Daily Reflection Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Having been a literature and writing teacher for an eon, I always focused on the meaning of words. So, whenever I pray over the beatitudes as Jesus has given to us in Luke’s gospel, I analyze certain meanings of “blessed” and “woe.” Are these conditions for the hereafter, or do we experience them now? Many books have been written about living the beatitudes. However, today I would like to focus on one: Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.”

    We live, work, and socialize with people. Jesus asks us to understand and respect each other. We need to honor the meanings of the words that Jesus uses: poor, weeping, exclusion. All of us are poor in one way or another: financially, educationally, spiritually, or socially. Jesus is asking us to understand our own experience of poverty and take it to prayer for digestion and reflection, then reach out to others who experience being poor in their own way. Does my “poorness” help me to understand others?

    I know how easy it is to see people, neighborhoods, and countries mired in poverty on social media and offer pity from our hearts. Yet, Jesus is asking us to reflect and respond in the here and now. Beginning with our own experiences of being poor: manners, sloppy language, not respecting differences in people, scoffing at cultural dissimilarities (in our time with God we can make our own personal list), we humbly acknowledge our individual poverty. Yes, it is very hard, even painful, to change our heart movements. I was thinking of that difficulty when I was watching several mallard ducks on Niles Pond at Eastern Point this morning. How smoothly they were gliding through the water! Then I realized that their little webbed feet were furiously paddling under the water, so they could move around the pond. Even something so simple as walking takes effort!

     So, when Jesus promises us the Kingdom of God as we strive to shed ourselves of all that is not God, yes, this is work! But our God who loves each one of us unconditionally, will never allow us to accept our own poorness or shed our brokenness alone! It’s time again for us to do what we can to strip ourselves of the unnecessaries and to use our personal gifts to help those so less fortunate than we are.

    Today we are also commemorating the tragic attack on our country 23 years ago. Let’s also spend time with our God in reflecting on what we have learned from that devastation and how we have changed or still need to change.