Happiness is...

FR. TOM'S HOMILY FOR THE 4th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, January 29, 2023:

Earlier this week, Pope Francis returned to a theme that he has spoken of regularly during his pontificate – the quality and length of homilies. He said, “Keep your homilies to no more than eight to 10 minutes and always include in them a thought, a feeling and an image, so that the people may bring something home with them.” He added, “In general in the Catholic Church, the homilies are a disaster.” It was a fitting commentary this week in particular because our Gospel passage from Matthew today gives us a homily – in fact it is Jesus’ very first homily. We know it better as the Sermon on the Mount.

This homily comprises a full three chapters of Matthew and includes that most of the key ideas of Jesus’ preaching. In the Sermon we find the Beatitudes (which we have before us today). We have the Lord’s Prayer. The command to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute” us. It gives us the familiar command to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It is a truly amazing homily and in fact if you could only have one piece of Scripture that gives you the fullest picture of Jesus teaching and thought, it would be the Sermon on the Mount. Definitely longer than 10 minutes, but certainly not a disaster!

Today, we have just a small portion of that sermon; we have the beatitudes. We hear the familiar refrain, “Blessed are they…” Blessedness is another word for happiness and so in the beatitudes, Jesus is giving us the road to happiness if only we follow.

The great philosopher Aristotle said, “Happiness is that which all people seek.” He observed that the things people do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, are the things that they believe will bring them happiness in one form or another. The problem is that what people think will bring them happiness rarely achieves that goal. Think about this in your own life. What are you investing in to find your own happiness and is it working?

What Jesus wants us to know today is that true happiness – or blessedness – can be found, but perhaps in unlikely places. The world often tells us that happiness can be found in money, power, fame, and beauty. And so, where Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” the world says “Blessed are the rich.” Where Jesus says “Blessed are those who mourn” the world says “Blessed are those having fun.” Where Jesus says “Blessed are the meek” the world says “Blessed are the cunning.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” the world says “Blessed are those who wine and dine.” Where Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful” the world says “Blessed are the powerful.” You get the idea.

The values prescribed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are in fact counter-cultural values – often the opposite of what the world tells us to value. And so, we cannot accept these teachings of Jesus and at the same time accept all the values of the society in which we live. We have to make a choice. Jesus invites us to put God first in our lives because only God can guarantee the true happiness and peace that our hearts long for. Nothing in the world can give this peace, and nothing in the world can take it away.

The question for us today is this: Do we seek our happiness through the values of the world or do we live by the beatitudes of Jesus? If you live by the teachings of Jesus, then rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

Saint Pope John Paul II, spoke of the Beatitudes at World Youth Day in Toronto many years ago. I had the privilege of being present for his homily. He said, “Jesus did not limit himself to proclaiming the Beatitudes, he lived them! The Beatitudes describe what a Christian should be: they are the portrait of those who have accepted the Kingdom of God. The joy promised by the Beatitudes is the very joy of Jesus himself. By looking at Jesus you will learn what it means to be poor in spirit, meek and merciful; what it means to seek justice, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers. Today Jesus’ voice resounds in the midst of our gathering. His is a voice of life, of hope, of forgiveness; a voice of justice and of peace. Let us listen to this voice! 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!”

My friends, happiness is that which all people seek. Let us seek nothing less than the Kingdom of God.

​May the Lord give you peace.

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