All Saints, 1 November, 2024: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a
In listening to the Gospel it can be as important to note what is not said, as what is said. Jesus does not say, “Blessed are they who sing on pitch”; nor does he say, “Blessed are they who never arrive late in choir,” nor even, “Blessed are the flawless.”
Any of these conducts can be respectful and helpful to others, but are they of ultimate value? Don’t they all depend on my control or discipline? And should they ever become indexes of competition or superiority, wouldn’t they degenerate into vice?
What of the behavior that Jesus calls “blessed”?
Spiritual poverty, meekness, mercy or even peacemaking, on the part of others, may seem desirable for my own comfort, but could be very demanding and inconvenient in my own life. Those who hunger and thirst for justice can disrupt my comfortable status quo, while those who suffer persecution for righteousness could show me up as complacent or even in denial. Would I welcome the company of those who mourn, let alone be willing to mourn myself?
If all these conditions extolled by Jesus are symptoms of human contingency and vulnerability—conditions our culture prefers to escape—they are also responses to forces beyond my control. None of them are static but are dynamic. As such, aren’t they also opportunities for growth and enormous trust, as part of a bigger picture? Don’t they suggest that in the hands of God, they are not dead ends but gateways to depth and responsibility? Even gateways to communion with the self-giving God?
And so Jesus can conclude by exhorting us to rejoice and be glad.
As ends in themselves they could be discouraging but as part of my relationship to God, as part of God’s self-sacrificing love, which of them cannot be a gateway to beatitude? Which of them cannot be the pedagogy of true holiness rather than fabricated, human piety?