Twisting the Words of Jesus

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As I have mentioned before, sometimes reading and understanding scripture can be a bit of a challenge.  That can certainly be the case with the gospel reading today from Matthew, Chapter 5.

The Beatitudes that are given at the beginning of this chapter can leave you scratching your head as you try to understand them, but they are beautiful and definitely worth investigating.

I recently read the words of someone named Andrew Murray (non-Catholic) that I thought could easily be applied to the Beatitudes.  He said that humility is “the place of entire dependence on God.”

That statement could be a simplification, albeit an accurate representation, of the spirit of the Beatitudes.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus taught much about humility and our own response to the trials and issues we face in this life, but a large part of that is recognizing our entire dependence on God.  The Beatitudes teach us, among other things, that God is the one who provides for us in all things.

But with a little twist, I often find them helpful in motivating me to set a goal.

Let me explain.

Where Jesus says:

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”

I pray (kind of whiny), “I want to be shown mercy, so I need to be merciful.”

Where Jesus says:

“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God”

I pray, “I want to see God, so I need to have a clean/pure heart.”

You get the idea.

I ask God to help me be merciful and have a clean heart because I desire to be deeply aligned with him.  Recognizing where I fail at these, the Beatitudes help me to stay the course.

There is a lot of depth we could mine out of the Beatitudes, but they can just as easily be a simplified call to action.

I will leave you with a humility prayer which I recently came across, for your personal examination:

"O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for thy name's sake." (Prayer of William Barclay, Theologian)

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.blogspot.com
janetcassidy.blubrry.net

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