Got Attitude for the Beatitudes?
When the children lived at home and we had a house guest, we invited visitors to participate in our family prayer time. As one way to record their visit, we pulled out our gratitude journal, and everyone, including the guest, named events or things for which we were grateful.
But when one particular guest stayed at our house, instead of recording our gratitude, we read the Gospel of the day with the two teenagers and one pre-teen lounging in our daughter’s bedroom. Today’s gospel, The Beatitudes, was the reading that day.
After someone read the Gospel, we decided it would be fun to guess which beatitude attribute we each had. And what would be better than knowing our beatitude? Its corresponding reward or gift, of course! So we named each beatitude and its corresponding reward:
Beatitude: poor in spirit | Reward: the Kingdom of heaven is theirs
Beatitude: they who mourn | Reward: will be comforted
Beatitude: the meek | Reward: will inherit the land
Beatitude: they who hunger and thirst for righteousness | Reward: will be satisfied
Beatitude: the merciful | Reward: will be shown mercy
Beatitude: clean of heart | Reward: will see God
Beatitude: the peacemakers | Reward: will be called children of God.
Beatitude: they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness | Reward: theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Beatitude: Insulted, persecuted, and every kind of evil falsely uttered against you because of Him | Reward: reward will be great in heaven
Then, we said a prayer and talked about each person’s most prominent, Christ-like beatitude while he/she sat there, face flushed and expectant. Even though our guest didn’t know us as well as we knew each other, to our surprise, she accurately chose the beatitude we would have selected for each family member!
Most of us don’t recognize the virtues others see in us. Our faces appear in the mirror, but what if we see only a slim shadow of our true selves in relation to Christ? Looking for beatitudes in others is the opposite of removing a splinter from their eyes. If you remove their splinter, the beam in your own eye is still lodged there plain-as-day for all to see.
Turning your mirror to reflect another’s goodness has an added bonus because the act itself is exercising the beatitudes. And practicing beatitudes is a form of working on your own eye beam.
Like Michael Jackson sings in, Man in the Mirror: “I’ve been a victim of a selfish kind of love… I’m starting with the man in the mirror.”
Author Lisa Kelly says in her essay “Blessed are Those in the Crowd” states: “The Beatitudes are less about who I am and more about how I see everyone else. They are about seeing others through the eyes of Christ.”
— Frances Smit
Reflection provided by diocesan.com. Reprinted with permission.