(The Nationalist, 24 January 2005)
In the beatitudes, Jesus gives a covenant for living. The Ten Commandments are the moral covenant of the Old Testament, the beatitudes the moral covenant of the New. They challenge human standards, because God’s ways are not our ways.
We live by standards different from those of the beatitudes. Ireland’s creed often seems to be: more is better than less; faster is better than slower; bigger is better than smaller; richer is better than poorer; now is better than later; for now is better than for ever.
Our covenant might be: ‘I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t interfere with me’. That statement is OK as far as it goes, if people practise it. But it doesn’t go far enough. It leaves important things unsaid. It says too little about responsibilities, even though rights and responsibilities are reciprocal. And a statement that begins with the words, ‘I don’t care’, while it professes to respect freedom, may simply be about not caring. But if there isn’t caring, there isn’t community. And the last part of the statement – ‘with me’ – says nothing about a wider question: what about others? Is it only “me”? If everyone “does their own thing” then community, common values and social capital are undermined. That leads to a sense of drift and disintegration into individualism where each looks after themselves – mé féinism. There’s no future in that.
The beatitudes are different. Follow them in sequence. First: recognize your need of God. Second: don’t get into the power game. Third: don’t try to be self-sufficient. Fourth: be aware of your need of the good that is beyond your reach. Fifth: be merciful. Those who know they need mercy show mercy, because they have received it. Sixth: be pure of heart, that is, single-minded, with God as your priority. Seventh: let go the will to power, because the person is more important than the project. Eighth: bear with persecution for the sake of right; it is not those who inflict the most pain but those who can suffer it who retain their humanity.
The word “beatitude” comes from the word “blest” or “happy”. (Beatitudes = Be + attitudes.) They are about attitudes more than specific actions, about being more than doing, about God’s action more than ours, about giving a blessing more than imposing a demand; they are positive more than negative. They say, ‘If this is the kind of person you are, then you are blest’.
They are not set out as standards to be attained; they are unattainable. Salvation is a gift, not an achievement, a grace, not an accomplishment. They are God’s work is us, if we surrender to it. They are God’s project, not a task imposed for our fulfilment. And life is the school where God leads us to experience their truth.