blessed

Opening Prayer: Leave it to you, Lord Jesus, to turn everything upside down.  It seems like that’s what you were constantly doing, so it should come as no surprise.  Help me to embrace that turning, rather than resist it.  Help me to see things the way you see them and to live life the way you intended it to be lived.  Help me to become more and more like you each day.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 5:1-12

Journal: What is your response to the Beatitudes?  Where do you see them taking shape in your life?  What is Jesus asking of you today?  

Reflection: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus certainly turns everything upside down, doesn’t he?  The poor and the mourners and the meek and the hungry and the merciful and the peacemakers and the persecuted are the ones who are blessed?  Most of us would normally think the opposite was true.

     If he is right, however, that the ones on the bottom are the ones who are really blessed, then why do I keep trying to get to the top?  If it is true that the nobodies are the ones who are living in line with his will and his desire, then why do I keep desperately trying to be somebody?  If it is, in fact, accurate that the poor are the ones who are better off, then why do I keep trying to get rich?  If being hidden and unnoticed and lowly and small is the path to true blessing, then why do I keep trying to be visible and noticed and well thought of and important?

     Blessed is the man who is not constantly consumed with himself, but is consumed with the things of God.  Apparently Jesus needs to turn me upside down as well.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me the grace and the strength and the courage to truly become one of the “blessed.”  Amen.