Franciscan priest Father Richard Rohr wrote the following in his book Falling Upwards: A Spirituality Through the Two Halves of Life: “I have always wondered why people never want to put a stone monument of the Eight Beatitudes on the courthouse lawn,” like they do for the Ten Commandments. Perhaps that is because the Beatitudes are not as straight forward as the Ten Commandments. They are not as easy to understand. The Beatitudes were written as blessings, but how can it be a blessing to grieve or to be poor or to weep or to be hated? Then I think about how when we are thrown out of our comfort zone or when we are challenged or pushed or stretched, those are often times of great growth and enrichment in our lives. Perhaps the Beatitudes challenge those things that we assume to be the foundation of our culture and our values. Perhaps the Beattitudes challenge our safety and our security. Perhaps we don’t quite know what to make of the Beatitudes, even though we have heard them proclaimed in Scripture many times. Perhaps the wise elders that we have in society are the ones who exemplify the Beatitudes to us. They are not the rich reality stars or sport stars that we see on TV who relish the attention and accolades that are given to them, who assume that they can speak for others, who think they know better than the rest of us. The Beatitudes describe the humble, unassuming individuals who quietly go about living the values of the faith in their lives without lording it over others and without making a spectacle of themselves. They are not perfect nor do they claim to be perfect. They have their own sufferings, weaknesses, and troubles. But blessed are they.
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