6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) - 16 February 2025
16th February 2025
“If we endure all things patiently and with gladness, thinking on the sufferings of our Blessed Lord, and bearing all for the love of Him: herein is Perfect Joy.” - St Francis of Assisi
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"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 stop mouthing freedom until we have justice, truth and love of God in our hearts as the condition of freedom; 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 - all this is to sentence the old man in us to death.
"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.
"Woe upon you who are rich, you have your comfort already. Woe upon you who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep. Woe upon you when all men speak well of you; their fathers treated the false prophets no worse.
"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)
Beatitudes Prayer
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. 💐🙏💖