9/13/2017- Wednesday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time - St John Chrysostom - Bishop and Doctor of the Church - Luke 6:20-26

       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 and are not as easy to understand as the Ten Commandments.  The Beatitudes are supposed to be 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 our comfort zone or when we are challenged or pushed or stretched, those are often the times of the greatest 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 they 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 to us again and again.  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 bring attention and accolades to themselves, who think that they speak for others and who think they have it all figured out.  The beatitudes describe the humble, unassuming individuals who quietly go about living the values of the faith in their lives, who do not try to hog the spotlight or bring attention to themselves.  They are not perfect.  They go through their own sufferings and troubles.  But blessed are they.  

The saints exemplify the beatitudes in many different ways. St John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople from the last half of the 4th century, is the saint we celebrate today.  He was in the second group of Early Church fathers who were named to be Doctors of the Church.  John was known for his great teaching and preaching abilities.  In fact, the name assigned to him - “Chrysostom” - means “golden mouthed.”  It was politics that brought him to the seat of Archbishop in Constantinople, but he was direct and honest in the way he preached to the people, not catering to the rich and influential of society.  He preached a Gospel that reached out to the poor in justice and integrity.  In fact, he once said: “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the Church door, you will not find him in the chalice.”  His honesty and his candor finally caught up to him when he was sent into exile by the Emperor where he died in 407.  

     John Chrysistom started his life as a monk, yet his gifts of preaching and teaching, as well as his declining health, brought him to serve the Church as a Bishop.  He is remembered today more than 1,600 years after his death as one of the patriarchs of the Early Church.  St John Chrysostom, we unite our prayers to yours.