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The Kingdom of Heaven is not in the carnal pleasures of this world. In the proper ordering of my passions, may I find fulfillment in charity and divine beatitude (CCC 1769). We are made in the image and likeness of an infinite God. From our finite perspectives, can we fathom the depths of a soul? What are the limits of spirit? In our finite nature, can we grasp the expanse of infinity itself? No. However, we can feel universal longings within us for peace without end. Until our souls find their peace in God, we are restless. This restlessness is...

TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MATTHEW 5:1–12 Friends, our Gospel for today is one of the most beautiful and important in the New Testament: the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the eight Beatitudes. Why is it so important? Because it is the Son of God telling us how to be happy. It is the one who can’t be wrong telling us how to achieve that which each of us most basically wants. What could be more compelling? At the heart of Jesus’ program are these Beatitudes: "Blessed are the merciful" and "Blessed are the peacemakers." These name the...

Perhaps the most prominent ladder in our culture is the one associated with careers. It is an image of the American road to success. We begin at or near the bottom and, step by step, make our way towards the top. It is a metaphor that works well with our modern notions of hard work, persistence and reward. It also serves as a justification for many of the structures in our society and colors our common view of those who linger around the bottom. It is through this cultural image that the Ladder of St. John of Sinai (Climacus) comes...

by Chuuck Ness The reason for Jesus coming into the World, was so that one day He would become the last sacrifice for our sins, and ultimately the forever sacrifice so that we can have eternal life. He came so the blind could see, the deaf could hear, the lame could walk, the lepers could be cleansed, the dead could gain life, and that the poor could hear the Good News from the very source Himself. While presenting the Gospel to the World, Jesus would spend three years discipling men who would become Priests. These men would be commissioned...

Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 5:1-12 Friends, in todayÂ’s Gospel Jesus goes up a mountain and sits down to teach. In the Old Testament, we find Moses, the great teacher, also going up a mountain to receive the Law, and then sitting down to teach it. However, Jesus is not receiving a law; he is giving one. Theologian N.T. Wright has pointed out that the Old Testament is essentially an unfinished symphony. It is the articulation of a hope but without a realization of that hope. Thus, as the fulfillment of IsraelÂ’s entire story, Jesus begins...

How does a committed and passionate follower of Islam reconsider his faith and become an outspoken apologist for Christianity? This is a story of being introduced to Jesus through friendships, investigations, dreams, and visions. What follows is a conversation between the late Nabeel Qureshi (@NAQureshi), author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Third Edition) (Zondervan, 2018)—the first book to win ECPA Christian Book Awards® in both New Author and Non-Fiction categories—and his friend David Wood, who led Nabeel to consider the veracity of the claims of Jesus Christ. The discussion took place in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual...

Blessing or Woe: You Decide. A Homily for the 6th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • February 16, 2019 • Fra Angelico, Convent of San Marco (1445)The Gospel passage this Sunday is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Being paradoxical, they are difficult to understand. We do not usually refer to the poor as blessed, but rather the well off; we do not typically call those who mourn blessed, but rather the joyful.The word “beatitude” itself means “supreme blessedness.” In ancient Greek, makarios (blessed) referred to a deep, serene, and stable happiness largely unaffected by external matters. It...

Some Basics on the Beatitudes Msgr. Charles Pope • June 13, 2017 • J.J. Tissot, Sermon of the BeatitudesWe began reading the Sermon on the Mount during daily Mass this week. One of the flawed ways of reading it is to see the Lord’s teaching merely as a list of moral demands that we must fulfill out of our own flesh or human ability. To do so is to miss the point.The better way to understand the Sermon on the Mount is to see that our Lord is painting a picture of the transformed human person. In effect, He...

June 12, 2017 Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Cor1:1-7Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,and Timothy our brother,to the Church of God that is at Corinth,with all the holy ones throughout Achaia:grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,the Father of compassion and the God of all encouragement,who encourages us in our every affliction,so that we may be able to encouragethose who are in any afflictionwith the encouragement with which we ourselves...

Picture This! A Homily for the 4th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • January 28, 2017 • The Gospel passage on the Beatitudes is one of the most familiar. Yet the Beatitudes are difficult to understand because many of them are paradoxical. We do not usually refer to the poor as blessed, but rather the well-off; we do not typically call those who mourn blessed, but rather the joyful.The word “beatitude” itself means “supreme blessedness.”First, it is critical to understand that beatitude is not something we achieve; rather it is something we receive. The Beatitudes declare an...

“Your Blest Life Now” (Matthew 5:1-12) You’ve probably heard of a TV preacher by the name of Joel Osteen. He’s got a huge megachurch down in Houston, and he’s got a massive audience on television. He’s also written a number of best-selling books, the most famous of which is called “Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential.” What Mr. Osteen does that has made him so successful is to dish out some warmed-over self-help pabulum, and people are lapping it up. He says things like this: “Your best days are not behind you, they’re still...

Becoming the Beatitudes – A Lenten Meditation on the Gift of the Life Jesus Died to Give Us By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn the Beatitudes, and indeed in the whole Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-8), the Lord is painting a picture of the transformed human person. The Sermon on the Mount is the Lord’s great moral treatise. But it is not to be understood so much as a list of things to do (out of our own fleshly power) but as gifts to receive from God’s grace. This is what happens to the human person in whom the Lord...

MY CATHOLIC FAITH And opening his mouth he taught them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake,...

Happiness: Blessed are Those who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness PETER KREEFTChrist's fourth beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," cuts to the rotten flesh at the heart of the modern world. It shows a striking difference between our culture and all others, especially our own culture's past. As Solzhenitsyn said in his great and shocking 1978 Harvard commencement address, nothing more conspicuously distinguishes us than our lack of courage, our lack of passion. You see this strikingly when you live in another culture, or even when you read the writings of another culture, like the Middle Ages...

Part Two: Happiness: The first three Beatitudes PETER KREEFTChrist proposes a vision of happiness which is the exact opposite of what everyone in the post-Christian West assumes to be the sources of the greatest happiness in life. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit We say how blessed we are as individuals or as a nation when we have wealth. He says no, you are blessed when you are poor. Poor not only in your bank account, but even more than that, not less, poor down to the depths of your heart, poor in spirit, detached from riches, whether you are physically...

Happiness: Ancient and Modern Concepts of Happiness PETER KREEFTMy topic today is Jesus' concept of happiness. And we must begin with the dullest and most necessary preliminary: defining our term. Ancient and Modern Concepts of HappinessMy topic today is Jesus' concept of happiness. And we must begin with the dullest and most necessary preliminary: defining our term. Nearly everyone, from Aristotle to Freud, agrees that we all seek happiness, and that we seek it as an end, not as a means. No one seeks happiness for any other reason. We argue about other things, but not about happiness. We may say,...

Featured Term (selected at random):BEATITUDES The promises of happiness made by Christ to those who faithfully accept his teaching and follow his divine example. Preached in the Sermon on the Mount, they are recorded in St. Matthew (5:3-11) and in St. Luke (6:20-22).?26? In Matthew there are eight (or nine) blessings of a spiritual nature, applicable to all Christians; in Luke there are four blessings of a more external character, addressed to the disciples. Luke's version also includes four maledictions threatened on those who do the opposite. In both versions, the beatitudes are expressions of the New Covenant, where happiness...

Featured Term (selected at random):MEEKNESS The virtue that moderates anger and its disorderly effects. It is a form of temperance that controls every inordinate movement of resentment at another person's character or behavior. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness May 5th, 2010 by Mark Shea  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. – Matthew 5:6 The goods of this world, though they remain good, can be deceptive when you are a member of a fallen race. In certain moods of rude good health and the flush of adolescent insolence, it is all too easy to speak as though we can live on bread alone and that (as postmodern professors never tire of saying), “Everything is about power.” But when the buffets and battering pains...

Blessed are the Meek April 28th, 2010 by Mark SheaToday’s Beatitude (Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5) continues Jesus’ tradition of transmuting lead into gold. Just as nobody wants to be poor and nobody wants to mourn, so nobody wants to be “meek”. That’s because we think of the meek as doormats and dartboards. We assume the meek are timid little people who scatter like mice when somebody of consequence clears his throat. But our Lord does not say “Blessed are the weenies.” St. Joan of Arc was neither a weenie nor a...