the beatitudes, sunday

Sunday, November 15

Opening Prayer:

From the heights we leap and go
To the valleys down below
Always answering to the call
To the lowest place of all
From the heights we leap and go
To the valleys down below
Sweetest urge and sweetest will
To go lower, lower still

(Hinds’ Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard)

Scripture: Matthew 5:1-3

Journal: What does it mean to you to be poor in spirit?  What does that look like?  How might we pursue a life of being poor in spirit?  What did Jesus mean when he said theirs is the kingdom of heaven?

Reflection:

 

     The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man—the very thing Jesus means it to do.  As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord’s teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him.  “Blessed are the paupers in spirit,” that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God.  The bedrock in Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility—I cannot begin to do it.  Then Jesus says—Blessed are you.  That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor!  The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus works. (My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.  From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

     From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.  From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

     That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.  That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. ~Litany of Humility