Master·evangeli.net
Today's Gospel + short theological explanation
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.
September 1st
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Gospel and commentary video
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