This Sunday\u2019s Gospel reading is the Beatitudes. These are very familiar to a lot of people as God\u2019s promise of blessing. Some of them make quite a bit of sense in this regard as well. For example, it makes sense that God would reward the merciful and the peacemakers since they are doing good. But what about the other Beatitudes, God\u2019s promise of blessing for those who mourn or who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Why would God bless these people who have done nothing for Him? These Beatitudes make sense in the context of the first and second readings for this Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah adjures the people to \u201cseek righteousness, seek humility,\u201d seek the Lord. (Zeph 2:3) Why? Why are righteousness and humility connected? It is because it is God who must work through us. On our own, we are incapable of doing anything good. But when we are humble, when we recognize this truth of our own insufficiency, we allow God to give us the grace we need to carry out good works. Only by God\u2019s grace are good works possible. As St. Paul says in the second reading, \u201cGod is the source of your life in Christ Jesus.\u201d (1 Cor 1:30) When we are prideful, we think ourselves sufficient and leave no room for God. Thus, when we are humble, when we recognize our weakness and insufficiency, God blesses us by carrying out His works in and through us. But more than that, God\u2019s blessing itself is a gift. We cannot earn God\u2019s blessing as if it were an hourly wage. Rather, God offers us His blessing gratuitously for who He has made us; His blessing is His undeserved love poured out upon us. Our good actions carried out by His grace are our loving response to this overabundant love. As our Father, God loves us in our strength and in our weakness. Like any loving parent, He assures us that He will always be next to us, particularly in those times of weakness and difficulty, to give us the strength to keep on sharing His love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daniel Phillips<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 St. Joseph Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fot. Dil\/Unsplash.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-strona-glowna-najnowsze","category-strona-glowna-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n