A good Sunday to all.

Even those who know little about Christianity will surely have heard of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the first and most famous of the five discourses of Jesus found in the Gospel according to Matthew. In this Sermon on the Mount, we find collected some of the most beautiful and characteristic messages of the Christian life: the Beatitudes, the love for the enemy, the new justice of the kingdom of God, the prayer of the Our Father.

During some Sundays, we will listen to this discourse that begins today with the Beatitudes that Jesus proposes. What is this stylistic form of beatitude about? Jesus did not invent it. The exclamation ‘blessed is he who…’ was commonly used in antiquity. We find it already in Homer’s Odyssey, where it is said, ‘Blessed is the man who was lucky enough to get a good wife.’ Then, in the Greek poets, many proclaim themselves Blessed, especially those to whom the gods have granted to have many possessions, the possibility of leading a comfortable life; blessed is the rich, blessed is the intelligent.

This literary form entered rather late in the Bible, and there also we find many beatitudes,although they are a little different from those we find in Greek literature. In the Book of Psalms, for example, there are many Beatitudes. Thus, the first psalm begins with a beatitude:”Blessed is the man who does not follow the way of the wicked.” It is also said: “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.” These beatitudes are very different from the pagan ones. In the Old Testament, there are 44 beatitudes. And it is not surprising that Jesus also used this literary form.

When is it that in our world people proclaim themselves blessed? When is it that people exclaim: blessed he or blessed she? When they think that they are happy because they are young, beautiful, healthy, successful, above all, they have a lot of money, so people exclaim: ‘Happy (blessed) are they.’ But, is it true, will all these things be enough to be happy?

Even Jesus used this stylistic form to communicate his message. In the Bible, to call a person ‘Blessed’ is to pay him a compliment. It means to tell him that he is a successful person. The problem is to make it clear from whom you want to receive it. Who do you want to be the one who, at the end of your life, says, ‘Happy you, you were lucky in life’? If you want to receive this compliment from the people of this world, who reason according to the criteria of this world, according to the pagan ideals accepted and appreciated by all: welfare, wealth, success, career… if you want to receive congratulations from this society that thinks like this, the only thing you have to do is to do the contrary of what Jesus proposes, everyone will admire you and even envy you.

If, on the contrary, you want that, at the end of your life, God will be the one to shake your hand and congratulate you and say, ‘bravo – you succeeded in life,’ then you must listenthe Beatitudes that we will hear today from the mouth of Jesus.

Let’s listen first to where the evangelist Matthew places this discourse of Jesus:

“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.”

We seek only one thing in our life: joy. Everything that is done is to be happy; the problem is that they can miss the target. Indeed, in Hebrew, ‘sin’ is ‘hatat,’ which means missing the target. People aim for joy, perhaps find only pleasure, and are left disappointed.This is sin, which is not born from evil but from ignorance. This is the reason why God will never punish the sinner because he is a poor wretch who has missed the target; the Lord will want only one thing, that this child of him find the path of joy as soon as possible.

Today Jesus reveals to us the secret of joy. The important thing, in the end, will be whether we trust his proposal or prefer to continue with our cunning to obtain joy, and thus sin, miss the target. The evangelist Matthew says that Jesus made his proposal on the mountain. Christian devotion has identified this mountain with the hill that dominates Capernaum. You see it behind me; between those trees, there in the background, and the church of the beatitudes that I will show you in the next picture. The place is very suggestive, but the mountain Matthew is talking about is not a physical mountain, the one you see in the picture.

Why this image that is often repeated in the Bible? In all ancient peoples’ cultures, they imagined the seat of the gods on the top of the mountains. For example, remember Olympus for the Greeks. Indeed, the mountain stands out from the plain, and it is as if it penetrates the sky, so climbing the mountain means to approach God, to find divinity. In the Bible, we find Moses that when he wants to meet with God goes up the mountain; Elijah also goes up the mountain. Jesus also leads Peter, James, and John to the mountain because on the mountain, one has a certain experience of God; you assimilate the thoughts, feelings, and judgments of God.

Let us try to develop this precious symbolism of the mountain coming out of the plain. In the plain takes place people’s life; people regulate themselves according to the criteria of the wisdom they have invented, foolishness for God. Their criteria are easy to enumerate, for we all know them very well. What are the opinions that circulate in the plain to get joy? What matters is health or health alone; what matters is success: ‘Happy is he who has a large bank account; blessed is he who can travel and have fun and does not deprive himself of any pleasure; or ‘I am only interested in sex’; ‘I do not intend to sacrifice myself for others.’ These are the suggestions one hears on the plain; it is the standard way of reasoning and human wisdom. Will he who acts according to these ideals attain joy?

So as not to risk one’s life on erroneous values and thus lose the opportunity to be happy,it is wise to leave the plain, at least for a moment, and climb the mountain to know what God thinks about it, what his Beatitudes are. Then we will remain at liberty to return to the plain, to trust again in the way of people’s thinking; or to believe a little in the way that Jesus proposes, but then, to have no regrets, to go back to the plain, we can always do it, but as we are wise people, at least let us go up to this mountain to hear how God thinks from the mouth of Jesus.

Let us listen to the first beatitude that he proposes to us:

“Blessed are the poor in heart, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let us pay attention; let us try to interpret this beatitude correctly. It has been interpreted in many ways. There is, for example, a whole tradition of the Church that justifies this interpretation: ‘Someone can be wealthy and accumulate goods, but if he has detached his heart from his possessions, gives many alms to the poor; he is a good rich man.’ Jesus proclaims the poor blessed. Who are the poor? They are those who have nothing. But there are two kinds of poor; there is one who has become poor because he has suffered some misfortune, an earthquake, a disease, a war, or a flood that swept away his house.

Is this the poor man proclaimed blessed by Jesus? No. This interpretation would be absurd and contrary to the whole Gospel. In the Old Testament, God promises his people:’None among you shall be poor.’ And, in fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, it is said that, in the early church, where the brethren shared all the goods, none of them was poor because the world that God wills is not a world of the miserable; it is a world where all his sons and daughters are happy. Therefore, this is not poverty that is proclaimed blessed. Jesus does not address it to the disinherited, to the beggars of Capernaum. He addresses it to his disciples: “Blessed are the poor,” but not the ragged and miserable, but the poor in spirit.

What does it mean in spirit? In our inner being, we instinctively feel something that urges us not to deprive ourselves of our goods and impoverish ourselves, but to keep them for ourselves and, rather, accumulate them more and more and never have enough for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. This is the drive we instinctively feel. The Spirit takes us in the opposite direction, that is, to divest ourselves of those goods, that is, not to keep them for ourselves, but to give them to the needy, to the poor. Blessed is the poor who allows himself to be guided by the Spirit and does not keep God’s gifts in his hands for himself. Blessed is he who, at the end of his life, is left with nothing because he has put all that he had at the disposal of the poor. He that has not delivered all, when he comes to customs, that which he has not given is taken away from him, and he loses it forever because he was not transformed them into love. It is love that remains.

Who is the blessed one? It is Jesus of Nazareth; he was left with nothing because he gave his whole life; He kept not a moment of his life to himself; everything was a gift. This is the blessed one to whom the heavenly Father says: ‘You are truly my son/daughter; you have built the kingdom of God.’ The promise that is made to these poor in spirit (I repeat, not to those who have been stricken by misfortune) is the one who has been moved by the life of the son of God, which has been given to him by the heavenly Father, that leads him to love, to give everything.

What is the promise? Yours is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven belongs to these poor, not paradise. When you become poor out of love, moved by the Spirit, you belong today to the kingdom of God. This is the first proposal of joy that Jesus makes to us.

Let us listen to the second:

“Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

For many Christians today, it is still easier to associate God with suffering, with pain, than with joy and happiness. There is a whole spirituality of the past that invited to offer sacrifices to God, to bear with much patience one’s sufferings, the crosses the Lord sent. Then the beatitude would be this: Blessed are the afflicted, that is to say, those who have sufferingsto offer to God. This spirituality has led so many people to move away from the Church and to consider Christianity as the enemy of joy, whereas the Gospel is exactly the opposite; it is the proclamation of joy and happiness.

What affliction is Jesus talking about? It is not that which occurs by some misfortunes, God does not want pain; he does not want misfortunes. The affliction of which Jesus speaksis what he experienced; it is that pain so sharp that it manifested itself in weeping when he realized that his people, whom he loved dearly, rejected his proposal of the New World and, therefore, were inevitably heading for ruin. He burst into tears. This is the affliction that the blessed one feels.

Where does this pain come from? From love. Blessed, says Jesus, is he who loves so much that he bursts into tears when the joy of the kingdom of God is rejected. If we look around us today, what do we see? Wars, the violence of all kinds, injustice, falsehood, hypocrisy. We see a world where we boast of excluding God from human coexistence. Faced with this reality, one could disinterest oneself; one could mind one’s own business, one could try to feel comfortable, and thus one would not suffer, he would not cry or grieve, but he would not be blessed because he did not want to show love.

Blessed is he that mourns because he lives with passion in the endeavor to build the kingdom of God, humanity in which all are children of the one Father and live as brothers and sisters. The sorrow of the Blessed does not arise from the fact that it is wrong but from the fact that things are going wrong in the world. At this point, what is the temptation? In order not to suffer, one can resign oneself, disinterested in others; one can withdraw into one’s little world and let one’s arms fall down. If the evil one convinces you that the new world is a dream, then he has won.

The promise of those who continue to love, even if there is weeping, is that they will be comforted. That is, God is on their side, he is on the side of those who love, though they feel pain. God will comfort them; the new world will also be born with their cooperation.

Let us listen to the third beatitude:

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land.”

The adjective ‘meek’ recalls the image of a calm person who does not react to provocations. Is this the meek person Jesus is talking about? The meek person shuns all forms of conflict, but it also reveals a particular personality weakness. rather weak, he seems more resigned than a blessed one.

What does this beatitude of the meek mean? To understand it, we must refer to Psalm 37 because Jesus did not invent this beatitude, he took it from this psalm, which he undoubtedly knew by heart because it shows that he had assimilated all this spirituality of meekness that is found in this psalm. It speaks of a man who, although he must endure oppression, never gives in to the temptation to react with violence. He says: ‘Restrain your anger, restrain your rage, do not be angry because you will end up doing evil, you will increase the evil instead of remedying it.’ This is anger.

The Bible often speaks of the wrath of God, which is his love. It also speaks of the wrath of man, and this is dangerous because, although it is an impulse that God has put in us, if one does not feel anger in the face of injustice towards a poor person, it is a pathological problem. The problem is that we can lose the control of the anger that, instead of just pointing out to us the duty to intervene, leads us to attack, thus increasing evil instead of resolving it.

Let us be careful, then. Meekness is not the invitation to resignation; it is the right way.of reacting when an injustice is seen. Let us observe that this beatitude comes after of the afflicted, those who suffer because they see things are not going according to God.

The temptation, previously, was to be disinterested in things, no matter how they go, because one does not want to suffer; this is the first temptation. The second temptation is to get angry; it is to think of resolving conflicts with aggression and violence and thus adding another evil to the one that already exists. Jesus is the meek one. He applied this adjective to himself: “Learn of me that I am meek and humble of heart.” He experienced dramatic conflicts with political power, with the religious power, but he lived them with the attitudes, with the feelings that characterize the meek, that is, as those who fight for justice, but without ever adding another evil.

The promise made to the meek: They shall possess the land. Let us understand well it is not paradise; the land is the promise that with God, they will become the builders of a new world. Today we see that the earth often belongs to the violent, overbearing, arrogant, selfish, and those who spread a hedonistic culture. God says: ‘With your meekness, God will build with you the new earth.’

Let us now listen to the fourth beatitude:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

Of what righteousness is Jesus speaking? Be careful because the term ‘righteousness’ is very dangerous and misleading. Let us remember that the guillotine was called ‘the wood of justice’ because it ‘executed’; that’s how they did justice. And when a criminal ends up in prison or even sent to the gallows, they say: ‘Now justice has been done.’ I remember that governor who signed the death sentence of a criminal who had killed two policemen and he did it with the fountain pen that belonged to one of the two; after signing the death sentence, he left the fountain pen behind and said, ‘now justice has been done.’

Is this the justice that Jesus wants that we crave for as water, the thirsty one or bread to the hungry? The answer is ‘certainly not.’ And let us be careful because, for many, this is the righteousness, they apply it even to God. They make him do this justice, which is vengeful, to pay those who have done wrong. What justice is Jesus talking about? It’s about the design of love that God wants to bring about in this world. This is the justice that he wants to establish.

God’s justice is that all become aware that they are his sons and daughters, and that all are brothers and sisters to each other and live sharing the goods; they feel their needs as their own, the pain of those who are next to them that they can forgive, to change to enemies into brothers. This is the justice we should long for. Blessed is the one who wants to realize this righteousness and longs for it like water, the thirsty one who walks in the desert. These are the necessities that Jesus takes as an example of those who want to establish in the whole world his righteousness.

The promise: ‘They shall be satisfied.’ Here again, the danger is thinking this righteousness is a dream of Jesus of Nazareth. No, says Jesus, they shall be satisfied.

Let us now listen to the fifth beatitude:

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

In our language, we tend to identify mercy with compassion; when we say that a person is merciful, we tend to say that a person is merciful because he knows how to forgive, is magnanimous, and does not consent to the impulse that leads to making pay those who has wronged them. But they always know how to be magnanimous, and we apply this mercy to God. So, in the face of the evil we commit, God always knows how to forgive. But this interpretation of mercy applied to God has difficulty because it is not united to justice. If God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful; this was already understood by the rabbis who could not reconcile these two aspects of God, his justice and his mercy. They cannot be reconciled; one or the other must disappear.

That justice which reflects our justice, our way of judging, must disappear from God.God is only mercy. ‘Hesed’ in Hebrew means unconditional and faithful love because if God is a just judge, he cannot be merciful. God is merciful in the sense that no sin, no rejection of man can ever turn him away from this passion of love. The gold of which God is made is love, and it is pure gold; in God, there is nothing else.

How is this mercy manifested in God, this unconditional love? We see it in Jesus of Nazareth, and we capture it in the parable of the Samaritan. The Samaritan is Jesus; it is he who found humanity that had fallen into the hands of the brigands and remained half-dead.This Samaritan also reflects the merciful behavior of the person who resembles the heavenly Father.

What are the moments in which mercy is manifested in this Samaritan, who is Jesus and in the one who wants to be merciful like God? There are three moments in which one sees whether one is merciful.

First: When he sees, he realizes that the other is in need. He is not insensitive; he does not look the other way, he doesn’t try to distract himself by simply thinking, ‘what do I care what happened to that other person.’ The first moment when the merciful one manifests himself is the one whose eyes are open; there is no need for the other to ask for help; one sees the need for his brother or sister.

Second moment: he literally feels compassion, he feels pity, σπλαγχνίζζομαι – splagchnizomai, in Greek means one who feels as his own what has happened to his brother or sister who is in need. This inner impulse of love compels him to intervene.

The third moment of mercy: When he has seen the brother in need, and one can do something, immediately intervenes. This is the mercy of which Jesus speaks to us in the beatitude. Those who are attuned to the mercy of God and of Jesus of Nazareth, therefore, are the sons and daughters of God who are in tune with his love, and they will find mercy. It does not mean that God will turn a blind eye to their sins. It means that these people are in tune with God’s heart, which is love and only love.

Let us now listen to the sixth beatitude:

“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.”

For us, the heart is the seat of the emotions, of the feelings, but for the Semites, more than emotions and feelings, the heart is the center of all options, of all decisions. The Semites decide with the heart, and the heart can be pure or impure. What do we understand by ‘pure gold’? It means that it is not mixed with other metals; ‘pure coffee’ – there are substitutes; ‘this is pure truth’ – there is no lie; ‘this is pure fancy’ – means it has no connection with reality.

When is the heart clean? When there is only God who dictates the choices and who directs all the decisions that are made. Unclean is the heart where there is a jumble of gods, a jumble of idols giving orders. When in the heart, ‘there is also God,’ but many choices are made for money that gives its orders; for pride, greed, and moral licentiousness.

The promise to those pure in heart: ‘They will see God,’ that is, they shall experience God. Sometimes we hear from people who are not believers, how can I believe in God? And they think they must be convinced by reasoning. The problem is that they can’t see God if they have this disorder in their hearts. First, they have to purify their hearts, and only then will they be able to experience God.

Let us now listen to the seventh beatitude:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

In the past, this beatitude, translated as ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ was understood as those who always try to get along with everyone and who also try to make peace between people. In Jesus’ time, the rabbis said: מלאכה שָׁלוֹם (laahashote shalom, “peacemaker”), i.e., building peace between families and individuals was a very respectable work before God; this interpretation is good but reductive. Jesus’ beatitude has a much broader meaning. First, the term used to proclaim these people blessed is εἰρηνοποιοί, eirenopoioi, which is composed of two Greek words: ‘eirene,’ meaning peace, and poiein, meaning ‘to make.’Blessed are those who work to build peace. The Greek word ‘eirenopoioi,’ throughout the New Testament, is only repeated here, but it was common in classical Greek.

Emperors especially boasted of this very title; called themselves εἰρηνοποιοί, eirenopoioi, i.e., peacemakers. Caesar, Commodus, presented themselves as peacemakers of the world, and Augustus, above all, who, with his legions and his many crimes had put peace throughout the empire and was presented as the peacemaker. Virgil in the Aeneid, addressing him utters that famous phrase: ‘Remember, O Roman, that, to rule the world by your dominion, you must impose peace.’

Are these the peacemakers whom Jesus proclaims blessed? The answer is No. What does Jesus mean by εἰρηνοποιοί, eirenopoioi – peacemakers? The Hebrew term we know well is ‘shalom,’ which presupposes that there is no disagreement or war but the peace that Jesus speaks about is much broader, it indicates the fullness of life, indicates the presence of all those goods which enables people to be happy. This is the order of the world willed by God, the peace of which Jesus speaks. He who creates the economic, social, cultural, and political conditions that foster this peace is the blessed of whom Jesus speaks.

The promise: ‘God calls them his children.’ They shall be called the sons of God means that addressing them, God says, You are indeed my son. What God wants is this peace, that is, well-being, joy, happiness, and life for all his sons and daughters. When one builds these conditions that allow everyone to be happy, God turns to these builders and says, ‘You are truly my sons and daughters.’

Let us now listen to the last beatitude:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

We have climbed the mountain to listen to Jesus’ proposal of a happy and blessed life; we are glad to have heard it and also to have understood this proposal. But now, we cannot always remain on the mountain; we must go down to the plain; we must return among people; between people who reason differently, follow other criteria and values, and choose other beatitudes.

So, we want to ask Jesus, how will we be received there in the plain? How can we find ourselves among those people if we are coherent with what you have taught us? And Jesus answers us with an eighth beatitude: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” that is, persecuted because they want the new righteousness of the kingdom of God to be established in the world. He tells us clearly: ‘You will not have an easy life.’ Let us keep this in mind: ‘They will insult you, they will persecute you, they will say all kinds of evils against you for my sake.’

Therefore, there is a price to pay. Choosing the Beatitudes of Jesus, it is as if he is saying to us: ‘Be aware that when they see your life so differently from theirs, when they hear you speak of gratuitousness, of the exchange of goods, of the care of the least ones, of the poor, of a relationship of faithful love, of unconditional fidelity, they will oppose you, or at least they will mock you, but I assure you that you will be blessed.’

And he gives two reasons for this beatitude. The first: ‘For of those who are persecuted for righteousness sake is the kingdom of heaven. And then, ‘For great is your reward in heaven.’ When we hear of heaven, our thoughts spontaneously turn to the reward of the kingdom of heaven that the faithful servants will receive in paradise, in the hereafter.

Let us note that both promises made by Jesus are in the present: the kingdom of heaven belongs to the persecuted; to them, it belongs now. And then, great is their reward in heaven. Heaven is not paradise; it is the kingdom of God, the new world. which has already begun in the hereafter and is present in all who live the Beatitudes of Jesus.

The persecuted one is not happy despite the persecution, but because of the persecution, he suffers and is invited to rejoice not because one day the persecutions and sufferings will end but because today, being persecuted he has proof that he lives differently from others, not according to the criteria of the old world, but according to the new righteousness. And it is out of this deep and intimate conviction that derives in the believer the joy and peace promised by Jesus.

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.