This Sunday we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount”. We’ve heard it over and over since we were children and are hardly shocked by Jesus’ description of the reign of God. Although, some of those who gathered on that slope to listen to Jesus were shocked by the picture he painted of the Reign of God. It made no sense and ran contrary to the sociopolitical reality of their lives.

What was he thinking…the meek will inherit the land? We all know that it is the powerful who control the land, it is the powerful who decide who enters the land and who gets to stay. And the “peace-makers”…well they usually get run over by the armies! And what was he saying about the “poor in spirit”…theirs is the Kingdom of God? Wait a minute…I thought the Kingdom belonged to the righteous and those who followed the letter of the law?

Well the truth is that Jesus had a different take on the whole matter. The beatitudes name the ways in which peoples’ lives and wellbeing are threatened: grinding poverty, grief, landlessness, hunger, war and persecution.

Jesus does not advise that those so afflicted simply wait for a reversal of fortune in the here-after, though the final verse does speak of a great reward in heaven.

Jesus calls for attitudes and actions that will more fully bring about the reign of God. The poor in spirit are the humble whose wealth is found in God and not in gold…their wealth is to be shared with the materially poor. The meek are not to be “shrinking violets” who accept injustice, but rather, those who know their proper place as children of God, and who stand up to insure that all people are treated with dignity and as full heirs to God’s reign.

The beatitudes are really “Be - Attitudes”…they call us to holiness through reaching out to all who suffer in this world, and promise us that to the extent that we reach out to and work on behalf of the suffering we will become more fully the “blessed of God” and help to build up the Reign of God!

As we take time this week to reflect on this Gospel let’s focus on one or more of the beatitudes and ask ourselves: In what concrete ways will I live out the “Be – Attitudes” today?

​Fr. Tim

I find it very interesting to note that Jesus doesn’t begin his ministry in his hometown nor in Jerusalem, the seat of religious power. Rather he leaves the Jewish centered world to go to the periphery....to Galilee, Gentile territory...so that the people sitting in darkness would see a great light!

We well may feel like we are sitting in a darkness right now, but we are called to be a light for each other in the midst of the darkness.

For all those who live in fear of being singled out or feel threatened because of their race or ethnicity or religion or sexual identity or gender or immigration status, for all of them, we must stand up and be a light for them.

That is the clarion call of the Gospel. It is who we are all called to be -- “people of light” -- in and through our Baptism. It is how we live out our discipleship; how we put our discipleship into action!

We have been called by our baptism to be disciples of Jesus Christ, to be active participants in the building up of the Reign of God, in the here and now.

Just as Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and called his first disciples, so have you and I been called by Jesus to follow him and to do as he did.

But it is often hard to hear the call in the midst of all the noise in the world around and within our own heads. But the call is there! The call to be active participants, active disciples in how we choose to live our life. And we do that by what we place value on, by how we choose to spend our time, talent, and treasure and to whom we share it with.

What we place at the center of our lives, what we truly value most, speaks to what we believe is our call.
Many people ask, How do I hear where God is calling me? In order to hear the call from God we have to quiet all the noise around us and in our heads, and we have to listen. This is why prayer is so important. And we have to look for God’s signs in our lives, just like the Magi looked for God’s signs. We have to pay attention to our lives and to what is going on in them.

Our discipleship is not for our own sake; no, it is for building up the Reign of God. We do that by standing with and holding up and speaking out on behalf of all of those who are marginalized, made invisible, devalued, silenced, cast aside and dehumanized. It is, in fact, doing as Jesus would do!

I have spoken many times about those wildly popular rubber bracelets from a few years ago, with the letters, “WWJD”, “what would Jesus do?”. They were everywhere. Millions of people sported them on their wrists, and slowly they disappeared and faded into the past as our self-centered consumeristic society became increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of actually asking ourselves, throughout all our daily actions and interactions, “what would Jesus do” in this moment?

Seriously, think about it. Think about this past week, this past month, this past year -- would that question have impacted you and any of your thoughts or actions?

So let us all be for one another, and especially for all who live in the “darkness and fear”, let us be LIGHT!

Nourished by the Word and Body of Christ let us go forth filled with Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit and be light for our nation and for the world! Let us put our discipleship into action! And as we move through this week let us ask ourselves “what would Jesus do?” in the situations and the encounters we experience.
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Fr. Tim 

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John the Baptist is once again at the center of our Gospel reading this weekend. He has moved from shouting “prepare the way of the Lord” to “behold the Lamb of God!”, then he admits that he did not, at first, recognize Jesus as “the Lamb of God”.

And remember also, that in the Gospel of Luke, after his arrest John sends two disciples to ask Jesus, are you “the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

There seems to be a certain amount of ambiguity as to John’s understanding of who Jesus really was. What is clear is that all of this happened in a particular time in a particular place to real people who actually knew this one called Jesus, the Christ.

God came to us “Emmanuel” and it all points to the need for us to be constantly looking for the way in which God continues to self-reveal to us and is present every moment of every day of our life. Remember, we are Temples of the Holy Spirit, that means that Divinity dwells within us!

Much like the Magi we heard of last week, they saw the star, they looked up at the same night sky as all the rest of the people of the earth but they were the ones who “saw.” Why?... because they expected to see something! Their hearts were open to God; they expected God to be present in their lives.

John the Baptist expected the Messiah to come and so he recognized him when at last he came. Like John and like the Magi we have to look, expecting to see, expecting to find God present in the midst of our daily lives. Like them, we too then will see with expectant eyes God’s amazing presence in the most surprising of places in our everyday lives.

Let us ask ourselves, where did I last glimpse God’s presence in my life? Did I stop to savor it, or share it with someone else? Or is life so overbooked, and so chaotic that I miss the glimpses of God’s presence, or I see them but don’t have time to savor them, to hold them in my heart like Mary did?

But let each one of us know, that regardless of whether we see or feel the presence of the Divine, it is with us, and within us! Remember Jesus’ promise…(John 14:19-20) “In a little while the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.” Let us rejoice in this Divine indwelling, within each and everyone of us!

​Fr. Tim