Fr. Aidan to Fr. Brian: The reason that I want to talk to you about
this is because I’ve had a real problem with these Beatitudes. I can
understand and I can see that Jesus was talking to a group of people
through Matthew’s penmanship. When those people heard those words, it
was really, really shocking to them because, to them, at that moment
in time, if you were rich, if you had all the trappings of the world,
then you had God’s blessing. So Jesus was turning that upside down.
And so, to me, that sounds so difficult. We don’t get to hear the
shocking value to our ear because these words seem ancient. Just like
yesterday, Groundhog Day, you hear it over and over again, and it
loses its value. So, I’m having a problem with that.

Fr. Brian: I’m not going to ask you about the value of Groundhog
Day. (Laughter!) You know, I think the problem is that the Beatitudes
are really shocking. They’re shocking, but we don’t get it. Either we
are numb for having heard it so often or we don’t understand.
“Beatitude” means “happy.” And Jesus says happy if you are poor,
happy if you’re meek, happy if you’re sad. My goodness! That’s
turning our values and our worlds upside down! And we don’t get it! I
think if we ever get it, if we really hear the Beatitudes, it’s a
great antidote. It’s a great remedy for what I call “Holy Card
Jesus.” At least when I was growing up, we had these holy cards of
Jesus. He always looked so pretty! Not a hair out of place. He had
just had a perm. He had a little rouge. He was a gentle Jesus. And he
was white and blue-eyed! Was he Irish? I don’t know if he was Irish.
But he turns our world upside down and we don’t even get it. It’s
supposed to be shocking! We miss it somehow. We miss it.

Fr. Aidan: You know, I think one of the things, to be honest with
you, what I find difficult, St. Augustine has said that, to be a good
Christian, you have to have all of these eight attributes. When I
look at it, I say to myself, “I don’t have all of these attributes.”
For example, do you think that I’m meek? (Much laughter here!)

Fr. Brian: Don’t I wish!

Fr. Aidan: If you just talk to the Bishop, I’ll be out of here! But
seriously, though, when I hear these, I really do get it. I really
understand the absolute that every gift that we have is a grace from
God. That’s kind of an old word, but every gift is from God. When I
look out into the community of Christ the King here, that’s what
makes me feel better about it, because I know I don’t have all these
things.

Fr. Brian: I think that’s true of all of us. We don’t measure up to
the Beatitudes. That’s another reason we don’t hear them. We don’t
measure and we don’t want to hear that. What I am remembering is
Garry Wills, who is that author, one of his books, he dedicated to a
great prophet in our midst, Father Daniel Berrigan, and he said,
“Daniel Berrigan, Christian” to him. And Dan Berrigan phoned him and
said, “No. You missed one word. It’s “Daniel Berrigan, Would-be
Christian.” We’re all “would-be Christians.” We’re all “would-be”
Beatitude people. But when we look at ourselves as a community, we
say, “Well the community gives us hope. The community reminds us; the
community challenges us; and the community does things that we never
could do alone. So, on the one hand, I feel that I don’t measure up
and on the other hand, we belong to a community of would-be
Christians, would-be Beatitude people and try to measure up.

Fr. Aidan: What’s your favorite Beatitude?

Fr. Brian: You know, for me, it’s that the whole spectrum of the
Beatitudes are about hope. They are about hope, that our God’s intent
is to change our plight for the better and to make us instruments of
that change. And so, every one of them is hope for me. What about you?

Fr. Aidan: I think “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” I remember this
time last year I was down with the Maryknollers in Guatemala and San
Salvador, and to stand at the very spot where Archbishop Oscar Romero
was shot dead, through that door, with him standing there, to stand
there and realize that man, what he did for the people of El
Salvador. To stand there and feel the feelings.... Often, I need to
feel these things, these eight things, and I felt that in a very
powerful way, to stand at his gravesite, to be with the martyrs of
all the Central American martyrs, that was a very powerful moment.
But the one that sort of sticks out for me (You’ve heard me say this
before.) I’ve lost my parents, as we all do eventually, and my
brother. That has been a really hard thing in our family to deal
with. But I have actually found that this particular Beatitude has
meant something more to me because I have more compassion for people.
And even little moments, like a couple of weeks ago I did that homily
on what was your name and I told the story about my mom getting my
name from my grandmother, and I left here, literally, afterwards and
walked over to the rectory and in just those four steps, I had this
intense longing to call my mom. She’s at home in heaven. And I just
really had this.... I could even feel myself dialing the number,
01144... you know. And when I got to the top of the steps, I realized
I couldn’t do that. And I just felt really sad and I realized I was
mourning that moment. But I could take that feeling and I could take
that with compassion and I can go into a room with fifty people in
our grief ministry and be able to be with them and be comfortable
with them and help them grieve. And to grieve is what our bodies need
to do. And so we help people and we lift them up, anything in our
parish that helps hurting people. I think that’s a good thing. So,
it’s the community that lifts me up. It’s the people, all of us in
our ministry together.

Fr. Brian: And I go back to the community carries us in hope and
hope is so important. You know, they found a poem scrawled on the
wall of the Nazi war concentration camp. And it’s remarkable. It’s
about hope.

I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in love, even when I am alone.
I believe in God, even when God is silent.

We are called to have that kind of hope because we believe God’s
intent is to change things and to change our plight and make us part
of the change. So, when I hear the Beatitudes, the poor in spirit and
meek and all those things, I think we are called to stand among the
poor and be their advocates, not to become poor, but to stand among
the poor and be their advocates. To have a sense of poverty which
means we realize that everything is a grace. Everything is a gift,
and have a sense of thanksgiving for that. And to be a people who
make a difference. Being meek doesn’t mean being passive. The
Beatitudes talk about doing things, being a peace doer, a peace
maker. That’s what we’re called to. So you know when I see our St.
Vincent dePaul Society every day of the week, meeting the poor at our
front door, to me, that’s a poem, our poem on the concentration camp
wall. When I see your response to our Thanksgiving food drive or your
response to the Social Justice collection last weekend, that’s our
poem on the wall. That means we heard that the Beatitudes are
shocking and we have to be a people of hope who also do something
about it. I think if we could restate the Beatitudes, maybe they
might just catch our attention this time and might shock us just a
little.

Blessed are the outcast, the ill, the indigent, those who cannot
defend themselves. They will live in the reign of God.

Blessed are those who grieve and protest every injustice. God will
satisfy them.

Blessed are those who have been ripped off by the powerful and expect
God’s justice. They will find abundance in the land of promise.

Blessed are they who live justly. They will find justice overflowing.

Blessed are those who are generous to the needy and forgive those who
have offended them. They will receive as they have given.

Blessed are those who love fully, without reserve. Their desire will
be fulfilled.

Blessed are those who seek the fulness of life (Shalom) for all
people, for they will be God’s people.

Blessed are those who encounter any hardship in their advocacy for
the poor. The reign of God is theirs.

Shocking, absolutely shocking! .... Amen!