The Mystery of Christ
The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience

by Father Thomas Keating

Chapter 4

Ordinary Time

The Beatitudes

    The ripe fruit of the grace of Pentecost is the practice of the beatitudes. The beatitudes are acts of virtue inspired by the Spirit and which manifest the risen life of Christ within us. 

True Happiness

    When he saw the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountainside. After he had sat down his disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them: 

   "How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of God is theirs.
   Blest too are the sorrowing; they shall be consoled.
   Blest are the lowly; they shall inherit the land.
   Blest are they who hunger and thirst for holiness; they shall have their fill.
   Blest are they who show mercy; mercy shall be theirs.
   Blest are the single-hearted for they shall see God.
   Blest too are the peacemakers; they shall be called sons of God.
   Blest are those persecuted for holiness' sake; the reign of God is theirs.
   Blest are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you because of me.
   Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven; they persecuted the prophets before you in the very same way." 
[Matt. 5:1-12]
Gospel of Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount contains a number of affirmations called the beatitudes that summarize Jesus' teaching about the nature of true happiness. Each begins with the term "blest," which means, "Oh, how happy you would be!" The first three beatitudes are aimed at demolishing the values of the first three energy centers and the programs for happiness on which they are based. Those who are motivated by one of these three energy centers have designed for themselves a program for human misery. 

    The first three energy centers are elaborate programs for happiness that

    The first three beatitudes might be summed up by the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself." If that commandment were lived out, it would quickly dismantle the false-self system. We cannot possibly love our neighbor as ourself so long as we are acting out fantastic demands for security and survival, affection and esteem, and power and control.

    The next four beatitudes are aimed at higher states of consciousness. Once love of neighbor has been established, divine love begins to unfold its secrets. The last four beatitudes might be summed up by Jesus' commandment, "love one another as I have loved you." This dimension of love is more profound and all-inclusive than the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

    Let us consider the first beatitude, "How blest are the poor in spirit: the reign of God is theirs." What is the reign of God? It is what God does in us. It certainly is not a rule of life of our own making. It is the openness that allows God to enter our lives at any time. Hence, it presupposes a flexibility to adjust to events and circumstances and a willingness to let go of our own plans in favor of the inspirations that come from the Spirit.

    Who are the poor in spirit? The poor in spirit are the oppressed, the downtrodden and the despised in a particular culture. They are the nobodies, the insignificant, the people who don't rate. The term embraces those who are not necessarily materially poor, although that can be one of the factors that makes the destitute objects of contempt for those who are better off. Evangelical poverty addresses itself to those who suffer any form of human privation. The additional words "in spirit" point to the fact that to experience this beatitude, it is not enough to be materially poor or to suffer affliction, it is necessary to accept whatever the painful condition is. The poor in spirit are those who are willing to endure affliction of whatever kind for God's sake.

    The final beatitude declares those who are persecuted for justice or truth's sake to be especially happy because they have a special claim to the reign of God and to the fullness of happiness. One is not normally persecuted for inaction, but for trying to change unjust societal structures. This warns us that the poor in spirit are not simply passive in the face of the oppressive circumstances in which they find themselves. Their first movement or response, it is true, is to accept what is. But God's will may also suggest that we act to correct, improve, or change unjust structures or oppressive situations in ways that are in accord with God's will and as the Holy Spirit may inspire.

    To accept everything passively could indicate a passive-dependent personality that leans too heavily on pleasing others, especially authority figures, in order to bolster up one's fragile sense of security. Passive acceptance could also result from years of suffering some form of physical, psychological, social, economic or religious oppression which has finally exhausted one's capacity to resist injustice anymore or to take any significant initiative to oppose it. Oppression of whatever kind, if it continues for a long period of time, crushes the potential of the will to act and relegates its victims to the enormous dump of human inertia and indifference.

    The poor in spirit, then, are those who accept affliction actively, not passively. They willingly accept the situation for what it is-- a fact of life-- and then work to make it better. This is co-creating the world with God, and this is the basic vocation of human beings. It is the message of the Garden of Eden. [Gen 1:27-31]

    Of all the people who have lived on earth, Jesus, the Son of God, was the most free to choose where to be born, where to live and where to die. His choices are striking, to say the least. They bear no resemblance to the programs of the first three energy centers that everyone else is plagued with.

    First of all, he lived in a town that was regarded as totally insignificant. One text reads, "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" [John 1:46] Or again, Jesus insisted on being baptized by John the Baptist. When John objected, Jesus replied, "We must do this if we would fulfill all of God's demands." [Matt. 4:15] The baptism of John was a call to repentance. Jesus wanted to reinforce that call by experiencing John's baptism himself. Baptism is a commitment to free oneself from excessive demands for security and survival, affection and esteem, and power and control. The beatitude of the poor in spirit focuses on the security center that constantly demands more and better of everything in order to feel secure.

    Jesus could have been an austere ascetic like John the Baptist, but instead he chose a middle way. He ate with sinners and drank wine, two things that the disciples of John would not think of doing. He talked to women in public, something that a rabbi at that time was not supposed to do. Jesus was free from the conformity level of morality that his contemporaries were locked into. He would not conform to local custom merely for the sake of satisfying the religious sensibilities of the time.

    In the end, Jesus died between two criminals, betrayed by a friend and abandoned by his disciples. No public benefactor was ever so thoroughly disgraced from every point of view and rejected by both the religious and civil authorities. In the example of Jesus' life, being is more important than doing; it is not how successful one is, but who one is that counts. As in the example of Jesus, one's lifework can be completely destroyed and still one's life can be an immense success. Indeed, the destruction of one's lifework is one of the classic ways through which God brings his servants to their final surrender. The spiritual journey becomes more demanding as it unfolds, but also more liberating.

    All creation is ours on the condition that we do not try to possess it. The innate desire to feel secure is an obstacle to enjoying all that exists. This does not mean that we are not to have possessions at all, but that we need to be detached from whatever we have. Otherwise, we lose the true perspective and, with it, the joy of this beatitude. John of the Cross wrote, "If you want to possess everything, desire to possess nothing." [John of the Cross, Ascent to Mt. Carmel, Book I, Chapter 13,11] By cultivating a non-possessive attitude toward everything, including ourselves, everything is experienced as gift. Then one is truly poor in spirit and will find joy in everything.

More information can be obtained by reading the book The Mystery of Christ by Fr. Thomas Keating.  It is offered in our Book Store.