FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT, YEAR A

February 22, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

 

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

 

One aspect of the biblical mindset that can often seem strange to us today is the concept of "corporate personality." Throughout Scripture, the biblical authors repeatedly use the same name to refer both to an individual person and to an entire people represented by that individual. A good example is the name “Israel,” which refers both to a specific person —the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham—and to the whole nation descended from his twelve sons, the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In the Bible, then, "Israel" is both one and many.

 

Similarly, Saint Paul uses the name "Adam" to refer both to the first human being and to the whole human race descended from him. In the fifteenth chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul states: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall be made alive." In Paul’s view, then, it wasn’t just Adam who sinned at the beginning. We’re all implicated in his disobedience. He sinned in us, we sinned in him, and we still face the consequences of his sin.

 

We don’t need to read the Genesis story literally to recognize the truth in Paul’s insight. In Hebrew, the name "Adam" roughly means "humankind" or "humanity." The biblical story of the Fall symbolizes the human condition. We have collectively disobeyed God, and we need to be reconciled with both God and one another.

 

Conversely, Paul describes Jesus Christ as the new Adam, the prototype of a new humanity reconciled and restored to fellowship with God. So Paul concludes today’s reading from Romans: "For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." 

 

Unlike Adam and Eve, we have solid evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person in history. However, in Paul’s view, Christ also acts as a representative figure: someone who accomplishes in us what we cannot do on our own. When we are united with Christ in Holy Baptism, we share in his righteousness and are adopted into his relationship with his Father in heaven, thus becoming God's sons and daughters.

 

This interchangeability between the one and the many might seem strange to our modern Western individualistic mindset. But consider how we talk about our sports teams. When the Patriots win a football game, we often say, "we won," rather than "they won." In a very real sense, the team plays and wins as a representative body, so that all Patriots fans everywhere share in their victory. (Admittedly, though, when our favorite team loses, we’re more likely to say, "they lost," than "we lost"—which speaks volumes about our fallen human condition.)

 

If this can be true of a football team, how much more true it is of Christ! On the cross, he offers the one, full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice that reconciles fallen humanity to God. He does so not merely as our substitute but as our representative. He draws us into his self-offering; he dies in us, and we die in him. Then, on Easter morning, he rises from the dead, again as our representative, so we share in his victory over sin and death. It’s a "win-win." He wins, and we win. Such is the clear teaching of the whole New Testament.

 

Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, remembered each year on the First Sunday in Lent, is best understood through this idea of corporate personality. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." However, after His baptism, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. That is, He is led into the very situation He teaches us to pray that we might be spared.

 

The reason isn't that he himself needs to be tempted, as if he somehow needs to prove his worthiness to fulfill his earthly mission. Instead, he endures these temptations for our sake, as our representative. Through his obedience, he reverses and undoes Adam’s disobedience. The well-known hymn, O love how deep, how broad, how high, expresses this well:

 

For us baptized, for us he bore

His holy fast and hungered sore;

For us temptation sharp he knew,  

For us the tempter overthrew.

 

Moreover, Jesus is returning to the place where the Israelites sinned against God by grumbling and complaining during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Resisting the devil’s temptations with aptly chosen quotations from the Torah, he reverses Israel’s disobedience. Once again, we see the idea of corporate personality at work: Christ is the representative person who fulfills Israel’s calling to faithfulness and obedience, just as God has chosen Israel to be the representative nation that fulfills the calling of all humanity to love and serve God.

 

Biblical commentators over the centuries have offered various interpretations of the devil’s three temptations. One interpretation I find especially helpful is that these temptations are lures to abandon trust in God and try to solve humanity’s problems by the exercise of power. And specifically, three kinds of power: economic, religious, and political.

 

First, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." This is the temptation of economic power. Master nature and build up your support base by providing bread for the masses. Second, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down" from the pinnacle of the Temple so his angels will catch you. This is the temptation of religious power—manipulating the faithful through miraculous signs and wonders. And third, "All the kingdoms of the earth and their glory I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." This is the temptation of political power—at the cost of selling your soul to the devil. 

 

In all three cases, the temptation is to wield a specific type of power in the service of a human agenda divorced from God’s will. And in all three cases, the remedy is to trust in God, obey His commandments, and surrender to His will.

 

By resisting these temptations on our behalf, Jesus enables us to resist them ourselves. In a mysterious way, we’ve already resisted these temptations in him, and he’s resisted them in us. The good news is that Christ has definitively won the human struggle against diabolical temptation on our behalf. It’s another "win-win." He wins, and we win. All we need to do is claim and live into his victory, which is what this season of Lent is really all about.

ASH WEDNESDAY

February 18, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

 

Shortly after I arrived in my first parish as rector, I was talking with a parishioner who was known as one of the more “spiritual” members of the congregation: a man of prayer. When I mentioned that I was still deciding what to give up for Lent that year, he replied: “Oh Father, that’s so old-fashioned. The point of Lent isn’t to give something up but to take something on.”

 

I could see that I had my work cut out for me. While it’s an excellent idea take on extra commitments of worship, prayer, study, or service during Lent, it’s not enough. We really do need to give something up as well.

 

In keeping with ancient Christian tradition, the Book of Common Prayer is absolutely clear. On page 17, it states: “Ash Wednesday and the other weekdays of Lent and Holy Week” are to be “observed by special acts of discipline and self-denial.” In a few minutes, I will read from the same Prayer Book these words: “I invite you … in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

It’s tempting to gloss over the fasting and self-denial parts of that equation. Yet without them, our observance of a holy Lent is inadequate and incomplete. From the very beginning, Christians have set aside special times and seasons for self-denial, following the example of our Lord himself, who fasted for forty days in the wilderness. But our contemporary culture is so unused to, indeed hostile to, the very idea of self-denial that, from time to time, we need a refresher on the practice's purposes.

 

At the outset, I will say that after we’ve reached a certain age, or if we suffer from certain medical conditions, then strict fasting—in the sense of skipping meals and going without food for extended periods—is not a good idea. The Christian tradition does not ask us to risk our health or safety in observing the spiritual disciplines. They are meant to help us, not harm us. But we can still practice self-denial by giving up something for a time. 

 

Also, there is a traditional distinction between fasting and abstinence. Fasting means reducing the total amount of food we eat, whereas abstinence involves going without certain types of food and drink. For example, every Lent I give up sweets, desserts, and alcoholic beverages. Even when strict fasting is not a good idea for health reasons, we can probably all still benefit from some such form of abstinence. 

 

The obvious question is, why should we practice such self-denial? The most obvious reason is the penitential aspect. We deprive ourselves of certain pleasures for a time to express sorrow for sin. Indulgence of every craving and gratification of every desire is the behavior of people who think they deserve every good thing that life has to offer. By self-denial, we remind ourselves that, no, the good things that we enjoy in this life are not our due, but rather gifts of which we’re profoundly unworthy. Periodically giving them up teaches us to be grateful rather than to take them for granted.

 

A second reason for self-denial is to remind ourselves that our life’s ultimate fulfillment lies beyond this world. The ashes that we’re about to receive symbolize our mortality. Sooner or later, we’re all going to die, and then we’ll have no choice but to let go of this life’s pleasures. By periodic seasons of self-denial, however, we practice letting go, in order to fix our eyes on the joys that await us in the life to come.

 

A third reason for self-denial involves intercession. How many millions of people in this world suffer from hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and disease? By giving up some of our creature comforts for Lent, we recall their suffering and are motivated to help alleviate it. Some people give the money they would have spent on whatever they’ve given up to charitable organizations that help the poor. Moreover, our disciplines of self-denial constitute sacrifices that we can offer up to God on behalf of those for whom we pray, for whatever reason, both the living and the dead.

 

A fourth reason for self-denial during Lent is to aid recollection. One of my personal disciplines is the traditional one of abstaining from meat on Fridays—not just during Lent but on all ordinary Fridays throughout the year. Now, I love fish, so eating fish on Fridays is no great penance for me. When I was young, certain adults in my life used to joke about the alleged hypocrisy of Catholics who would enjoy lobster bisque and seafood Newburg as if that counted as a penitential discipline. Years later, however, I read the Anglican spiritual writer Martin Thornton, who pointed out that taking the trouble to remember that it’s Friday and eat fish or a vegetarian dish is an act of devotion in itself: simply doing something different because it’s the day of the week on which our Lord died.

 

A fifth reason is the training that the Lenten disciplines afford us in self-control. Whenever we give something up, sooner or later, we’ll be tempted to break our rule. To take a trivial example, suppose we give up chocolate for Lent. I can virtually guarantee you that by the third week, there will come a moment when our entire being is consumed by a craving for a Hershey bar or a handful of M&Ms. Serious prayer will be necessary to muster the self-control to resist the temptation. But insofar as we develop the habit of resisting temptation in small and inconsequential things like chocolate, we build up the strength of character to resist the big temptations that inevitably come our way, like the temptation to tell a lie, break the law, or betray a friend for personal gain.

A sixth reason—and probably my favorite reason—is that the Lenten fast prepares us all the more to enjoy the Easter feast that follows. We are not Puritans, thank God. In my own case, having given up alcohol during Lent, few pleasures are so exquisite as that first glass of wine following the Great Vigil of Easter. And that is, of course, a metaphor for the entire pattern of the Christian life: we accept the sufferings and deprivations of this present world for the sake of the never-ending joys of the world to come.

 

So, those are just six reasons to practice self-denial during Lent. If we haven’t thought about what we’re going to give up, now is the time to do so. And if we want to take something on, like attending Friday Stations of the Cross and the lunchtime class following that, by all means, let’s do so. But please, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that we can keep a holy Lent only by taking something on, without giving anything up. Neither Lent nor the Christian life works that way, and we shortchange ourselves if we pretend otherwise.

LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

February 15, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Exodus 24:12-18

2 Peter 1:16-21

Matthew 17:1-9

 

One of the persistent questions in religion and philosophy is how we can attain true knowledge of God. Some thinkers argue that because God is infinite, we can never fully know God. For God’s reality infinitely surpasses anything that our finite minds can grasp.

 

From this premise, it follows that all our names and images for God are arbitrary symbols or metaphors that fall short of the divine reality they attempt to depict. Some conclude that no single religion can bring us any closer to God’s infinite mystery than any other—because all religious teachings are futile attempts to express the inexpressible. Others conclude that if we find the traditional language and images for God unhelpful, we’re free to modify them in ways better suited to our imaginations because, after all, they’re only metaphors. God can only be truly known, if at all, in the depths of mystical experience transcending all words and images.

 

While I recognize that many mystics do genuinely experience the divine, nonetheless, I believe the approach I’ve just described is fundamentally mistaken. It misses the point on a grand scale. C. S. Lewis once said that talking about the human search for God is a bit like talking about the mouse’s search for the cat. It gets things completely the wrong way round.

 

For true knowledge of the transcendent God can never come as our own achievement, but only when this God freely chooses to reveal himself to us. As the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner once put it, “By God alone can God be known.” And the fundamental premise of traditional monotheistic religion is that the unknown and unknowable God has indeed made Himself known to us in ways accommodated to our limited human capacities.

 

Today’s scripture readings illustrate how God reveals Himself. In the Old Testament reading, the holy God of Israel appears to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Then, in the Epistle and Gospel readings, He reveals Himself to the disciples Peter, James, and John on the Mount of the Transfiguration.

 

When we were children, we might have been taught the mnemonic “Stop, look, and listen.” Or perhaps: “Stop, look, listen, and learn.” We see that pattern in today’s readings. 

 

First: stop. God’s self-revelation follows a pause in people’s regular activities. The Israelites stop at the foot of Mount Sinai, and God bids Moses to come up on the mountain and wait. Similarly, Jesus interrupts his journey to Jerusalem to take Peter, James, and John up a high mountain apart—traditionally identified as Mount Tabor in southern Galilee. Likewise, we need to pause periodically to allow God to reveal his presence to us.

 

Stop, then look. In both cases, there follows a vision of God’s glory. A cloud covers Mount Sinai, and the glory of the Lord appears “like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.” Similarly, on Mount Tabor, Jesus is transfigured by the light of divine glory before the three disciples. His face shines like the sun; his garments become white as light; Moses and Elijah, two of the great figures from Israel’s sacred history, appear talking with him; and a bright cloud overshadows them all.

 

In both cases, the supernatural phenomena of cloud, light, and fire serve as visual signs of God’s presence, known in Hebrew as kabod, in Greek as doxa, and in English as glory. The point is that we begin to know God only when God chooses to reveal His presence in specific times and places. It might not happen as dramatically as in today’s readings, but I believe most of us can remember moments in our lives when we felt God’s presence and knew He was near. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that we’d be here in church this morning.

 

But God’s revelation of Himself doesn’t end with what we see. In the Bible, God never appears just to give people meaningful spiritual experiences. That’s not quite how it works. Instead, the consistent pattern is that God makes his presence known when he has something to say to us. So, after we stop and look, it’s time to listen.

 

On Mount Sinai, the fire and cloud serve as the prelude to God's gift of the Law, given through Moses to the children of Israel and inscribed on two stone tablets. Similarly, in the Gospel reading, the vision reaches its climax when the voice speaks from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” In both cases, God is effectively saying, “Now I’ve got your attention: Listen up!” The revelation of God’s glory prepares us to hear God’s Word. 

 

The challenge for us today is to come to church, say our prayers, and read our Bibles in the lively expectation not only that God has something to say, but also that we have something to learn from Him. And we need to stay alert to what God is teaching us not only in church and in our devotional lives, but also in the world around us, for God reveals himself there in countless, myriad ways. So, there we have it: stop, look, listen, and learn.

 

But there’s more. Even hearing and understanding God’s Word isn’t the end of the process. For the Israelites camped at Mount Sinai, the giving of the Law was just the beginning of their journey. The long, forty-year trek to the Promised Land still lay ahead. Similarly, for the disciples, the Lord’s Transfiguration wasn’t the end of their journey. They were still on the way to Jerusalem, where they would experience the Lord’s betrayal, arrest, trial, death, and resurrection. That’s why we observe the Transfiguration on the Last Sunday after Epiphany, as we prepare to begin our own liturgical journey through the Season of Lent toward Holy Week and Easter. 

 

So, to return to our original question: We come to know God best when we respond to Him in faith by following wherever He leads. It’s a dynamic process in which God always takes the initiative, but in which we also have our own clear roles to play. 

 

Stop, look, listen, and learn—then follow! And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably will, those initial moments of epiphany and transfiguration give us the courage we need to keep going by offering a foretaste of the glory that awaits us at our journey’s end.

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

February 8, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

(by Zoom)

 

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Psalm 112

I Corinthians 2:1-12

Matthew 5:13-20

 

The theme running through the readings, prayers, and hymns during this season after the Epiphany is the manifestation of God’s glory. In biblical language, the word Epiphany means showing forth, manifestation, or revelation. The English word "glory" translates the Greek doxa, meaning "splendor" or "brightness". 

 

And so, during this season after Epiphany, we consider a series of episodes in the Lord’s earthly life and ministry that manifest his glory as the incarnate Son of God: the magi led by a star to bring him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; the baptism in the River Jordan; changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana; his many miracles of healing and deliverance; his preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. A week from today, on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, all these epiphanies are summed up in the Transfiguration, where Jesus shines with resplendent light on the mountaintop in the presence of his disciples Peter, James, and John, along with cameo appearances by Moses and Elijah.

 

But that is to get ahead of ourselves. Today, the readings for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany ask us to consider our role, as members of the Church, in showing forth to the world the light of Christ’s glory.

 

In the Old Testament reading, the Prophet Isaiah calls the people to turn away from their hypocritical devotional practices, such as fasting while they oppress their workers and quarrel and fight among themselves. When they liberate the oppressed, share bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked, “then,” the prophet proclaims, “your light shall break forth like the dawn … The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” 

 

Similarly, in today’s psalm, the psalmist sings, “Light shines in the darkness for the upright; the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.” In other words, the divine light shining in the darkness shows us the way of mercy and compassion, reflecting God’s glory to the world.

 

But the Scriptures also make clear that the divine glory sometimes remains hidden. Thus, Saint Paul writes in today’s reading from First Corinthians, “we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Here, Paul is saying that those who crucified Jesus did so because they couldn’t see his glory. It remained veiled from their sight. But alongside the other apostles, Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel aims to reveal Christ’s light and glory to all who have the eyes to see it.

 

So, we have a contrast between, on one hand, the showing forth of God’s glory, and, on the other, its veiling or darkening. Writers on the Christian spiritual life often describe an alternation between periods of light and periods of darkness as we progress in the way of prayer. It can be unsettling to move from the light into the darkness, though it may be necessary for our continued growth in faith, hope, and love. And sometimes, just sometimes, this dark night of the soul is our only pathway into realms of light more glorious than we ever could imagine.

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus points to the contrast between light and darkness through the image of a lighted lamp, which can either be hidden under a basket, which obscures its light, or set on a stand, so that it gives light to all in the house. He then tells us that it’s our unique calling as his disciples, members of his Body, the Church, to manifest his glory to the world. “You are the light of the world … Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

 

In precisely the times when God seems to have gone into hiding, when the light of his glory seems veiled from sight so that the world lies in darkness, then our Christian vocation is to become that lamp set on a stand and giving light to all in the house—precisely by means of our good works, such as caring for the sick and dying, feeding the hungry, and sheltering the homeless. 

 

Whatever the Church’s crimes and sins have been down through the centuries, and there have been many, it’s also indisputable that from the beginning the Church has also been a chief purveyor of hospitals, clinics, schools, orphanages, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters—especially in places where no-one else was willing to care for society’s weakest and most vulnerable members. In all these ways, the Church has fulfilled its vocation, however imperfectly, of being the light of the world.

 

If that seems like a tall order, well, that’s because it is. The good news here, however, is that we’re not in this alone. The good works that will move people to give glory to our Father in heaven are those that we perform not in our own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

 

But most of all, Jesus’ exhortations in today’s Gospel take the form not of telling us to become something that we’re not, but rather of telling us to live more fully into the reality of who we already are. He doesn’t say, “Strive to become salt,” or “Strive to become light,” but rather, “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world…” The challenge is to realize our true identity by letting that light shine for all to see, rather than hiding it away. 

 

In this way, solely by God’s grace, we become ever more fully the people that God has created us to be. Our righteousness will exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (which, contrary to centuries of anti-Jewish preaching, is a very high bar indeed). Christ is the light of the world, and when his light fills our hearts, then those who see our good works will give glory to our Father in heaven. 

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

February 1, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Matthew 5:1-12

 

In my childhood in the late 1960s, the comic strip Peanuts popularized the slogan, “Happiness is.” Happiness is a warm blanket. Happiness is a fresh pile of autumn leaves. Happiness is a home run. 

 

The “Happiness is” craze spread to advertisements, T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers. The point was that you could fill in the blank in an almost infinite variety of ways. Happiness is a new car. Happiness is a perfect golf game. Happiness is a vacation in the Bahamas. And so forth.

 

Throughout history, observers of the human condition have remarked on our natural desire to be happy. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

 

All this begs the question of where authentic and lasting happiness is to be found. The Peanuts philosophy implied that we’re free to define our own individual subjective meanings of happiness. But the Church’s traditional understanding is that the true sources of human happiness are objective and given—more to be discovered or revealed than invented or constructed. 

 

And the classical Christian definition of happiness is nowhere summed up more succinctly than in the collection of sayings from Saint Matthew’s Gospel, that we’ve just heard in today’s Gospel, known as the Beatitudes. The word beatitude means blessing or happiness. An equally accurate, although not quite as elegant, translation of the word “Blessed” in today’s Gospel would be “happy”—as in “Happy are the poor in spirit … Happy are those who mourn … Happy are the meek,” and so forth. The Beatitudes give our Lord’s answer to the question of where true and lasting happiness is to be found.

 

Throughout the centuries, the Church has used easily memorized lists that summarize its teaching on the Christian life. The Ten Commandments give a basic set of dos and don’ts. The Seven Deadly Sins presents a list of destructive patterns of behavior that separate us from God and from one another. The Seven Gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah 11:2-3) and the Nine Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) describe God’s workings in the human soul. But the Church has always given the Beatitudes pride of place as the clearest possible statement of our life’s goal in the blessedness and happiness of God’s Kingdom.

The Gospel readings for today and for next Sunday are taken from the Sermon on the Mount. “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.”  Here, Matthew is portraying Jesus as a new Moses. Just as Moses led the children of Israel through the Red Sea into the wilderness, and then ascended Mount Sinai to deliver God’s Law to the people, so Jesus, having been baptized in the River Jordan (his own Red Sea), and having fasted forty days in the wilderness, now goes up another mountain to deliver his instruction, his teaching, his law.

 

A key point is that the people to whom Jesus is speaking are the very ones whom he’s describing in the beatitudes. His listeners are blessed because they’ve become—or are becoming, or will become—poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and so forth. The ninth beatitude makes this point clear when the Lord shifts from the third person to the second, declaring, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Blessed are you.

 

So, Jesus begins his most famous sermon by pronouncing a series of blessings upon his disciples. Each blessing has two parts: a present condition, and a future reward: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. In each case, the present condition describes a quality of those who follow Christ, and the future reward describes some aspect of the happiness that awaits us in God’s Kingdom.

 

The people whom our Lord pronounces blessed are the very opposite of those whom the world counts as blessed. We tend not to think of the poor in spirit or those who mourn as being particularly happy. The world’s wisdom is that nice guys finish last. But our Lord subverts this world’s values. The time is coming when present-day fortunes shall be reversed. The meek shall inherit the earth. The kingdom of heaven belongs to those suffering persecution and exile on this earth—and no humanly constructed walls or deportation orders will keep them out!

 

We don’t have time to look at each beatitude in detail. Entire books have been written on the Beatitudes; each one of them could easily be the subject of an entire sermon.

 

The key point, not to be overlooked, is that Jesus himself is the perfect fulfillment of everything he says here. He perfectly exemplifies what it is to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be pure in heart, to make peace, and to be persecuted, reviled, and spoken against for righteousness’ sake. First and foremost, then, the Beatitudes are a portrait of Christ.

 

Secondarily and derivatively, they’re a portrait of those who follow Christ. Only in Christ, only by becoming Christlike, can we make the Beatitudes our own and enter into their happiness. 

 

Some commentators point out that the wording is not, “If you want the kingdom of heaven, then be poor in spirit; if you want to be comforted, then mourn.” It doesn’t quite work that way. The point is that the more we follow Christ, the more he'll make us like him, gradually giving us these characteristics, so that we become heirs of the accompanying promises. They’re not so much a how-to manual as a promise of the divine reward held in store for those whom the world counts least blessed in this life.

 

What we can’t achieve on our own, our Lord can and will achieve in us. In our baptism, we’ve been made members of his Body, the Church, and every week we receive his very life in the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood. 

 

Provided that we persevere in making use of the means of grace that Our Lord has appointed for us in his Church, then we can rely on him to make us into the very people that he describes in the beatitudes: a people on the way to true and lasting happiness, heirs of a reward great in heaven.