Jesus begins his preaching of the “Kingdom of heaven” being “at hand” after John the Baptists arrest. Concerning the beginning of the Lord’s ministry, Matthew limits himself to mentioning the theme of the inaugural preaching: “Repent.” Then comes the call of the first disciples, then again a general mention of Jesus’ teaching and cures. Then comes the first discourse, opening with the proclamation of the Beatitudes. From that time on, the beatitudes have been understood as the compendium of the Gospel and the criterion par excellence of Christian authenticity. Whoever follow Jesus and try to live as disciples of the Master, “meek and humble of heart”, must seek, with God’s grace, to make real the ideal of the Beatitudes.
“The foundation of our way to God is to advance on the way of life with great patience, humility, poverty of spirit, and meekness. All these lead us to justice—by justice, we mean the Lord himself. The commandments that enjoin these virtues on us are like landmarks and signposts on the royal road that leads travelers to the heavenly city. For it is said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit….Blessed are the meek….Blessed are the merciful….. Blessed are the peacemakers.’ This is what we mean by Christianity. Those who do not walk on this way wander where there is no way and they have set a bad foundation.” (Saint Macarius 302-392)
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Beatitudes, nine in number, are expressed in an original manner corresponding to the evangelist’s own intention and to the needs of the community he was writing for. He proclaims “happy” whereas this interpretation says. “Blessed. It matters not, if one is blessed, they are surely happy. As a rule, Matthew intends to show how Jesus fulfils the Scriptures therefore how the “righteousness” he teaches continues the traditional teachings. On the other hand, we must not forget apostolic preaching took place between the Sermon on the Mount and the written Gospel. The evangelists do not pretend to set down a shorthand version of Jesus’ words. Neither do they distort them. They transmit them after having more deeply understood their meaning by meditation and preaching, both under the Spirit’s guidance. Before leaving his apostles, Jesus told them, “the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.”
“Poor in spirit,” “Pure in heart”— this way of speaking of poverty and purity does not empty them of their concrete character. All through his Gospel, Matthew insists too much on the necessity of doing, of acting, to be suspected of “spiritualisation.” On the contrary he wants to make clear that poverty and purity, as well as the other Beatitudes, have their roots in the depths of the human spirit—the human heart. For better, for worse, whoever looks at another with lust has already committed adultery in the heart (Matt 5:28). Everything comes from the heart. It is possible to be poor and eaten up by greed; rich and detached from possessions, always ready to share. Likewise, purity—in all the meanings of the word—is first, essentially “in the heart.”
Finally, it is important not to take the Beatitudes in too material a manner, as if each one was closed upon itself. Matthew has a catechetical, a pedagogical aim. To reach it, he might, for instance, divide in two one Beatitude in order to better clarify its meaning and its scope, which a more condensed formulation might hide. At the same time, he might extend the meaning of a word and give it more precision. Thus “the poor in spirit” must be understood as being also “the meek.” Similarly, he gives a more concrete and detailed meaning to “persecuted for the sake of righteousness” by adding that this persecution will bring insults and calumnies.
The first word of each Beatitude might be confusing or shocking if ill understood. The people in question are in a painful situation, even one of unjustly inflicted violence. On the other hand, the reward is placed in an undetermined future. In brief, we would judge it more normal to say, “You are persecuted, you will be blessed; the Kingdom of heaven will be yours.” But instead, we hear ‘Blessed”—“Happy” right now!
To accept and understand this paradox, we must first turn to Jesus. It is he, the poor in spirit, the meek, the afflicted, the one who hungers and thirsts for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemaker, the persecuted—unto death—for righteousness, the reviled one. And it is he who is exalted at the right hand of the Father, in glory. Therefore, those who share what he has been, who are identified with him in their poverty, already share in his glory; “Blessed.” The reward is not delayed; it is already in this very identification. What remains to come is the manifestation of the bliss. This is suggested by the first Beatitude which sets the tone for the others and gives the key to their interpretation, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” This does not mean that paradise is already established here below, but that “the poor in spirit”—and those described by the other Beatitudes— already possess the earnest money and, in some way, the title to happiness. So the Beatitudes are not on the moral but on the mystical plane. By contemplating Christ, we can understand who is happy, and why.
“‘This poor man called out’. By the use of the demonstrative pronoun, the psalmist reveals his thought. Speaking of the person who is poor, who is hungry and is thirsty, who has no clothing— and all this according to God—he means the poor one who is the disciple of Christ. We can also apply the word to Christ. Being rich by nature, since all the Father’s goods are his, he became poor on our account in order to enrich us by his poverty. Christ himself has initiated every action by which we strive for Beatitude, giving himself as an example to his disciples. Coming back to the Beatitudes, examine each one and you will see that the teaching was preceded by action.
‘Blessed are the meek.’ How shall we learn meekness? He say’s Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart.’
’Blessed are the peacemakers.’ From whom are we going to learn peace? From the peacemaker himself who reconciled two adversaries into one new human being and brought peace to heaven and earth through the blood of his cross.
‘Blessed are the poor.’ It is he who was poor and who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave in order that we might receive gift for gift from his fullness.” (Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea)
The nine Beatitudes do not repeat one another by proclaiming blessed/happy the same group of persons described by words nearly synonymous. However, we cannot make of these persons nine rigorously distinct categories of blessed ones. In other words, we must read and hear these nine Beatitudes as a whole.
“Poor in Spirit” is a typically biblical expression, it transposes the idea of material poverty to the inner and spiritual realm. The poverty of spirit is, in fact, an inner attitude of humility. “Meek” is in the same vein. Psalm 37 speaks of the meek in the same way as does the Beatitude of the “poor in spirit”: “the meek shall possess the land” Matthew has kept only meekness from among the three qualities, “Just,” “victorious,” “meek,” that characterise the Messiah in Zechariah’s oracle (Zech 9:9) Finally, Jesus speaks of himself as “meek, and humble of heart.” The first two Beatitudes, which complement one another, set the tone of the following Beatitudes and help us to understand them.
“They who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” “they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness”; here we easily recognise the language and teaching proper to Matthew. The poor, the meek, the humble are no pious dreamers; they ardently seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, committing themselves entirely to this search, despite the risk of persecution. The Beatitudes of the merciful and the peacemakers again concern Christians’ behaviour towards their brothers and sisters. Matthew insists on this point. We must produce fruit, especially in the domain of charity. We shall be judged on what we have done for others.
Thus, from the first to the ninth Beatitude, the development of thought is remarkably coherent and the progression is self-evident. The beginning of Jesus’ inaugural discourse, in Matthew, is really a summary of the Gospel, of the model of life proposed to the disciple who wants to imitate the Master, “meek and humble” in heart. The tradition of the great spiritual authors did not fail to understand this fact.
The whole prophetic tradition teaches that God is the unfailing defender of the poor, the lowly, the oppressed, the despised—all those without defence. It is their right to find an assured refuge in God who is on their side. But since Zephaniah, poverty does not define only a social status. It is availability, welcome, openness to God’s gift. Therefore, there is nothing depressing about poverty itself; much to the contrary; it assumes salvation. Moreover, those poor ones constitute the nucleus— the “remnant”—on which rests the completion of the plan of salvation that God has revealed and to which God remains and will always remain faithful.
From the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes his place within the lineage of this spiritual tradition of “the poor of the Lord”. Therefore, he proclaims “Blessed” from that very moment the “poor in spirit” because they have the proper disposition to receive the promised riches and all the gifts that the kingdom brings. Let them rejoice and be glad.
We: with thanksgiving, as poor people, we welcome the mystery of Christ, “meek and humble of heart,”and we boast of his cross, which is the revelation of God’s supreme wisdom and God’s love.
“Blessed are the poor, the meek, the mourners, those who thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted in the cause of right — Blessed all who are humble — God’s glory dwells in them.”
“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”
