Unlike the Ten Commandments, which stress the things that one who loves God should not do, today’s gospel offers us a list of things that a person who loves God does do. It is important to remember here that Jesus is not saying “do these things and God will love you,” but rather “if you love God, these are the things you will do!” We do not do these things to earn God’s love, rather if we love God, we will do these things. So, what then does a serious lover of God look like?
(1)He or she is first of all “poor
in spirit.” What Jesus is talking about here is not merely economic
poverty. Even the dirt poor can be greedy in their hearts. What it means,
really, is the deep-down knowledge that when it comes right down to it, we own
nothing and everything can be taken away from us in an instant. Every material
possession, every blessing we have ever had, is a gift from God that was given
to us, not to hoard, but to share. The more we have been given, the greater the
responsibility we have to share.” “Poverty of spirit” is a basic knowledge that
we are all poor, when it comes right down to it. As they say,
“There are no pockets in shrouds!”
(2) A serious lover of God is able
to mourn. One who loves God seriously knows that we are interconnected human
beings and therefore never loses his or her ability to feel the suffering of
others. A cold-hearted, self-centered, disinterested person is not a friend of
God. A friend of God shares the compassion of Christ who was moved deeply by
the horrible suffering of simple human beings and is never far from “the gift
of tears,” as the saints called it.
(3) A serious lover of God is meek.
A “meek” person is not a person who lets people walk over him or her. A “meek”
person lives with the knowledge that he is never “a god,” but nonetheless
always a “child of God.” In other words, he neither inflates his own worth on
one hand, nor does he allow others to deflate his value on the other
hand. Being meek means to know who we are in God’s eyes- nothing
more, but nothing less!
(4) A serious lover of God hungers
and thirsts for righteousness. A serious lover of God does not dabble in
religion, placing religion somewhere outside the realm of his daily living and
daily choices. Rather, he or she is a serious spiritual seeker,
always trying to align his everyday life with Christian
principles. He or she strives always to close the gap between being
a Christian in name and being a Christian in fact, while being totally free of
religious fanaticism and doing spiritual violence to others in the name of
orthodoxy.
(5) A serious lover of God is
merciful. Being merciful means letting God be the judge of other people. It
means giving people the benefit of the doubt, giving them a break, wishing them
well on their path, knowing that with God, it isn’t over till it’s over, and
with God there is always another chance. Yes, it also means living the maxim,
“There but for the grace of God, go I!” Thomas Merton said, "The whole
idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all
livings things, which are part of one another, and all involved in one
another."
(6) A serious lover of God is clean
of heart. A serious lover of God doesn’t just do good things, he or she does
them for the right reason and with the purest of motives. I tried to
remind the seminarians at Saint Meinrad that it is a good thing to want to be a
priest, but one must go into it for good reasons – to serve people, not for
what priesthood can do for them. It is a good thing to give to the poor, but
one can give to the poor, not because they love the poor, but
because they will get their name in the paper or will have a building named
after them. A serious lover of God always does good things, but he also does
them for the right reason.
(7) A serious lover of God is a
peacemaker. War is getting more and more irrelevant. We need to become as good
at peacemaking as we have been at building sophisticated weapons. There will
always be misunderstanding between people. One who truly loves God has the
ability and the credibility to prevent disagreements from becoming a reason for
violence. We need not think globally only. Families, marriages, neighborhoods,
siblings and churches desperately need these peacemakers. When enough of us
really love God, we will have enough peacemakers to move us closer to universal
peace. If you love God, you love his people! If you love his people,
you will do what you can to bring them together.
(8) A serious lover of God will be
persecuted, insulted and lied about. The brighter the light the fiercer the
attack! Evil does not like goodness. Evil cannot tolerate the presence of
goodness and so it attacks. One who seriously loves God is more than willing to
take persecution, insults and lies, knowing that personal integrity is more
important than comfort or approval.
So, the bottom line is this – you
will know that you are on the path to sainthood if these "beatitudes"
describe you! If these eight characteristics don't describe you, make a u-turn
while you can, because you're headed in the wrong direction!
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