers to a state of deep happiness or joy. But these sayings are paradoxes. They turn our normal expectations upside down. Jesus is bringing us a new law, new expectations on how to live. He is bringing forth the Kingdom of God. As the United States bishops wrote in their 1992 stewardship pastoral, “Jesus does not waste time proposing lofty but unrealistic ideals; he tells his followers how they are expected to live. The Beatitudes and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount prescribe the lifestyle of a Christian disciple.”
Each of these “blesseds” is a statement about an important aspect of how we exercise stewardship of our lives. Each of them offers us an ideal of how to live and how we find God living within us. Learn the Beatitudes, memorize them, make them part of your daily prayer life, and ask the Lord for the wisdom and strength to follow this stewardship way of life, a path that follows in the footsteps of Jesus.
