Thought One:
The reading, commonly known as The Beatitudes, is the opening salvo in Jesus’ "first big speech" -- his first major press conference, if you will.
The kingdom of God movement has begun, people
are beginning to get excited about God’s messiah appearing in their time, and
they are ready for the way the world works, to be changed. With John the Baptist, the movement's first leader now in prison and soon to be executed by the king, Jesus himself has begun
teaching, healing and gathering disciples in Capernaum and throughout
Galilee. Now, seeing the crowds, he goes
up on a mountainside to speak to them.
So what does he say? What kind
of tone does he set?
And, if I were given a soapbox and a
chance to be heard, what would I say to the world right now? (Or, maybe closer to the bone, what is it that I post or re-post
these days about the world on Facebook or Twitter?)
Thought Two:
A number of years ago Fr. Jerry Williams, a Carmelite spiritual director, gifted me before his departure with three pencil sketches that had hung on his office wall for years. The sketches were of Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- three contemporary saints who in many ways were shaped by, and embodied the Beatitudes in their lives and their work.
When I read the Beatitudes, whose face or life comes to mind for me? Who do I know -- and look up to -- who has been shaped by, and who embodies this Jesus-way of living?
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