Obviously, if we are to use our human reason alone, without the guidance of faith, we would consider the Beatitudes a crazy idea.
But if we would just try to fathom the divine wisdom contained in them, we would soon realize that the Beatitudes indeed articulate a most pure brand of love that continues to burn and even to burn more strongly when faced with all sorts of contradictions in life.
Christ lived these Beatitudes to the hilt and, by so doing, defined for us what true love is, which is the very essence of God and the essence that is also meant for us, since we are God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. How God is should also be how we should be.
It’s a supernatural kind of love that definitely transcends our human and natural way of loving and that definitely requires God’s grace, our identification with the very spirit of God as shown and shared with us through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Forget it when we think that we can have this kind of love by simply relying on our human powers alone.
To be sure, we cannot have this supernatural kind of love meant for us if we do not pray, if we do not avail of the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, which are the normal channels of grace for us, if we do not keep our relation with God alive through the development of virtues and rejection of sin and temptations, if we fail to actively participate in the continuing redemptive work of Christ by doing apostolate, etc.
The Beatitudes convert what we usually consider as human disasters or clear disadvantages and inconveniences according to worldly standards into a source of joy, a means of our redemption, a path to heaven, narrow and difficult though it may be.
They expand our understanding of what would comprise as our true happiness by including those situations which we normally regard as unsavory and therefore to be avoided as much as possible and hated.
They articulate divine wisdom for us! (Fr. Roy Cimagala)
