The Beatitudes or Sermon on the Plain

Our Sunday gospel today is about our Lord Jesus Christ who ministered to the Great Multitude and gave them something more spiritually meaningful than the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. The Beatitudes is also called the Sermon On The Plain and that you can read in Luke 6:17,20-26.

“17 And [Jesus] came down with [the Twelve] and stood on a stretch of level ground [with] a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. 20 And raising his eyes towards his disciples he said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. 21 Blessed are you who are now hungry for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.

22 Blessed are you when people hate you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way.24 But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. 26 Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”

This Sunday coincides with two big celebrations, one so popular in Asia is the Chinese New Year or Kung Hei Fat Chai that the billions of Chinese people celebrate with pomp and firecrackers, while the other is the annual celebration of the heart … for lovers, families and friends as it is St. Valentine’s Day … that is also considered the best day to make money for restaurant, hotel and motel owners! I’m sure that the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes would be lost from the minds of most Catholics today, but we must revisit the Beatitudes and explain its true meaning.

 In the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue, God actually issues a warning to mankind with ten “Thou Shalt Nots!” But our Lord Jesus starts the Beatitudes with the words, “Blessed” meaning “Fortunate or Happy”. So when the Lord said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” it is not to condemn those who are rich, but rather he really meant that for those who are poor in spirit, the Anawim…people who can do nothing and leave everything in God’s hands.

You may be a rich man and have all the good material things in life, but if you don’t leave your destiny in the hand of God, that’s when you could be condemned. The same is true to a poor truly poverty stricken man, who think or wrongly believe that his poverty is a curse by God, this person is far from being called “Blessed”. What this teaching tells us that we should never be attached to our material things, because in all truth and honesty… as the old saying goes, “We cannot bring this stuff in the afterlife.”

This reminds me of an advertisement by a famous Swiss watch company that declares, “You do not truly own this exquisite timepiece, you merely use it in your lifetime and pass it on to the next generation.” How true! If you bought an expensive or a cheap watch, it really doesn’t matter, when you pass into life eternal, you can’t bring that watch with you anyway. Chances are, one amongst your children would get the watch and if it is the expensive kind, your children too will pass it on to your grandchildren.

But the Beatitudes are not just teaching us what or who should be blessed in our hearts, it also brings a warning… a woe to anyone who dares not to listen! So our Lord said, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.” This warning is for people who are actually materially blessed, yet they cannot see the poverty around them. Perhaps because they believe that they got their riches from their hard work and God had nothing to do with it! Without the Holy Spirit helping them, they wouldn’t have prospered!

This passage reminds me of the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus who ate only the scraps that the rich man threw for the dogs. When both died, Lazarus was in heaven with Father Abraham, while the rich man languished in hell. Indeed the rich man was filled during his earthly life, but in his life of eternal damnation, it is his soul that hungered for heaven. So when he was given the vision of Lazarus with Abraham, he begged for water, but a wide chasm separated between heaven and hell. So he begged God to send back Lazarus to warn his brothers on earth but he was told that the prophets were already sent, but where killed because of the people’s disbelief!

Today many Catholics do not obey the teachings of the Catholic Church simply because death isn’t imminent. But we know too well that death strikes anywhere, from the old and the infirm to the young and healthy, through accidents. What we need is a complete understanding of what God wants us to do in order for us to be saved and that is turning back to the Lord and giving him total and full control of our lives! God Bless!

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