{"id":5107,"date":"2013-11-06T09:08:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T08:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=5107"},"modified":"2013-11-06T09:08:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T08:08:45","slug":"blessed-are-the-poor-in-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2013\/11\/blessed-are-the-poor-in-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessed are the poor in spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beato-angelico-sermone-della-montagna\"<\/a>Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5, 1-12.<\/strong>
\nSeeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain, and when he was set down, his disciples came unto him.
\nAnd opening his mouth he taught them, saying:
\nBlessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
\nBlessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.
\nBlessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
\nBlessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
\nBlessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
\nBlessed are the clean of heart: they shall see God.
\nBlessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
\nBlessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
\nBlessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake:
\nBe glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0The Beatitudes: A Wellspring of Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Gospel of the Beatitudes leaves a luminous imprint upon these dark days of the first fortnight of November.\u00a0 We read the Beatitudes from Saint Matthew\u2019s Gospel on the feast of All Saints; then on November 6th<\/sup> we hear the Beatitudes from Saint Luke\u2019s Gospel. The Beatitudes are the very form of the monastic life.\u00a0 The Rule of Saint Benedict is an ascetical and mystical flowering of the Beatitudes under the influence of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of All the Just.\u00a0 Chapter Seven of the Holy Rule \u2014 the Twelve Steps of Humility \u2014 is, in effect, a description of one whose life is inwardly illumined by the Beatitudes.\u00a0 Mother Mectilde\u2019s doctrine of the imitation of the Sacred Host (in Le v\u00e9ritable esprit<\/i>) also corresponds, in its own way, to the grace of the Beatitudes. Every authentic development of the ascetical and mystical life springs from the Beatitudes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Apprenticeship in Adoration<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, I should like to show you how the Beatitudes shape our particular charism of Eucharistic adoration. Silent prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament, before the Eucharistic Face of Jesus, does not come easily to everyone. More often than not it demands a long apprenticeship, a patient endurance in the obscurity of faith, in the silence of hope, in the vulnerability of love\u2019s self\u2013offering. The Beatitudes, the very words of the Word, are a way of entering into relationship with the hidden Jesus of the Most Holy Sacrament.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Icon of the Nakedness of God<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.\u201d When you go to adoration, you need bring nothing other than yourself.\u00a0 Go before Our Lord with empty hands.\u00a0 Go before Him in a great poverty: without thoughts, without words, without the security of a program and without expectations.\u00a0 Look at the poverty of God in the Most Holy Sacrament.\u00a0 The Host reveals the mystery of the poverty of God. The Host is the icon of the nakedness of God. Rarely do our depictions of the crucifixion depict the nakedness of Jesus \u2014 His absolute poverty \u2014 upon the wood of the Cross; the Sacred Host, however, is the sacramental presence of the nakedness of Christ who, \u201cbeing rich made Himself poor, for our sakes; that through his poverty we might be made rich\u201d (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9). In the presence of such utter poverty who can keep up the pretense of claiming ownership over anything or of controlling anyone?\u00a0 When we are tempted to run away from the silence of adoration, it us because we cannot bear the nakedness of the Host; it because we cannot bear to ourselves stripped of all the things to which we look for security and meaning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the Light of Thy Countenance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although we are accustomed to speak of \u201cexposition\u201d of the Most Blessed Sacrament, it is, in fact, we who are exposed to the penetrating gaze of Christ when we place ourselves in adoration before the Sacred Host. \u201cThou hast set our iniquities before thy eyes: our life in the light of thy countenance\u201d (Psalm 89:8). The man who adores will become poor in spirit, and the man who is poor in spirit will adore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5, 1-12. Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain, and when he was set down, his disciples came unto him. And opening his mouth he taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beatitudes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-1kn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5109,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions\/5109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}