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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
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Gospel text (Lk 6:17.20-26): And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven (…)."

The "Beatitudes", the Christian’s paradoxes

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, Jesus repeatedly calls "blessed" to his disciples. The "Beatitudes" are words of promise that work at the same time as moral guidance. Each "beatitude" describes, so to speak, the realistic condition of the disciples of Christ: they are poor, they are hungry, they cry, they are hated, persecuted... The beatitudes are like practical "qualifications", but also like theological-moral indications.

Despite the threatening situation in which Jesus considers his disciples, this situation becomes a promise when regarded in the light coming from the Father. For the disciple, the "Beatitudes" are a paradox: the standards of the world are turned upside down when you just look at things from God’s scale of values. The "Beatitudes" are promises resplendent with the new image of the world and of the man inaugurated by Jesus, His "transformation of values ".

—When I "look" through you, O Lord, then, I live with new standards, I begin to "feel" something of what is yet to come (Heaven) and joy enters in my tribulation.