Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
THE SOLEMNITY OF
ALL SAINTS (ABC)
(When this feast
falls on a Saturday, these Biblical passages are read for the Sunday Vigil
Mass)
"This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity—this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels, and all the blessed—is called 'Heaven.' Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness." Catechism of the Catholic Church 1024
Readings:
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Psalm 24:1-5
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
Abbreviations: NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name YHWH (Yahweh).
The two Testaments reveal God's divine plan for humanity. Therefore, we read and relive the events of salvation history contained in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Readings: Our Communion with the Saints
The Solemnity of All Saints is among those feasts designated
a Holy Day of Obligation in which faithful Catholics must attend Mass
(CCC
2042, 2177, 2180). All Saints is a celebration to honor those who are members of
our heavenly family and intercede with God on our behalf. Saints (etym. Latin sanctus
= holy, sacred) is a term given in the New Testament to Christians in general
but also restricted to those who, as "holy people," are alive now or in the
past and whose lives were transformed by Jesus Christ (Col 1:2).
In the strict sense, the saints distinguish themselves by heroic virtue during their lifetimes and whom the Church honors by the title "saints" either by her ordinary universal teaching authority or by a solemn definition called canonization. The Church's official recognition implies that those persons are now in heavenly glory. Their names may be publicly invoked, and their virtues during life or martyrdom are a witness and examples to the Christian faithful. The Church includes the Old Testament faithful in the definition of those who are "saints." They are those who waited for the coming of the Messiah and received His message of salvation from Sheol/Hades, the abode of the dead (1 Peter 3:19-20; 4:6; Matthew 27:52-53). Those honored on the Feast of All Saints are the faithful of every generation who stood before God's throne of judgment and were found worthy to enter the Beatific Vision in the heavenly Kingdom.
The saints in Heaven are souls who come from every nation, every language, every ethnic group, and every generation of the Ages of humanity. There is only one thing they all have in common: they embraced Christ as Savior and Lord. They put their belief into action by distinguishing themselves through acts of holiness. They demonstrated their devotion to God by extending His love to the men, women, and children with whom they shared their life's journey and with each saint exercising faithful obedience to the will of God for their lives.
The Church's recognition of these "holy ones" who live in the presence of God through canonization is a solemn definition of sainthood in which she officially recognizes a particular person's sanctity and implies that the soul of that person is now in heavenly glory. With the Church's official recognition, she encourages the New Covenant faithful to emulate the lives of the saints (CCC# 2030), and in prayer, petitions may be made to a saint to pray on behalf of the petitioner who is a member of the earth-bound Church (CCC# 956; 2683). All holy souls in Heaven are members of the Church Glorious who live in the presence of God. We on earth are part of the Church militant, holy warriors in training for heavenly sainthood who continue Jesus's earthly mission in acts of mercy and spreading the Gospel of salvation.
We must remember that the celebration of the Solemnity of All Saints is, above all, a family celebration. We think of our departed brothers and sisters who wait at the heavenly banquet table of our Father. They will not start the feast without us. They are waiting for us, their younger brothers and sisters in Christ, to join them at the banquet table of the Communion of Saints. We look forward to this future communion when we participate in the Eucharistic celebration of the Catholic Mass and come to the altar table, symbolizing the table of the Last Supper, the sacrificial altar, and Christ's empty tomb.
In our First Reading from the Book of Revelation, St. John witnessed the never-ending banquet of God's united family. Our earthly communion table is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that awaits us if we persevere in faithful obedience (see CCC# 946-62; 1331). When Christ's representative, the presiding priest, speaks the words of consecration, Heaven and earth unite, and the "cloud of witnesses" of saints and angels in Heaven (Heb 12:1) participates with us in liturgical worship and in anticipation of our joining them in glory.
In the Responsorial Psalm, the redeemed are promised they will see God's face. The faithful sang this psalm every first day of the week (our Sunday) during the Jerusalem Temple's twice-daily liturgical worship services. The Fathers of the Church saw this psalm as applied to the Christian's soul as God's Temple of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. God is ready to enter the Temple of the Christian's soul in the Sacrament of Baptism. Christians pray that they will be prepared to open the gates of their souls in faith so Christ, the King of Glory, will enter in, carrying with Him the triumph of His Passion.
In the Second Reading, St. John points his readers to Jesus, the Son of God, who changed everything by physically coming into the world. He looks forward to when he and other Christians will see God more clearly and be with Him more intimately than when Jesus's disciples saw God in Jesus.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus gives us the spiritual law of the New Covenant in the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are the introduction to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and the foundation of God's New Covenant Law, marking the roadmap or stairway that lights the path to sainthood in Heaven. Like any roadmap, there is a beginning point of the journey and a destination at the end. And like a stairway, we must conquer each step in faith and obedience before stepping out in faith and obedience to the next.
The First Reading Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14 ~ The Saints in Heaven
2 I, John, saw another angel come up from the East,
holding the seal of the living God. 3 He cried out in a loud voice to the four
angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, "Do not damage the
land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the
servants of our God." 4 I heard the number of those who had been marked with
the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the
Israelites. [...] 9 After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one
could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the
throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in
their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God,
who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb." 11 All the angels stood around
the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. 12 They
prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed: "Amen.
Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our
God forever and ever. Amen." 13 Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me,
"Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?" I said to
him, "My lord, you are the one who knows." He said to me, "These are the ones
who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
The word "messenger" in Greek is angelos (in Hebrew, malak, and in English, "angel"). According to Jewish tradition, there are two groups of God's heavenly messengers/angels. Verses 1-3 represent both groups. Verse 1, which is not in our reading, states that John saw, After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on land or sea or against any tree.
When the angel Gabriel revealed himself to the priest Zechariah, he told the elderly priest, "I am Gabriel, who stand before God" (NAB); the New Jerusalem version has "I am Gabriel who, stand in God's presence" (Lk 1:19; the word "stand" is in the singular), identifying himself as the second class of angelic being.
In verses 1-2, St. John had a vision of four messengers/angels charged with bringing judgment but restrained by another angel coming from the East, the direction from which God's actions in human history traditionally come (Is 41:1-4, 25; 46:11; Ezek 43:1-3). It is also the direction in which the desert Tabernacle and later the Jerusalem Temple faced (Ex 27:13; Num 3:38). This powerful "messenger" comes from the East where the sun rises, and the "day" begins, perhaps signaling a "new day" or a "new age." He either comes, as some scholars suggest, as the representative of Christ or, as others suggest, as Christ Himself. The angel/messenger carries the seal of the living God (verse 3); in other words, He possesses the Holy Spirit without limit. It is the same "seal of the Spirit" we receive in Christian Baptism. In John 6:27, Jesus declared that He bore the mark of His Father's seal; also see Christians marked with a seal in 2 Corinthians 1:22 and the Church's Catechism teaching in CCC 698, 1121, and 1295-96.
Historically and Biblically, a seal was:
We can summarize by saying that the messenger John saw:
It is understandable why most commentators see this "angel/messenger" as Jesus Christ. The seal of the Holy Spirit covers the righteous before the seals of wrath are applied to the wicked: Pentecost precedes Holocaust! See Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30.
This passage in Revelation verses 1-3 has the same imagery and message as Ezekiel Chapters 7-9. In that passage, God gave Ezekiel a vision of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587/6 BC, but not before the righteous were marked with a taw (Ezek 9:4). The Hebrew letter taw (also spelled tav) is the last in the Hebrew alphabet, and in ancient Hebrew was in the form of a cruciform. The early Church Father Tertullian (writing between AD 197-220, believed God gave Ezekiel "the very form of the cross, which He predicted would be the sign on our foreheads in the true Catholic Jerusalem" (Tertullian, Against Marcion, iii.22, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III, pages 340ff).
As mentioned earlier, in the ancient world, marking anything with a person's "seal" indicated either ownership, power, authority or a guarantee of protection. In this instance, all three cases apply. As in Ezekiel's vision in 9:4, which parallels John's, the godly are marked as God's possessions for protection by His authority and for the same purpose as in the Book of Ezekiel, for God's judgment of destruction to be delivered against the apostates in Jerusalem.
The Seal of God on the foreheads (verse 3) also has special significance. The mark on the forehead is either a symbol of restored fellowship with God or His protection. One example of this was the High Priest in the Sinai Covenant, who wore a band on his forehead with gold letters proclaiming that he was "holy," meaning "sanctified" or "consecrated" to Yahweh (Ex 28:36). Then, too, in Deuteronomy 6:6-8, God sealed all His people on the forehead and the hand with the Law of God when He commanded them to wear the first profession of faith, called the Shema, in little boxes attached to their foreheads and warped with leather straps on their right hands. These are called teffelim in Hebrew (or phylacteries in Greek) and are still worn by Orthodox Jews. The literal act of wearing the word of God on their foreheads and arms (commanded in Dt 6:8 and 11:18) symbolized a life characterized by faithful obedience in thought and action to every word of God. A third example would be the mark God placed on Cain's forehead in Genesis 4:15, So the LORD [Yahweh] put a mark on Cain, so no one should kill him at sight.
Those of us raised to new life in Jesus Christ through our holy Baptism receive the Holy Spirit's seal, which forever marks us as faithful New Covenant believers and as the covenant-keeping bond-servants of our God to be sanctified and preserved from God's wrath in the destruction of the ungodly enemies of God's divine plan for humanity. In the Revelation passage, the sealing of the godly was not to save them from tribulation. Just as in Ezekiel's time, those who were sealed still experienced Babylonian exile. God's messenger sealed the godly to preserve the New Israel (CCC 877) as a holy seed and save them from the Old Israel to become the "first fruits" (see Rev 14:4) invited into the New Covenant promised by the prophet Jeremiah and inaugurated by Jesus at the Last Supper (Jer 31:31; Lk 22:20). Even though the old Israel would perish, the New and holy Israel, the Catholic= universal Church, was chosen and sealed with the Spirit of the living God.
4 I heard the number of those who had been marked with
the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the
Israelites.
Verse 4 tells us that the 144,000 to be sealed are 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes
of Israel. 144,000 is a symbolic number derived from 12 x 12 x 1000. In the
symbolic meaning of numbers in Scripture, 12 is the number of governmental
perfection, while the number 10 and its multiples are a symbolic representation
of the perfection of divine order. The symbolic number 144,000 uses the perfect
number 12 = divine perfection in (governmental) order. 12 is also the number of
Israel, descended from the 12 physical sons of Jacob/Israel. The number of
Israel is squared and then multiplied by 1,000 (the number 10 and its multiples
reflect divine perfection in cardinal order). Multiples of 10 always symbolize
abundance in the perfection of divine order (see
Dt 1:11; 7:9;
Ps 50:10; 68:17; 84:10; 90:4). This symbolic number represents perfected Israel as it was meant
to be in all its sanctity and completeness as the holy army of God when each of
the 12 tribes can field 12 entire divisions in a numerically perfect divine
army of holy soldiers for Yahweh! The unit of a thousand was the primary
military division of the camp of Israel (see
Num 10:2-4, 35-36; 31:1-5, 48-54;
2 Sam 18:1;
1 Chr 12:20; 13:1; 15:25; 26:26; 27:1; 28:1; 29:6;
2 Chr 1:2; 17:14-19;
Ps 68:17. Click for more information on the symbolic use of numbers in Scripture.
Scripture tells us that 144,000 are collected from the 12 tribes of Israel, and God has specifically marked them as His. There are various interpretations:
They are likely the ones that Paul calls the "first fruits" of the restoration in Romans 11:25-32: the Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah and submitted to Christian Baptism as necessary for salvation (Mk 16:16). In John's following vision, the 144,000 are part of the great multitude "from every nation, race, people, and tongue." They are Jewish, and Gentile Christians united in God's one New Covenant family.
9 After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every
nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the
Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. 10 They
cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the
throne, and from the Lamb."
St. John uses the literary device of "hearing" then "seeing"
(also in Rev 1:10-13; 5:5-6; 6:1-8; in
Is 6:9-10, and repeatedly in St. Mark's
Gospel). In verse 4, John wrote: I heard the number of those who had been
marked with the seal, then, After this (after hearing the number of
the redeemed), I had a vision of a great multitude in verse 9. St. John
heard the "things that are," and then he saw the "things to come."
In another sense, John has heard the people of God, and all of them are sealed and numbered; none of the elect was missing or unaccounted for, and the Church was perfectly symmetrical and whole. But now, from another standpoint, the Church is innumerable, a great multitude which no one could count (verse 9). From one perspective, the Church is the New, True Israel of God: the lost sons of Jacob (Israel) gathered into Christ. However, from another equally true perspective, the Church is the whole world: a vast uncountable multitude redeemed from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
Initially, John's vision can only refer to a part of the whole: to those Jews who, by accepting Christ as Messiah, made up the original nucleus of the Universal Church. But then, in verses 9-12, he saw the whole Church without any differences or distinctions. The prophecy to Abraham in Genesis 15:5 is fulfilled in those who inherit the blessing of Abraham and become as numberless as the stars of the Heavens, and in Genesis 22:17-18, that the whole world will be blessed when the Church becomes the entire world! The salvation of Israel alone was never God's intention. He sent His Son to save the world (Jn 3:16-17)! In Isaiah 49:6, God the Father said to His Servant in planning the Covenant of Redemption: It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
That the 144,000 receive God's seal in John's vision does not suggest that the multitude wasn't sealed previously. That is why most scholars believe that the second vision looks forward in time. In the earlier passage, it seems imperative that the faithful remnant is sealed because they are in imminent danger from the wrath that is shortly to come, just as the faithful remnant in the Ezekiel passage were in danger and must be sealed. It helps to remember that St. John's vision took place in the heavenly Sanctuary, and in Heaven, there is no passage of time; time is only for earthly living (Rev 4:1-3).
In verses 9-10, the multitude of saints stand in worship before the throne of God
and the Lamb. They wear white robes symbolizing righteousness, and they carry
palm branches. Palm branches symbolize the restoration of God's people to
Paradise. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles (the seventh of the seven annual
Holy Days under the Old Sinai Covenant) that fell in the seventh month, that
the people waved palm branches, built shelters out of palm branches, and
celebrated the building of the Tabernacle and the establishment of their divine
liturgy. It is probably not a coincidence that the word "tabernacle" occurs in
this passage in verse 15. It is also worth mentioning that four of the Holy
Feasts of the Old Covenant are fulfilled in the First Advent of Christ. See the
chart on the Seven Sacred Annual Feasts of the Old Covenant
The palm branches also remind us of Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday) when the
people waved palm branches as Jesus rode into Jerusalem as they shouted
"Hosanna!" (Jn 12:13; Ps 118:25), fulfilling the prophecies of the prophets,
especially Psalm 118:24-25 and Zechariah 9:9. In Revelation 7:9-10, the
multitude join in the heavenly liturgy with shouts of "Hosanna!," which
means in Hebrew and Aramaic "Salvation" or "Save Us!" In greeting Jesus, the
crowd was repeating the cry for the Davidic Messiah from Psalm 118:25, and the
saints in St. John's vision took up the same acclamation.
11 All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four
living creatures. 12 They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped
God, and exclaimed: "Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor,
power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
The New Jerusalem Version has a more literal translation of verse 12b from the
Greek text: Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and
power and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen.
The proper position before Christ is on our knees. Platitudes like: "it doesn't
matter if I kneel at the consecration" or "after all, it is what is in my heart
that counts" are statements without meaning. Our actions display the
intentions of our hearts! In verse 12, the saints and angels are kneeling. And
they pronounce seven themes to God's perfection (seven is one of the "perfect"
numbers in the symbolic meaning of numbers in Scripture): 1) praise, 2) glory,
3) wisdom, 4) thanksgiving, 5) honor, 6) power, and 7) strength.
13 Then, one of the elders spoke up and said to me, "Who
are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?" I said to him,
"My lord, you are the one who knows." He said to me, "These are the ones who
have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb."
One of the elders in the heavenly Sanctuary asked a question to encourage John to
look for an answer. When John confessed that he didn't know the answer, the
elder explained that these were the ones who had endured the Great Tribulation,
which is the "time of great distress." Jesus warned His disciples about the
great trial or tribulation when He spoke to them on the Mt. of Olives in
Matthew 24:20-21. He said: "Pray that you will not have to make your escape
in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unparalleled
since the world began, and such as will never be again" (also see Mk 13:19). This is the Great Tribulation that Jesus stated would take place
during their generation in Matthew 24:34 when He said: "In truth [amen] I
tell you, before this generation has passed away, all these things will have
taken place" (also see Mk 13:30 & Lk 21:32), but it also looks to the
tribulation of all Christian martyrs down through the Ages.
"they have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb."
What is the difference between how the world sees Christians who are poor and persecuted
and how God sees those persecuted for His sake? God sees them as conquerors that
have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." In
their suffering, they have become united with Christ through His blood and stand
before God's throne clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The washing
in "blood" to be made "white" is an ironic contrast. It is the promise of the Beatitudes
in Matthew 5:10: Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of
uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
The scene of the vast multitude of saints has comforted believers throughout the centuries. St. Pope John Paul II commented on this passage in Revelation 7:2-14, "The people dressed in white robes whom John sees with his prophetic eye are the redeemed, and they form a 'great multitude,' which no one could count, and which is made up of people of the most varied backgrounds. The blood of the Lamb, offered in sacrifice for all, has exercised its universal and most effective redemptive power in every corner of the earth, extending grace and salvation to that 'great multitude.' After undergoing the trials and being purified in the blood of Christ, the redeemed are now safe in the Kingdom of God, whom they praise and bless forever and ever" (Homily, 1 November 1981).
Responsorial Psalm 24:1-5 ~ The Redeemed will see God's Face
The response is: "Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face."
1 The LORD'S are the earth and its fullness; the world and
those who dwell in it. 2 For he founded it upon the seas and established it
upon the rivers.
Response:
3 Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD or who may
stand in his holy place? 4 He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain, nor swears deceitfully to his neighbor.
Response:
5 He shall receive a blessing from the LORD, a reward
from God his savior. 6 Such is the race that seeks for him, that seeks the
face of the God of Jacob.
Response:
The faithful sang this psalm every first day of the week (our Sunday) during the Jerusalem Temple's twice-daily liturgical worship services. It tells of an encounter between the Lord, the King of Glory, and the righteous believer who has come to worship God in His holy place. The poem, attributed to David of Bethlehem, the ancestor of Jesus of Nazareth (Mt 1:1; Lk 1:32), begins by proclaiming who the Lord is: He is the Creator of the earth (verses 1-2). The psalm then enumerates the conditions under which people can approach the Lord in His Temple. Only the sinless whose hearts are clean (in a state of grace) can approach Him. They are obedient to God and are not deceitful in their dealings with their neighbors; these can enter God's presence and receive His blessing (verses 3-5).
The Fathers of the Church saw this psalm as applied to the Christian's soul as God's Temple of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus (St. Ambrose, Expositio psalmi, 118.14; also see 1 Cor 3:10-17). God is ready to enter the Temple of the Christian's soul in the Sacrament of Baptism. Christians pray that they will be prepared to open the gates of their souls in faith so Christ, the King of Glory, will enter in, carrying with Him the triumph of His Passion.
The Second Reading 1 John 3:1-3 ~ We Shall See God
1 See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may
be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The world does not know us
because it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we
shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope
based on him makes himself pure as he is pure.
St. John began his letter to the universal Church by pointing his readers to Jesus, the Son of God, who changed everything by physically coming into the world (1 Jn 1:1-2). In this part of his letter, he looks forward to when he and other Christians will see God more clearly and be with Him more intimately than when they saw Him in Jesus.
St. John reminds us that the most significant sign of God's love is the gift of His Son (Jn 3:16). Through our rebirth in water and the Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism, Jesus made Christians the true children of God (1 Jn 3:1). This unique relationship is a present reality and also part of the promised life to come in our future. Because of our transformed life in Christ, we have the hope of one day seeing God face to face (1 Jn 3:2). In verse 3, St. John describes the belief in Christ's return as so strong that, even in our waiting, we become pure as Jesus is pure. God purifies us through our participation in the Sacraments that Christ gave us to keep us free from sin as we make our faith journey to union with the Most Holy Trinity in the heavenly Sanctuary, where we shall "see him as he is." It is the promise Jesus made to us in the Beatitudes when He taught: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.
The Gospel of Matthew 5:1-12 ~ The Spiritual Law of the
New Covenant
1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and
after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 He began to teach them, saying:
3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 Blessed
are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for
they will inherit the land. 6 Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be satisfied. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they
will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. 9
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed
are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom
of Heaven. 11 Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter
every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in Heaven."
The Beatitudes are the introduction to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and the foundation of God's New Covenant Law, marking the roadmap or stairway that lights the path to sainthood in Heaven. Like any roadmap, there is a beginning point of the journey and a destination at the end. And like a stairway, we must conquer each step in faith and obedience before stepping out in faith and obedience to the next. However, this plan is more than a stairway or a roadmap to an intimate relationship with God on our journey of faith. Empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and applied through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, the Beatitudes, as the Law of the New Covenant people of the Resurrected Christ, become the call to a radically transformed life. They are the very hinges upon which our moral and spiritual lives as Christian believers must turn daily. However, we cannot achieve this plan on a human level; only through the filling and indwelling of the Holy Spirit can this blessedness be empowered and celebrated in the life of the New Covenant Church. For what is impossible for man (human beings) is possible for God (see the chart on the Progression of the Beatitudes). Notice that a promise follows each blessing.
The first blessing: 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit,"
The word Jesus used for "poor," ptochos
in the original Greek, means "poor" but not as in "pauper," meaning one
who works for a living but cannot rise above the poverty level (penes in
the Greek). Instead, "beggar" is a better translation for ptochos: one
who utterly depends on someone else for support. In this blessing, Jesus's
teaching is that the first step on the pathway to Heaven is to admit that you
cannot make it on your own in this life or on your own to victory in the next. "Poverty
of spirit" stands in contrast to "pride of spirit." We are "poor in spirit"
because we are not self-sufficient; we admit our dependence on God and need Him
in our lives, rejecting our natural desire for a "self-sufficient spirit."
The first promise: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In yielding our lives to Christ
our Savior and obediently living the Sacraments of our faith throughout our
faith journey, we can have confidence that we will receive Heaven as our
promised inheritance. We understand that our inheritance of the Kingdom of
Heaven first depends upon our response to God's grace through faith. Faith is
followed by rebirth through "water and the spirit" of Christian Baptism when we
cease to be children of Adam's family and become children in the family of God.
However, that is only the first step on the path to the salvation promised to
us at the end of the journey.
The second blessing: 4 Blessed are they who mourn,
Mourning our sins is the second
step on the path to salvation. We see God more clearly as we yield to spiritual
childhood by admitting our poverty of spirit and kneeling in His presence. The
more clearly we see God, the more we become aware of our imperfections. We
become humbled in His holy presence, and like the prophet Isaiah and St. Peter,
we feel the burden of our sins (Is 6:1-5;
Lk 5:8). The result is, becoming
aware of our moral failures, we mourn our sins. Repenting and feeling genuine
sorrow for our sins is a natural outflow of surrender to God through "poverty
of spirit." There can be no forgiveness of sin without genuine repentance. In 1
John 1:9, the Apostle wrote: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We
yearn for a condition of purity and purification to come into His presence, and
our plea becomes that of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6:5, who cried out,
mourning his sins, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD
of hosts!"
The second promise: for they will be comforted.
The International Critical
Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew makes three points concerning this promise
(see pages 448-49):
Think of the tremendous implications of this divine promise. Our Father promises that the very hands that formed the cosmos and placed the stars in the heavens held the hand of Mary when He was a little child. And these hands were stretched across a wooden beam in agony when the Roman soldiers nailed them to the Cross. These same hands will wipe away our tears! The prophet Isaiah promised in Isaiah 25:8 ~ He will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; the reproach of his people, he will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken. The same promise is repeated in Revelation 7:17, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
And so, in our mourning for sin, we will be comforted; but there is more. The English word "comfort" derives from the Latin cumfortare (com-for-tar-ay). It is the root of the word "fortitude," which means "that strength or firmness of mind or soul which enables a person to encounter danger or to bear pain with coolness and courage" (The New Webster Dictionary). So, the promise is not just comfort in the sense of being held or sheltered. Instead, the promise is that when we mourn our sins and turn to Christ, He will give us the strength and the courage to overcome our weaknesses and inadequacies so we can take up our crosses and follow Him as He commanded. In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, and that of the gospel will save it." The cleansing of repentance gave Peter and the other Apostles and disciples the courage to leave behind every worldly possession to follow Jesus in His earthly mission. And after the Resurrection, they took up their "crosses" and spread the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ across the known world. Not only does the Holy Spirit comfort us in our sorrow and repentance, but through living the Sacraments of our faith, He gives us the strength to resist sin and the fortitude to stand against its power in our community and the world. We bear our suffering with a spirit of atonement, reconciliation, and love, and the result is comfort and strength.
The third blessing: 5 Blessed are the meek,
The third step is humility. The
Greek word praus [prah-ooce'] means mild, humble, or meek (see Thayer's
Greek-English Lexicon, pages 534-35). Praus only appears four times in the New
Testament: three times in the Gospel of St. Matthew in 5:5 [4], 11:29, 21:5, and
once in 1 Peter 3:4. In both Matthew 11:29 and 21:5, Jesus Himself is called
"meek" just like the prophet Moses before Him (see Num 12:3). In addition to
the passage in Matthew 5:5, "Blessed are the meek," this same Greek word for "meek"
appears in:
| Matthew 11:29 | Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. |
| Matthew 21:5 | Say to daughter Zion, "Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden." |
| 1 Peter 3:4 | but rather the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the imperishable beauty of a gentle [praus] and calm disposition, which is precious in the sight of God. |
Praus is another Greek term to which Christians gave a uniquely Christian character, with "meekness" becoming the symbol of a higher Christian virtue, as illustrated in these three verses. The pre-Christian Greek meaning of this word expressed an outward conduct related to only men, not necessarily in a positive light (see Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament volume I, page 37). To the pagan Greeks, it often implied condescension, but to the Christian, it means submission of the human will to the will of God.
Christians gave "meekness" a quality expressing an inward virtue related primarily to God. Christians base "meekness" on humility, described in the New Testament as the supernatural quality that is the outgrowth of a renewed nature. This renewal can only come when we surrender our lives to God and seek His divine will in our lives. However, our submission is not an indication of weakness. For the Christian, submission to God's control results in strength that is not our own but comes from God's will working through our lives. The Bible is full of stories of God intervening in the lives of men and women who called on Him for His help and stories of men and women willing to help others. However, there are very few examples of God intervening in the lives of those who preferred their plans and control of their destinies. The only exception is in cases where His intervention is divine judgment intended to bring about repentance and redemption or His divine plan for the salvation of others (as in St. Paul's conversion experience in Acts chapter 9).
The third promise: for they will inherit the land.
The first Beatitude places us
before the throne of God. The second purifies us, and the third puts us in the
hands of the Master as we submit in meekness and humility to His will and His
plan for our lives. There are two ways to interpret the promise associated with
God's blessing for the meek. Ancient and modern Bible scholars have seen in
this blessing an allusion to Christ's victory in breaking Satan's power over
the earth.
The first beatitudes to Adam and Eve were the blessings of fertility and dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28). In our original parents' fall from grace, Satan began to usurp and pervert these divine blessings. The blessing of a sexual union between a man and a woman was a gift from God to be applied only in the context of covenantal marriage (Gen 2:24). In marriage, a man and a woman receive the extraordinary possibility to become co-creators with God in the birth of the next generation. Abuse of this blessing has led to sin and suffering. Satan also usurped man's dominion over the earth. In Jesus's defeat of sin and death on the Cross and the victory of His Resurrection, He thwarted Satan's control over the world and his authority to dominate it. Satan no longer has the power to dominate us because we are reborn through our supernatural Baptism in the blood of Jesus Christ into the family of God. We belong to the God who created and dominates the earth, and as His children and heirs, we inherit the earth! CCC # 299: "... for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him."
The fourth blessing: 6 Blessed are they who hunger
and thirst for righteousness,
Denying our own "self-sufficient spirit," we yield to God in
"poverty of spirit," acknowledging that we need Him in our lives, and in
childlike faith, we move forward to take our place at the foot of His throne. As
we draw closer to God, we become aware of our sinful nature; we mourn our sins
and the world's sins. In our sincere repentance, Christ atones for our sins,
and by God's grace, He purifies us and restores us to fellowship with Him. Our
desire is now to surrender our lives as we experience spiritual renewal. We
strive to submit ourselves to His will, offering our lives as useful tools in
the hands of the Master of the universe. As a result of yielding to Him in
meekness and humility, we want to be more like Him, and our souls' hunger and
thirst for righteousness, just as our physical bodies need food and drink to
survive physically. The fourth Beatitude is a pivotal step in our spiritual
journey as we move from what we need to give to God to the miracle of what God
plans to give us.
Jesus's definition of the righteous believer in the fourth Beatitude is a person who "hungers and thirsts" to live "rightly" according to the will of God for his life. In St. Jerome's commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, he wrote that Jesus is not suggesting we have a legalistic "letter of the law" desire for righteousness. Instead, we should ardently seek righteousness as necessary to our spiritual life, as food and water are essential for our physical life (Jerome, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew 5.6). In the Law of the New Covenant, Jesus has raised the bar in His demand for "rightness" with God. It is not enough to merely submit with regimented obedience to the Old Covenant Law as the Pharisees interpreted the path to salvation. In the New Covenant, we must actively, diligently, and relentlessly seek righteousness as though our very life depends upon it, for indeed, it does.
Righteousness, as expressed in the Gospels and other books of the New Testament through the Holy Spirit-inspired writers, is, for the most part, the gracious gift (grace) of God extended to humanity. All who respond in the obedience of faith and are baptized by water and the spirit in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Redeemer-Messiah are bathed in the blood of the Lamb of God and brought into the "rightness" of their relationship with the Most Holy Trinity. "Righteousness" then, for New Covenant believers, is linked to Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross and a state of grace; it is the grace freely given through the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Chosen One of God (Jn 1:29, 35).
The fourth promise: for they will be satisfied.
Some translations read: for they shall be filled. In
this promise, the Greek word translated as "satisfied" or "filled" is chortazo
[khor-tad'-zo; with the Semitic "tz" dipthong], meaning "to gorge,
or to supply food in abundance; feed, fill, satisfy" (Strong's Concordance #5526).
Who is the "Righteous One" who satisfies as no one else can and fills us as no
one else can? There can only be one answer, Jesus Christ! This Beatitude has a
promise that is also a consequence if we fail to fulfill the blessing. If we
aren't righteous, we won't be "satisfied," or, as sometimes translated, we
won't be "filled." Each beatitude is a positive statement, unlike the
negative commands of the Ten Commandments. Yet, there is a negative implied if
the blessing remains unfulfilled and we do not "hunger and thirst for righteousness"
and, therefore, will not be "filled." The implications of realizing this
implied negative in each Beatitude are much more serious when one considers
what will be lost if we do not achieve the spiritual perfection Jesus asks of
us.
This verse is the turning point in the Beatitudes. Up to this point, the focus has been on the most fundamental aspects of our relationship with God. Until this point, the focus has been on our needs:
Now the focus changes to our need for union with the fullness of God. Therefore, the focus turns to Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, who fulfills our desire for union with the fullness of God Himself in the gift of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the Most Holy Trinity gives Himself entirely to the soul who hungers and thirsts for Him. Jesus gives Himself to us entirely in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He comes to us in the miracle of Transubstantiation as the Bridegroom giving all of Himself to His Bride, the Church.
The fifth blessing: 7 Blessed are the merciful,
Through the miracle of the Eucharist, Christ fills us with His
humanity and divinity. With Jesus living within us, we desire to be more like
Him. Just as He shared His merciful love with everyone, now we, in our love for
Him, feel the desire to let His mercy flow through us to everyone we meet.
The Greek word for "merciful" in this passage is the Greek adjective eleemon [el-eh-ay'-mone]. In the Old Testament Hebrew, being "merciful" meant the outward manifestation of pity. But in the New Covenant, this expression of mercy and pity is to be expressed by one who is actively compassionate as God is actively compassionate. This compassion is generated internally but manifested externally in acts of mercy. Although compassion as a feeling of sympathy is part of mercy [com meaning "with," and passion meaning "suffering" so "with suffering"], mercy differs from compassion in that mercy is the active practice of compassion in the readiness to assist those in need. Therefore, the "merciful" are those who are not passive in showing love and compassion but take an active role in bringing aid to those suffering. This same Greek word for "mercy" appears in Hebrews 2:17 to describe Jesus Christ as our New Covenant High Priest. It describes those called to live in mercy and compassion "like God," as in Matthew 5:7 as well as in Luke 6:35-36, in which Jesus gave the command, "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful."
The fifth promise: for they will be shown mercy.
There is a link between the 5th beatitude promise
and the 5th petition of the "Lord's Prayer" that says, And
forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
What is implied in the second phrase of the petition is that God will not
respond to our plea for forgiveness unless we first forgive others who have
wronged us. In the significance of numbers in Scripture, 5 is the number
signifying grace.
Our willingness to forgive and grant mercy is so crucial that, in Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus returned to the command to show mercy and forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer and then finished with the warning, "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." Jesus also continued teaching the importance of extending God's mercy in our relationships with others throughout His ministry. We cooperate in God's grace when we forgive those who have hurt us. Forgiving others allows us to see how Christ could forgive those who lied at His trial and nailed Him to the Cross, which includes all of us, for we are all culpable in His death through our sins. When Christ fills us with His righteousness, we look upon the face of our enemy and see the face of the Christ who loved and forgave us. Love is more powerful than sin. The sin of failing to forgive binds and wounds the soul so much more deeply than the barbs of your enemy. Forgive your enemy, set your soul free, and feel the power of God's grace working in you! See CCC # 2844.
The sixth blessing: 8 Blessed are the clean of heart,
As we grow closer to Christ on our spiritual journey, we
feel the need to empty ourselves of worldly attractions and concerns and to
fill our entire being with the love of Jesus, our Savior, becoming an imitation
of Christ in our lives. Our cry becomes the cry of David in Psalm 51:12 (verse
10 in some translations): A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a
steadfast spirit.
The Greek word for "pure" is katharos, an adjective meaning "pure as in being cleansed." The heart, or kardia in Greek, is the most vital organ in the human body. We think of our hearts as the internal instrument of our emotions, but the ancients did not understand the function of a heart in this way. For the people of ancient times, including the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, different body parts had different physiological functions. The Jews believed anger was situated in the nose, while love, compassion, and most other emotions were generated from the kidneys, liver, and bowels. To the people of Jesus's time, the heart reflected the real essence of a man or woman; it signified the inward moral quality of a person instead of what is visible.
Hearing this Beatitude, the Jews would think of the heart as the center of the faculties and personality, the seat of knowledge and understanding, and not just feelings but also thoughts, words, decisions, and actions proceeding from the heart. The inspired writers of Scripture recognized that depravity and deceit emerge from the human heart as sin, doing its greatest damage to the inward life from which sin then defiles the whole man or woman (see Mt 15:19-20). But the inspired writers of Sacred Scripture also recognized that the heart represented the hidden depths of one's moral and spiritual being and regarded the heart as the focus of divine influence from which a man or woman could be purified by God from the inside out (see Rom 2:15; Acts 15:9 and 1 Pt 3:4).
Purity of heart can only come about through the work of God the Holy Spirit. He is our gift from the Father and the Son to be the source of living water welling up from the heart of Christ and flowing out to every believer (see Jn 7:38). He puts Christ in our hearts, circumcising our old defective hearts and giving us a new heart by conforming us to His image. Christ dwelling in us gives us a truly purified interior self. When St. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me, he wanted us to understand that our deepest identity is to be Christ; it is the only way we will be able to return to the pre-Eden "image of God." And what is the result? It is that whatever you do, say, or see reflects the image of God. St. Paul wrote to St. Titus in Titus 1:15, Everything is pure to the pure! A pure heart beats to the living revelation of Jesus Christ!
The sixth promise: for they will see God.
The inspired writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews
links "seeing God" with holiness, which comes through purity of heart, and
peacemaking: Seek peace with all people and the holiness without which no
one can ever see the Lord. Filling our hearts with Christ produces a purity
of spirit that creates peace in our hearts, which overflows and touches each
person we meet. A right relationship with God leads to the desire for a right
relationship with others. When our clean hearts overflow with Christ's love, the
promise is: the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7). The result is that we
become His emissaries, bearers of Christ bearing peace, and we will see the
face of Christ in the face of each person with whom we share His love.
The seventh blessing: 9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
Verse 9 is the seventh step on the pathway to salvation. With
our hearts purified by Christ living in us, we seek to extend His peace to
others. St. Augustine wrote that peacemakers are not only peaceful, but they
are active makers of peace. They encourage peace around them by healing
alienations and discord and bringing reconciliation. But this peace begins
within them as they conform to God's image, and then the peace they generate
diffuses from them to the world (Augustine, Sermon on the Mount, Book I,
chapter 2.9). Sharing the peace of Christ with others is the kind of
peacemaking we must seek. The gift of Christ's internal peace has the power to transform
into militantly spiritual and joyously unquenchable peace that we can share with
our family, our friends, and the world as our witness of a life conformed to
the Prince of Peace!
This promise has two dimensions that humanity lost in the fall from grace:
It will help to understand the dimensions of this promise to look carefully at what St. John wrote in his Gospel concerning rebirth into the family of God: But to those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God (Jn 1:12-13). Consider the power of his statement in this verse. The word in Greek, translated as "power," is exousia. In other Bible translations, it may be rendered as "right." The use of exousia in this passage does not indicate only the possibility or the ability to become "children of God," but a legitimate right derived from the authority of Jesus, the Word of God (Jn 1:1-5); only through the Word do we have this "power."
That Christ gave us the "power" is the same way of saying that He gave us the gift of sanctifying grace. This gift is a supernatural infusion of grace extended to everyone through the sacrament of Baptism. The only condition is that we have faith. St. Athanasius explained it this way: "The Son of God became a man so that the sons of men, the sons of Adam, might become sons of God ... He [Adam] is the son of God by nature; we, by grace" (St Athanasius, The Incarnation). We receive the gift of divine adoption as sons and daughters of God. We cannot truly call ourselves "children of God" until this miracle regenerates us with "new life" into the family of God. In John 3:3-5, Jesus revealed the promise of "new life" to Nicodemus concerning "rebirth" or being born "from above" by water and the Spirit.
The seventh promise: for they will be called children of God.
Interestingly, peacemaking and sonship (becoming sons and
daughters in the family of God) are brought together in this blessing and its
promise. This supernatural power of sonship becomes manifested through Christ's
peace through the work of the 3rd Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God
the Holy Spirit. Empowered by the Holy Spirit as God's children, He commands us
to bear much "fruit" by Christ, who has grafted us onto Himself as the "true
vine" (Jn 15:1). The "fruit" or works we bear is an outpouring of the gifts the
Holy Spirits imparts to us. The peace we generate is part of that outpouring. St.
Basil wrote: "Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to
the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given the confidence to call
God 'Father' and to share in Christ's grace, called children of light and given
a share in eternal glory" (quoted from CCC # 736).
Some scholars see the summary of the blessings and promises
(verse 10) as the eighth blessing and promise: 10 Blessed are they who are
persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
11 Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind
of evil against you falsely because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward
will be great in Heaven."
Notice that verse 10 repeats the promise from verse 5: the Kingdom
of Heaven. In Matthew 5:11, Jesus repeated the Beatitude in verse 10 but changed
from a third-person address to the second person; Blessed are you. In
directing this blessing personally ("you" plural) to the disciples and the
Apostles, Jesus acknowledged them as successors to the holy prophets of Yahweh,
who, in their obedience to the will of God, perished for their faithfulness. Martyrdom
was the destiny of all the Apostles except John Zebedee, who suffered
imprisonment and other forms of persecution for his commitment to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Jesus does not make the job description for "Emissaries [Apostolos]
of God" particularly appealing in this life. However, there can be no doubt
that the promises of long-term benefits are eternally great. Notice that the summary
in verse 12 repeats the promise of the "Kingdom of Heaven" found in the first
Beatitude's promise in Matthew 5:3.
If the Beatitudes are the conditions for Christian character that Jesus established for gaining entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven, then verses 10-12 are the invitation to put these spiritual precepts of the New Covenant Law into practice. Jesus's job description for a disciple is short-term trials followed by very long-term rewards. Jesus was warning His disciples that they were taking their place as the successors to the holy Old Covenant prophets. And many of them would suffer the same fate as the Old Testament prophets: persecution, suffering, and possibly death. The man or woman who stands for God stands against the world, and the world can be very unforgiving. If you choose to live the Beatitudes, Jesus warns that you will receive the eternal blessings of the righteous, but you will also experience the temporal enmity of the wicked.
To commit to following Christ and doing what He commands means risking everything in this present life to gain a future eternal life. Those who refuse to "take up their cross" to follow Christ and act for their own satisfaction and temporal gain endanger their eternal salvation. Only when a person dies to self and lives for Christ will they unselfishly give their lives to God and others, whether in marriage, parenting, Christian leadership, and service, or acts of love and charity to others. The foundation of the Christian life is self-denial: "There is no Christianity without the Cross!" (see CCC# 459; 1 Cor 1:23). See the charts on The Progression of the Beatitudes and BEATITUDES, Lesson_3_Handouts.
Catechism References (*indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
Revelation 7:2-8 (CCC 1138);
7:2-3 (CCC 1296);
7:9 (CCC 775, 1138);
7:10-12 (CCC 2642)
1 John 3 (CCC 2822);
3:1 (CCC 1692);
3:2 (CCC 163, 1023, 1161, 1720, 2519, 2772);
3:3 (CCC 2345)
Matthew 5:3-12 (CCC 1716);
5:3 (CCC 544, 2546);
5:6 (CCC 764);
5:7 (CCC 2763);
5:8 (CCC 1720, 2518);
5:9 (CCC 2305, 2330);
5:11-12 (CCC 520)
The Church, a communion of saints (CCC 61, 946-949, 949*, 950-951, 952*, 953*, 954*, 955, 956*, 957*, 958*, 959*, 960-962, 1090, 1137*, 1138*, 1139, 1370)
The intercession of the saints (CCC 956*, 2683*)
The saints, examples of holiness (CCC 828, 867, 1173, 2030*, 2683*, 2684*)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2014; revised 2022 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.