I have been struggling to make sense of today's Gospel reading from St. Luke ( cf Lk 6:17-27) more popularly known as the "blessing and the woes", parallel to St. Matthew's Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12). My “struggle” is to read it in the perspective of real people today: like the Haitians after the devastating earthquake suffered a month ago leaving a third of the population practically without anything; like a very close friend who discovered she had cancer just three weeks ago and is now waiting what happens next…It sounds like a “very passive” Gospel to me in the sense that those who are blessed or fortunate didn’t have to do anything. They just have to be: poor, hungry, weeping, hated-excluded-insulted and denounced as evil on account of the Son of Man. These are the recipients of God’s blessings that is, his Kingdom, his joy! How could that come about?
Of course, the clue is always in the life of Jesus – the one who has lived through the extremest “contrasts” in life: God-made-man, as man, denounced-crucified-killed, whose only crime was “because he did all things well” (Mk 7:37). Going deeper into this clue which means going right into the heart of the relationship between Jesus and his Father, I gradually get some light: yes, the beatitudes make sense if we manage to relate with each other along this sphere. This insight came to me, thanks to a late afternoon email from a sister in Taiwan with an attached inspirational clip. Watch this and you’ll see what I mean.
