REFLECTIONS TODAY

Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness in today’s world is entitled Gaudete et Exsultate—“Rejoice and leap for joy” (Lk 6:23)—taken from Jesus’ proclamation of the Beatitudes. “Beatitudes” comes from the Latin beati, which translates the original Greek makairoi. They refer to the state of happiness or blessedness. The Beatitudes which are found in Matthew (5:3-11) and Luke (6:20-26) are often referred to as “the Gospel within the Gospel.” They lie at the core of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. In Luke’s Gospel which also gives us the corresponding “woes,” they are the opposite of being in the condition of wealth, satisfaction, and being held in honor. 

Pope Francis writes that there can be a number of theories about what constitutes holiness, with various explanations and distinctions, but nothing is more enlightening than turning to Jesus’ words and seeing his way of teaching the truth. And in the Beatitudes, Jesus with great simplicity, speaks of what it means to be holy. And the word “happy” or “blessed” becomes a synonym of holy.

The Beatitudes are paradoxes. Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes as he looks upon the condition of his disciples. They are poor, hungry, weeping men; they are hated, persecuted, and maligned. Yet their condition becomes a promise in the light of Jesus’ gaze which is the gaze of the heavenly Father. Pope Benedict XVI explains this in his book Jesus of Nazareth: “The standards of the world are turned upside down as soon as things are seen in the right perspective, which is to say, in terms of God’s values, so different from those of the world. It is precisely those who are poor in worldly terms, those thought of as lost souls, who are the truly fortunate ones, the blessed, who have every reason to rejoice and exult in the midst of their sufferings. The Beatitudes are promises resplendent with the new image of the world and of man inaugurated by Jesus, his ‘transformation of values.’” 

The Beatitudes are eschatological promises, meaning, of the “last times.” But this does not mean that the joy they proclaim is postponed until some infinitely remote future or applies exclusively to the next world. The fact is something of the eschaton, of the reality to come, is already present, inaugurated by Jesus. Believers live in the joy and tension of the “already” and the “not-yet.” This is shown in Paul’s description of his experience of living and suffering as an Apostle, for the sake of Christ. What Jesus proclaims as real condition and as promise, the Apostle already feels as lived experience. He experiences boundless joy in the midst of persecution, for in himself he sees the connection of Jesus’ cross and resurrection: We always carry “about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body” (2 Cor 4:10).

Gospel • Luke 6:17, 20-26 
 

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 the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. 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. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.