6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - 13 February

 

 

A reflection on today's gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:

 

"Two mounts are related as the first and second acts in a two-act drama: the Mount of the Beatitudes and the Mount of Calvary. He who climbed the first to preach the Beatitudes must necessarily climb the second to practice what He preached. The unthinking often say the Sermon on the Mount constitutes the 'essence of Christianity.' But let any man put these Beatitudes into practice in his own life, and he too will draw down upon himself the wrath of the world. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be separated from His Crucifixion, any more than day can be separated from night. The day Our Lord taught the Beatitudes, He signed His own death warrant. Everybody wants to be happy; but His ways were the very opposite of the ways of the world.

 

"One way to make enemies and antagonise people is to challenge the spirit of the world. The world has a spirit, as each age has a spirit. There are certain unanalysed assumptions which govern the conduct of the world. Anyone who challenges these worldly maxims, such as, 'you only live once,' 'who will ever know about it?' is bound to make himself unpopular.

 

"In the Beatitudes, Our Divine Lord takes those eight flimsy catch-words of the world - 'Security,' 'Revenge,' 'Laughter,' 'Popularity,' 'Getting Even,' 'Sex,' 'Armed Might,' and 'Comfort,' - and turns them upside down.

 

"The cheap clichés around which movies are written and novels composed, He scorns. He proposes to burn what they worship; to conquer errant sex instincts instead of allowing them to make slaves of man; to tame economic conquests instead of making happiness consist in abundance of things external to the soul. All false beatitudes which make happiness depend on self-expression, licence, having a good time, or 'Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die,' He scorns because they bring mental disorders, unhappiness, false hopes, fears, and anxieties.

 

"Those who would escape the impact of the Beatitudes say that Our Divine Saviour was a creature of His time, but not of ours, and that, therefore, His Words do not apply to us. He was not a creature of His time nor of any time; but we are! Our Lord did not belong to His day, any more than He belonged to ours. To marry one age is to be a widow in the next. Because He suited no age, He was the model for all ages. He never used a phrase that depended on the social order in which He lived; His gospel was no easier then than it is now.

 

"The Sermon on the Mount is so much at variance with all that our world holds dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black, black, and white, white, are sentenced for intolerance. Only the greys live.

 

"The Beatitudes cannot be taken alone: they are not ideals; they are hard facts and realities inseparable from the Cross of Calvary. What He taught was self-crucifixion: to love those who hate us; to pluck out eyes and cut off arms in order to prevent sinning; to be clean on the inside when the passions clamour for satisfaction on the outside; to forgive those who would put us to death; to overcome evil with good; to bless those who curse us; to live in the world and still keep oneself unpolluted from it; to deny ourselves sometimes legitimate pleasures in order the better to crucify our egotism.

 

"Those who heard Him preach the Beatitudes were invited to stretch themselves out on a cross, to find happiness on a higher level by death to a lower order, to despise all the world holds sacred, and to venerate as sacred all the world regards as an ideal. Heaven is happiness; but it is too much for man to have two heavens, an ersatz one below, and a real one above. Hence the four 'woes' He immediately added to the Beatitudes.

 

"Crucifixion cannot be far away when a Teacher says 'woe' to the rich, the satiated, the gay and the popular. Truth is not in the Sermon on the Mount alone; it is in the One Who lived out the Sermon on the Mount on Golgotha. The four woes would have been ethical condemnations, if He had not died full of the opposite of the four woes: poor, abandoned, sorrowful, and despised. On the Mount of the Beatitudes, He bade men hurl themselves on the cross of self-denial; on the Mount of Calvary, He embraced that very cross. Though the shadow of the Cross would not fall across the place of the skull until three years later, it was already in His Heart the day He preached on 'How to be Happy.'" (Life of Christ)

 

 

 

Lord, make me poor in spirit, so I can

receive the kingdom of heaven.

Lord, when I mourn, help me find comfort.

Lord, make me meek, so that I may inherit the land.

Lord, help me to hunger and thirst for righteousness, so I may be satisfied.

Lord, make me merciful, so I may obtain your mercy.

Lord, make me pure of heart, so I may see you.

Lord, help me to make peace, so I may be called your child.

Lord, when I am persecuted for righteousness’ sake, show me your kingdom. Amen.