Blessed are the cheesemakers!

FR. TOM'S HOMILY FOR THE 6th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, February 17, 2019:

Let me start today with a simple survey. Raise your hand if you would love to be poor, starving, weeping and hated by everybody. Anyone? Okay, now raise your hand if you would love to be rich, well fed, laughing and well-spoken of in the community. A few more of you. One final question, raise your hand if you would like to be among those considered “blessed” by God? Okay, this could be challenging. Listen to Jesus, “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. But woe to you who are rich, who are filled now, who laugh now, when all speak well of you.” Maybe I should ask the questions again?

We hear today a very familiar and beloved passage of Scripture: the Beatitudes. But, if we’ve never really thought about its message, perhaps today we realize it can be challenging, or even misunderstood. Just think of the famous line from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “Did he say blessed are the cheesemakers?” If you don’t know the reference, please google it when you go home. And yet, St. Pope John Paul II called the Beatitudes “the Magna Carta of Christianity.”

This passage always calls to mind for me a trip I made with the youth in my parish to World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, Canada. St. John Paul focused on this passage at that gathering. He said, for example, “A crowd of people is gathered around Jesus, all of them anxiously awaiting a word, a gesture that will give them comfort and hope. We too are gathered here to listen attentively to the Lord. He looks at you with affection, feels the deep longing that beats within your hearts: you want to be happy! Many and enticing are the voices that call out to you from all sides and speak to you of a joy that can be had with money, with success, with power. Dear friends, the aged Pope, full of years but still young at heart, answers your desire for happiness with words that are not his own. They are words that rang out two thousand years ago. Words that we have heard again tonight: ‘Blessed are they.’ The key word in Jesus’ teaching is a proclamation of joy: ‘Blessed are they’ People are made for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness. Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him. True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory.”

Now to be clear, Jesus is not saying that poverty is great, that hunger, weeping, hatred, sorrow are all wonderful. Rather, He is reminding us of our priorities – that following God, no matter the cost – is the best thing in the world. Jesus wants us to be people who seek blessing above all other things. We should seek that blessing even if the world offers us money, power, prestige and position. The key to the passage are the words, “on account of the Son of Man.” Luke reminds us that if we do everything and anything “on account of [Jesus],” it will be turned into blessing. And so even poverty on account of Jesus is better than riches on account of ourselves and the selfishness our world encourages.

When Luke wrote this gospel being named a Christian would result in being disowned by family, rejected by friends, excluded from the synagogue, losing your inheritance, and any commerce in the community. Following Christ would mean being quickly reduced to a state of poverty. And so Jesus says, “Blessed are you.” We may not face the same extremes today as followers, but Jesus still wants us to seek blessing in our lives above all else. Jesus wants us to take the risk and to be people of His Beatitudes and not people of the world. Jesus wants us to see that all of the riches and power in the world will never bring even one soul to Heaven. “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?”

Let me end with a few more words St. John Paul from that World Youth Day, “Dear friends, the Church today looks to you with confidence and expects you to be the people of the Beatitudes. Blessed are you if, like Jesus, you are poor in spirit, good and merciful; if you really seek what it just and right; if you are pure of heart, peacemakers, lovers of the poor and their servants. Blessed are you! Today Jesus calls you to choose goodness, to live in justice, to become instruments of love and peace. His call has always demanded a choice between good and evil, between light and darkness, between life and death. He makes the same invitation today to you. Answer the Lord with strong and generous hearts! He is counting on you. Never forget: Christ needs you to carry out his plan of salvation! Christ needs [you] to make his proclamation of joy resound in the new millennium. Answer his call by placing your lives at his service in your brothers and sisters! Trust Christ, because He trusts you.”

Let us all live lives so focused on Christ above all else that we too may one day be counted among those who are blessed by God.

​May the Lord give you Blessing and Peace.

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