Dear Saints,

This weekend's Gospel passage presents Saint Luke's account of the Beatitudes.
Jesus gives us four blessings and four curses. Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, weeping, and hated; woe to you who are rich, filled, happy, and honored.

This is totally backwards, isn't it? I mean, how many of us feel blessed when we're down or on the outs?

There are at least two ways, I think, we can make sense of this. Let me try:

1. If the world is upside down (it is), then putting it right-side up (as Jesus wants to do) likely means a reversal of fortunes. More to the point, if you have become rich, filled, happy, and honored by taking advantage of an upside-down world, then you are likely to lose out when the world is put to rights.

2. If we are the center of our respective universes, we pursue beatitude (makarios = happiness/blessing) via money, pleasure, and power. This might mean short-term riches, satisfaction, and honor, but it will not last. With God at the center of our hearts and lives we might find ourselves poor, hungry, and the rest, but we find ourselves truly happy nonetheless.

What does this mean for us? Simply, we must prioritize God and his mission. Check out our mission statement again to see whether or not we're living for God's purposes: In prayer and sacrament God enkindles our hearts that might bring the fire of his love to everyone we encounter.

God wants to love the world through us. This is our happiness, our beatitude: to commit to God in every practical way, to join him on mission with everything we've got.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ

This letter was reprinted from Fr. Daniel’s Blast from the Pastor, his Saturday weekly email. To have the email come directly to your inbox, send a note to admin@olmcboonton.org