Word to the Wise
Monday, June 12, 2023 - Monday in the 10th Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Cor 1:1-7 and Matt 5:1-12]Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. [2 Corinthians] When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven......"
The daily gospel scripture now moves from the Gospel According to Mark to the Gospel According to Matthew and we begin with a very familiar but pivotal scene, the Sermon on the Mount. First, Matthew sets the scene in accord with his overall portrait of Jesus as a "new Moses" who can teach with the authority of God by having him go up a mountain. There he takes the sitting position of a teaching rabbi with his disciples gathered around him.
Tradition has called Jesus' initial words "the Beatitudes." It is important to understand that Jesus is not telling the poor, the meek, the mourners, the hungry. the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted that they should be happy about their conditions but rather that they have been heard and may have hope because God has come to them in the person of Jesus. The Beatitudes are meant as encouragement of the kind St. Paul speaks about in the first scripture today from 2 Corinthians.
When we move in the next few days into Jesus' "new law" of discipleship, the demands of discipleship will be very challenging and can form a kind of examination of conscience. We will need all the encouragement Jesus can give to live according to his teaching. AMEN