Sixth Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle C. Today’s readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26
Happiness is all we pursue in life. It is the end and purpose of all activities we engage in, even though we sometimes deceive ourselves as to what will bring us real happiness.
Time and again it is drummed into us that if we shop like billionaires, we will achieve happiness. Abundant wealth, fleeting pleasures, and popularity at the expense of honesty and integrity feature prominently among what we believe would give us fulfilment and a sense of purpose in life.
But there is growing awareness that the kind of happiness based simply on amassing material possessions is a short-lived illusion. For the past 15 years or so, the UN has been publishing the annual World Happiness Report, which focuses not only on GDP as an indicator of how a country is faring, but also on other more broad markers of well-being.
The report emerged from economists’ realisation that happiness results from things other than mere material wealth, such as meaningful relationships, a healthy environment and a society that guarantees the freedom to actualise oneself. It is encouraging to see that this initiative is being given prominence even in Malta.
We are called to share with those experiencing economic inequality, sorrow, exclusion and persecution
Today’s gospel refers to yet another kind of happiness, one that transcends the two kinds of happiness just described. The words ‘happy’ and ‘blessed’ are often used interchangeably. Yet, the term Jesus uses – “blessed” refers to a deeper kind of happiness – a divine kind of happiness, one that God bestows on those who receive his blessings. The French word for ‘blessed’, “bienheureux”, is particularly fitting. Jesus tells us that what constitutes being “blessed”, or “divinely happy”, are, paradoxically, what in the world’s eyes are far from joyful: being poor, hungry, sorrowful, excluded and ridiculed.
To some, these beatitudes might sound like an invitation to submit oneself to suffering, to grit one’s teeth and bear it out, hoping there is a reward to make it worthwhile in the end. But this would be an impoverished interpretation.
The Beatitudes fill us with the hope of communion with God, our eternal happiness. For it was God, in the first place, who came into communion with the suffering human race. On the cross, Jesus entered into solidarity with us by being poor, hungry, sorrowful, excluded, insulted, and ridiculed.
If we are not the ones currently suffering, we are called to share with those experiencing economic inequality, sorrow, exclusion and persecution.
The Beatitudes promise us happiness even in the here and now. They teach us to trust not in being rich and satisfied, which turns us into self-centred persons just making it through another day in constant fear of losing what we base our happiness on. Rather, they open us to hope in God’s ever-creative faithfulness.
If the Beatitudes have been called the second pillar of the life of discipleship, along with the Ten Commandments, it is because they are complementary to each other. For too long we have shaped our examination of conscience on the Commandments. It is high time we shape them on the Beatitudes.
Today you are invited to “rejoice and leap for joy” if you live a modest life with sacrifices, because you have chosen to have a numerous family; if your heart weeps because of yet another tragic death on our roads or workplaces; if you are mocked and reviled because you take respectful but bold stances against corruption and in favour of human life.
As Pope Francis writes in Gaudete et Exsultate, “the Beatitudes are not easy to live… but we can only practise them if the Holy Spirit fills us with his power and frees us from our weakness, our selfishness, our complacency and our pride”.