(4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, A, updated and revised from the homily I gave eighteen years ago on this day!)
Last Sunday we heard the beginning and core message of Jesus’ preaching: “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” The Kingdom of God, which is the destiny of all creation, us included, and is mysteriously present among us even now, is the heart of the Gospel.
Today, in Matthew’s Beatitudes, we hear a description of the citizens of this Kingdom.
First of all, the citizens of the Kingdom of God are “blessed.” The word in the original Greek here is makarios, and it’s just as easily translated as “happy.” My dictionary defined makarios as “blessed, happy, or fortunate.” That’s the first thing to know about being a Christian, a citizen of the kingdom of God: we are blessed, happy, and fortunate for the call we have received to Holy Communion with God in Christ. And that’s why the primary attitude of the Christian is always gratitude. As our own Blessed Solanus Casey put it, “gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.”
