Beatitude

October 22, 2020 | Fr. Michael Brunner O.S.B.

A Reading from the Gospel of St Matthew (Chapter 5)

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: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you 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. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
The Gospel of the Lord

A few years ago, after officiating at a wedding, I flew back to St. Louis from Denver on Southwest Airlines. Fortunately I printed my boarding pass the night before. I say fortunately, because the Southwest Airlines computer system went down the day of my flight. There was a lot of chaos and anguish at the airport among the passengers, but I was exceedingly impressed by how the Southwest employees handled themselves and the situation. They were cheerful, polite, sympathetic, reassuring; they did their best and were obviously well trained. They obviously cared about their customers as people. It made me think: what do we care about ?

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote:
The monuments of Egyptian, Persian, Greek and Roman civilization give us a good idea of what they cared about. The best of what they cared about is the foundational part of our civilization. Much, but not very much, of what they thought and wrote survived the collapse of the Roman empire, the Dark Ages, the Black Death and the invasions of the Mongol hordes. True, some of their monuments and those of other civilizations are broken and strewn across now barren landscapes, but they announce clearly that once there was greatness there. You may remember the original movie “Planet of the Apes” and that scene where Charlton Heston comes around a bend on the seashore and comes face to face with the buried head of the Statue of Liberty. I have often wondered what people living 3,000 years from now will find from our civilization. Most of our modern buildings are disposable, meant to last 70 years or so. September 11, 2001 showed us just how fragile they really are. In St Louis, there is this huge stainless-steel arch by the Miss. River,
Very pure, spare and stark. It symbolizes the gateway to the west. If people living 3,000 years from now find the Gateway Arch, will they understand what it meant to say? Mount Rushmore will say at least something of our humanity. But what really makes me wonder about our legacy is our absolute reliance on digital and magnetic media. That brief collapse of Southwest’s computer system showed how vulnerable we are and perhaps how meaningless and inscrutable our legacy may be to future generations. What will a future archeologist make of a server, a disk drive, a DVD disk or a flash drive? They at least are tangible.

How much of what we write, create, compose and save is in “the cloud?” Where will the cloud be in 3,000 years? Years ago, man thought papyrus was a great invention, and that the great ideas written on it would last forever. We thought that about paper too. And as I look through my photo album, all those color photos from the 1970’s and 80’s are fading away after only 40 or 50 years. One big electromagnetic pulse from the sun or several from nuclear weapons could wipe out most of our data. What really do we care about? We do have to care something about all that data in order to function in this world. But we can’t really worry about whether or not humanity will enter another dark age during which a big chunk of human knowledge will be lost or buried. We should live in a way that makes the best use of our now to build a better tomorrow for your children and those we love.

In a class I was once taking, the priest teacher asked us “What will you be doing 100,000 years from now?”  
It’s a good question, because we know by faith that we will be living somewhere (for lack of better words to explain spiritual life) doing something. We will be alive 100,000 years from now. And if we are planning and acting now for our human careers and our eventual retirement, we surely should be living now in a way that maximizes the quality of the life we will live then, in 100,000 years. The life we live then and in eternity is a continuation and development of our life here and now. And our life here and now is formed by what we care about, because what we care about determines what things we act upon, what actions we take and how we act.

What should we care about and how should we act to be ready for eternity? Jesus pretty much tells us that in the Beatitudes found in his Sermon on the Mount in The Gospel of Matthew Ch 5. Blessed, by which He means happy, are those persons who live in those ways of poverty of spirit, singleness of purpose and cleanliness of heart, peace, mercy, humility and justice, and who care about those things, for their reward will be great in heaven. Of course, we could find ourselves in heaven (or someplace else) 1 day from now, so it’s pointless to focus on 100,000 years. The future will take care of itself if we live the Beatitudes today. So be happy and be blessed!