In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Sunday 17 February 2019

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

Word for today
The Gospel of Luke 6:17.10-26

Blessed are the joyful

Jesus heals every disease, He multiplies the bread for those who are hungry, He raises the dead, restores the soul, converts the heart, illuminates the mind. Creation itself shows that everything is magnificent and graceful by divine necessity. By means of creation and of Jesus, the Most Holy Trinity lets us know God's desire that we may live our lives in well-being and prosperity to the full. Why then the Beatitudes, why the poor, the hungry, the persecuted?
Are the Beatitudes a hymn of resignation in view of the heavenly reward? Do the Beatitudes lock all wealth and prosperity in Paradise and in the kingdom of Heaven, while letting humanity live on Earth under the yoke of nonviolent resignation and submission? 
The answer is no, although they can be easily used for such a purpose. Why then are the poor and the hungry blessed?
God wants us to be wealthy and full of joy, but we can gather his gifts to the full only according to the strength and power of our desires. The more powerful and stronger our desires are, the more abundant and ready Life will be to fill us with prosperity and well-being.
Jesus announces the Happy Way of the Beatitudes to God's children who, in order to follow God's desires, may come up against corrupt powers, violence and ignorant arrogance which can reduce them to poverty, hunger and persecution. Blessed are you if in poverty, in hunger, in persecution you will not lose your desire and faith, you will not use violence or human power but you will confide in God and you will keep desiring God's desires in peace and joy; then your beatitude and well-being will accompany you through the skies of heaven until Life without end.
The Beatitudes are the heart of the Gospel, they are the Gospel itself, the joyful announcement. The announcement that mankind has been created to live in joy, happiness, harmony, beauty, prosperity, serenity, and only when we do not desire God's desires any longer, when we stop having faith and feeling gratitude, our life turns into slavery, full of misery and tribulation. The announcement says that those who undertake the Happy Way and bear witness to it, will attract persecution, slander, hunger, imprisonment, misery. Nevertheless, despite such misery and forced tribulation, if God's children keep their desires and faith active and strong, bliss, joy and dance will always be in their heart, in their existence and in Heavenly life.
Even in the extreme case in which God's children may see their lives taken away, such an event will not make them feel sad or fearful, it will not cause desolation and it will not be able to extinguish their desire.
The Beatitudes are God's invitation to His children to follow the divine and evangelical procedure so that they can live in prosperity and peace, and to never abandon this procedure, not even when the world violently causes  all sorts of deprivation and injury to them. Similarly, the Beatitudes are the powerful and unquestionable announcement that sadness and total absence of joy will be for all those who, in order to selfishly increase their wealth, will have reduced their brothers to hunger, imprisonment, misery and silence.