Homily for Ordinary Time 4
February 1, 2026
Beatitudes, Part 1 of 3
St.
Thomas Aquinas spent his days teaching and writing about the Lord – he wrote
over 100,000 pages, including the masterpiece called Summa Theologica, a
summary of the entire Catholic Faith. But toward the end of his life he stopped
writing because one day he had a vision of Christ Crucified on the Cross, who
said to him, “You have written well of me, Thomas. What will you have as your
reward?”
Time-out
the story for a moment – if God asked you what reward you wanted, what would
you respond? A billion dollars? Peace in your family? Health? World peace? Here’s
what St. Thomas responded, “All I want is You, O Lord.” His happiness would be
found in possessing God. This is the context for these beautiful Beatitudes
from the beginning of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount”. Beatitude – Makarios
in Greek – doesn’t mean an emotional happiness. Rather, it means a deep
fulfillment due to life choices. This was a common teaching technique in Jesus’
day – Greek and Egyptian writings, as well as the Old Testament, often teach by
saying, “Blessed is he who…”. We hear things in the Scriptures like, “Blessed is
the one who trusts in the Lord…blessed is the one who meditates on the law of
the Lord…blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven.”
Do we
not all desire such happiness? Yet notice that these elements of blessedness
are not things that just kinda happen to us by random chance, nor are they
dependent upon others giving them to us – rather, they are choices we make. One
might say that this kind of joy is available to all if we cultivate the virtues
they embody. So over the next few weeks I want to unpack these Beatitudes to
look at the virtues we can cultivate, that we too may be blessed.
First,
Jesus starts out with the most critical of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the
poor in spirit.” This corresponds exactly to the virtue of humility.
Humility is knowing who we are before God. There’s a great story from the life
of St. Francis Borgia. The name “Borgia” should be familiar to us – there was a
recent TV series about their scandalous lives – and their very name implies
corruption, political intrigue, and scandal in Renaissance Italy. And Francis
Borgia indeed began living the life of a privileged prince, complete with
palaces and servants and backstabbing politics. But when his relative Queen
Isabella of Spain died, he was called in to verify her death. Seeing her lifeless
body, surrounded by fancy robes and jewels, woke him up to the shortness of this
life and the importance of eternity. He turned his thoughts to God, became a Jesuit
priest and a saint, becoming poor in spirit.
How can a
man be filled with pride when he will return to dust? There is a powerful
prayer that I pray when I visit a dying person that always moves me – it says,
in part: “May you return to Him Who created you from the dust of the earth.”
Every moment is a gift, not something we’ve been owed. God is God – we are
frail creatures who must someday return this life-breath to the Lord. This realization
is the beginning of humility.
So how
do we practically grow in humility? First, accept correction peacefully. Many
of us know King David from the Bible as that powerful man who defeated Goliath
and ruled Israel with justice. But on one occasion, he also committed adultery
and had the husband of the woman killed so he could marry her. Not good! So God
sent the prophet Nathan to tell David that he had committed a grave sin in the
presence of God. This is a pretty daring act – to tell a king that he’s a
sinner. But David does something surprising – he admits his wrongdoing and does
penance for his sin. Can we accept correction with that same humility?
We can
also grow in humility by not talking about ourselves and our accomplishments.
Recently I was at a gala where I got trapped in a conversation with a man who
kept telling me about how great he was – his business success, the famous
people he mingled with, how virtuous he was. At the end he said to me, “Well,
that was an enjoyable conversation – how about we get together for lunch soon?”
Uh…no, please spare me! As CS Lewis said, “Humility isn’t thinking less of
yourself…it’s thinking of yourself less.”
Also,
spend time with the lowly. I love the second reading today from St. Paul – his basic
message is that Christianity is for losers! Irish author James Joyce once said,
“The definition of Catholicism is here comes everybody!” If you want to
be with the rich and the good-looking and successful, go hang out in Silicon
Valley or Hollywood. A Catholic parish is a motley collection – and that’s good!
A truly humble person does not see it beneath them to spend time with anyone.
Connected
to this, a humble person is content to do the most menial tasks. Bl. Gabriel
Peretti was the provincial (leader) of the entire Franciscan order when one day
he walked into a church and the priest mistook him for a mere altar server, and
made him serve Mass. The holy man happily served Mass, but afterward the priest
realized who it was and began to profusely apologize. But the holy man said, “To
serve Mass is such a great honor that even the angels are envious!” A humble
person does not think it beneath his dignity to do humble tasks.
Finally,
we always grow in humility through prayer. Prayer is a humble dependence upon
God. There’s no way to pray out of pride – we need Him, and we express that
need in prayer.
The
second Beatitude might be more confusing: blessed are those who mourn. Why is sadness
good? St. Paul comments on this in 2 Corinthians when he says, “Godly sorrow
brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly
sorrow brings death.” So this is not the mourning that happens when bad stuff
befalls us – but rather, as St. John Chrysostom comments, “He bids us to mourn,
not only for our own, but also for other men's evil.” We are sorrowful because
we are not as holy as we ought to be – and thus we are “comforted” when the
Holy Spirit makes us holier. We are filled with grief at the evils in the world
– and we are comforted by the confidence that Christ will win in the end.
There
are many evils that we cannot change at present. I just returned from the March
for Life – fifty-three years of legal abortion in this country, and no end in
sight. Despite the fact that Roe vs. Wade was overturned, statistics show that
abortions are actually on the rise in our country. What can we do about
it? We can pray, we can witness, we can vote – but in our heart, we must grieve
for the lives lost. There is an old Christian prayer, “Lord, break my heart for
what breaks Yours.” And this brings us closer to Christ, to mourn with Him
about these sins.
One
could call this the virtue of compassion – not only suffering with other
people, but also suffering with Christ, whose Sacred Heart is so hurt because
of the coldness and ingratitude of His beloved children. After seeing Our Lady
at Fatima, young nine-year-old Francisco Marta used to skip out on school to
spend all day in the church instead. One time his sister asked him what he was
doing there, and he replied, “I am thinking about God, Who is so sad because of
so many sins! I want to give Him joy!” This beatitude calls us to rid ourselves
of the frivolous way we live our life, and feel the pain in the Heart of God
because of the sins which harm His children. What a beautiful virtue of
compassion!
My
friends, who among us does not want to have a blessed life! And these virtues
of humility and compassion are two of the eight pillars toward this life of the
blessed. Tune in next week to unpack more of the Beatitudes to understand how
their virtues lead to a life of fulfillment in God.
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