Beatitudes
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8 June 1992
Granada, Spain

My dear Sisters,

If the entire New Testament were lost and the only fragment that remained for humanity were the verses of the Gospel to which we have just listened, we would have quite a clear idea of what manner of man Jesus Christ was. The remainder of the books of the New Testament are but an illustration and explanation of the Beatitudes that Our Lord pronounced when, sitting down on the mountain side, He began to teach His disciples. The Beatitudes have been described as the Charter, the Constitutions of the Kingdom of Heaven. They have also been described as a self-portrait of Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ was a man who was poor in spirit. He was, too, one who showed Himself to be infinitely merciful. He was pure of heart. "Which of you," he asked, "will convince Me of sin?" (Jn 8:46). He was a man who mourned. "As He came near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, `If you, even you, had only recognized on this day, the things that make for peace'." (Lk 19:41). And what volumes does not the Cross speak about a man who was insulted, persecuted and slandered, all for the cause of right and of truth. Apart from Our Lord and His Mother, no one ever lived the Beatitudes fully. The Beatitudes are a mountain which we must continue to climb, even if in this life we will never reach the summit.

The Beatitudes are a new scale of values. We might say that the Beatitudes are an invasion of God's madness into the world of what humanity considers to be good sense. Have you ever tried to make a list of what you would consider to be your eight beatitudes? This could be very revealing and, when set down on paper, might show a very deep chasm between the values of Our Lord and those by which we daily live. Let me ask another question. Do you feel comfortable with Our Lord's Beatitudes? Or has it been your experience, as it has been mine, that when you start to think or talk about one beatitude, you prefer after a short time to drop it because of its difficulty, and move on to another which you would consider more simple and easy? The beatitude that makes you feel most uncomfortable is probably the one that is most relevant to you personally.

The first beatitude, by reason of its position, could have a claim to being the most important and fundamental for a disciple of Christ. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" or, as St. Luke calls it, "Blessed are the poor." It may be fundamental Beatitudes, for at its heart is the virtue of humility. A person cannot be poor in spirit without being humble. A person who is genuinely humble will also be poor in spirit. So the first beatitude may be the most important beatitude for, if we are poor in spirit, then we will be humble, and if we are humble, then all good things that we need will be given to us. In the Rule that St. Vincent wrote for his missioners, he remarks that to the man who possesses humility, all good things will come, while the man who has not humility, will be subject to continual anxiety. (CR II, 7). An aunt of mine, who was a religious, used often to say to my mother, "If you have humility, you have everything." It is true. If we have humility, we will certainly have peace and serenity. And with the peace and serenity of Jesus Christ, who Himself was gentle and humble of heart, we can endure much and find the courage and strength to do much for the building up of others in faith, hope and love. If we asked St. Vincent how he succeeded in making his charity blossom to such a remarkable degree in his life, he might very well reply, "by cultivating humility." It was humility that created within him that void which God was able to fill with the fire of divine love. St. Vincent's first biographer, Bishop Abelly, quotes the Saint as saying, "Let us strive after humility, for the more humble a man is, the more charitable he will be to his neighbor." (Abelly, Book I, ch. 21).

The truth of St. Vincent's teaching about humility and its relationship to charity was confirmed recently for me, when I read of someone who asked a friend of Mother Teresa of Calcutta what he thought of her. The reply was short and simple. "She is a person who has lost her ego." The end of all genuine mortification is the cutting back of all those excrescences of pride, vanity, envy, jealousy, and sensuality which spring from our ego. It is the selfish ego, and not our gifts or talents, that must be denied and mortified. It is such mortification that Our Lord had in mind when He told us that a person must lose his life or ego, if he is to preserve his life. It is the exaltation of my ego which impedes my growing more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ Who is the life and the light of the world.

St. Vincent spoke and wrote frequently about what he called the evangelical maxims. The Beatitudes are a succinct summary of all the evangelical maxims, and the Beatitudes have been described as the "gospel of the Gospel." The following sentences from a letter of St. Vincent reveal his profound convictions about the value and importance of the evangelical maxims: "Let people think and say whatever they wish. Rest assured that the maxims of Jesus Christ and the examples of His life are not misleading; they produce their fruit in due time. Anything not in conformity with them is vain and everything turns out badly for one who acts according to the contrary maxims. Such is my belief and such is my experience." (Coste II, Eng. ed., ltr. 606, p. 316).

May Mary, who lived the Beatitudes so perfectly, assist us through her maternal intercession, as we climb the mountain of the Lord, striving always to attain greater poverty of spirit.

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