Scripture for
meditation: Matthew 5:10
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church states: 2100: Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be
the expression of spiritual sacrifice. “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a
broken spirit…” (St. Augustine). The prophets of the Old Covenant often
denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of
neighbor. Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy, and
not sacrifice.” The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on
the cross as a total offering to the Father’s love and for our salvation. By
uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
This commentary is
found on the website http://curlewriver.wordpress.com. Finally, “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”
addresses our addiction to personal honor, to being well thought-of. “Many
people who are not terribly attracted to wealth, pleasure, or power are held
captive by their desire for the approval of others,” Fr Barron observes. To be
“persecuted for righteousness’ sake”, by contrast, is to face mockery and dishonor
for the sake of the crucified Christ. And it is this crucified Christ who best exemplifies what he teaches in
the beatitudes: Thomas Aquinas said that if you want to see the perfect
exemplification of the beatitudes, you should look to Christ crucified. The
saint specified this observation as follows: if you want beatitude (happiness),
despise what Jesus despised on the cross and love what he loved on the cross. On
the cross, Jesus despised the four worldly addictions of wealth, pleasure,
power and honor, as he was stripped naked; suffered physical, mental and
spiritual agony; rendered helpless and powerless; and exposed to the ultimate
of dishonor through suffering the death of a common criminal. What did Jesus
love on the cross? “The will of his Father.” And loving the will and mission of
his Father to the end, he was able to live out the beatitudes to the full, with
what he loved and what he despised on the cross being “in a strange balance”: Poor
in spirit, meek, mourning, and persecuted, he was able to be pure of heart, to
seek righteousness utterly, to become the ultimate peacemaker, and to be the
perfect conduit of the divine mercy to the world. Though it is supremely
paradoxical to say so, the crucified Jesus is the man of beatitude, a truly
happy man.
(Fr Robert Barron
has an interesting analysis of the Beatitudes in his book Catholicism:
A Journey to the Heart of Faith.).
My thoughts: We
are blessed (happy) when we are persecuted for trying to be holy – to do the
Father’s will. This means without compromise, even if it costs us the four
worldly treasures mentioned in the above commentary. We cannot be saying one
thing, doing another, and believing a third. The only acceptable sacrifice is
the one that comes from a pure heart, and that sacrifice will cost us much.
Martyrdom today is usually not bloody, but painful nonetheless. Try defending
the Church’s position on many socially acceptable topics, and you will know
what it is like to be on the cross with Christ. Jesus knew we would go through
this. He showed us how to do it: obediently, mercifully, lovingly, no matter
what the cost. Let us always stay true to Christ and not to a world which
denies Him. The kingdom of heaven is ours, and that is a reward worth suffering
for.
Prayer: How great You are!
O God, the more I know You the less I can comprehend You,
but this “non-comprehension” lets me realize how great You are! And it is this
impossibility of comprehending You which enflames my heart anew for You (Diary
of Saint Faustina, 57).
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