2/16/2025 - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Key to Real Happiness – Be Blessed

We are all familiar with  the “Sermon on the Mount” which is found in Saint Matthew’s Gospel. A very similar message by Jesus in St. Luke’s Gospel is referred to as the “Sermon on the Plain”. The passage is explicit in saying He “stood on a stretch of level ground.”  Why does it specify “level ground”? This is to show that Jesus fulfills prophecies that speak of how the mountains will be made low and the valleys will be filled in.  It also leads into a theme evident in Luke’s Beatitudes and throughout the gospel of Luke, “the reversal of fortune.”  God will make things right.  For example, the hungry will be satisfied and those “who are filled now…will be hungry.”

As we reflect on  Luke’s Beatitudes, we should think about what it means to be “blessed.”  The original Greek word ‘makarios’ has been  translated by some as  “happy” in place of “blessed.” I do not think the word “happy” is adequate.  It is not just a matter of being happy, as in having no concerns or sadness because of good fortune. Aramaic was the common language that people understood. And the word Jesus used was Toowayhon which means enriched, delighted, blissful. It is a much more direct and powerful word than just blessed or happy, and it would have had a big impact on those listening to Him.

 We are unlikely to consider ourselves blessed or happy when we cannot pay our bills or put food on the table. We are likewise slow to count our blessings, much less dancing for joy, when we find ourselves in tears or when we are excluded, rejected, and treated with contempt. We are more likely to consider ourselves blessed when we do not have to be constantly worried about money or food and when others treat us with respect.

But Jesus presents an ‘upside-down’ view of happiness, emphasizing humility, mourning, meekness and hunger. The Gospel message, which is Good News for all people, is summed up well in this familiar phrase from scripture: “Be converted and live.” No one is excluded from this call. That means dying to self and living for God,  rather than for the fleeting ‘goodies’ that we hunger after driven by a consumeristic appetite. But we still might ask: how can one possibly find lasting happiness in poverty, hunger, mourning and persecution as Jesus seems to be saying in the Gospel today? These are things we are taught in our culture to avoid at all costs, literally!

Jesus is telling us we must empty ourselves of all that would shut God out of our hearts. Spiritual poverty considers God as the greatest treasure, not money or fame or youthfulness. All these things are transitory and have limited value in this temporal order. The great Doctor of the Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who died 1274, said that no person can live without joy. That is why those deprived of spiritual joy seek out other forms of it, only to discover that real joy, what really satisfies and lasts forever, is joy in God. We are built to be quiet receivers; people who know they feel empty and yet are patient to move into the outstretched arms of God. 

In an age when we are constantly being enticed by vain and empty illusions of happiness, we risk settling for less and “thinking small” when it comes to the meaning of life. When we look only for success, pleasure and possessions, and we turn these into idols, we may well have moments of exhilaration, an illusory sense of satisfaction, but ultimately, we become enslaved, never satisfied, always looking for more. It is a tragic thing to see a young person who “has everything”, but is weary and weak.

If there is no supernatural order, the sermon on the mount or sermon on the plain makes no sense. A life of righteousness and holiness that cannot be achieved by human effort alone but requires the grace of God is made available to all those who are willing to accept the values of His Kingdom. This is surely because those who are poor in spirit are clinging to God and are so totally united with God that even now they are experiencing something of the peace of heaven.

To be "Blessed" is not simply to be "happy," but to know that we are already included in the new order of things that Jesus has come to announce, that new order described as the Kingdom of God. Reading behind the Gospel narratives, we can conclude that Jesus did not shy away from the ordinary enjoyments of life of good meals, wedding, fishing, cooking and leisurely walks in companionship. The mind-set of the ‘kingdom dwellers’ is one of deep consciousness of the connection with the Divine. Those, Jesus names as "Blessed", live with confidence in the now because they know that they are secure in God’s hands. And so we should live with that same confidence… because the Beatitude life is present tense. Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O