On September 2, the Church remembers the group of 191 Catholics who were killed in the French Revolution for their faith on September 2 and 3, 1792. They are referred to as the September martyrs. After they refused to take oaths in support of the civil constitution of the clergy, an act condemned by the Vatican, which would place Catholic priests under the control of the state, these priests and religious brothers were imprisoned in a Carmelite convent. In the space of two days, they were massacred by revolutionary mobs. They were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926.
I think that often the Beatitudes do not get a lot of attention in Catholic faith, not the attention they deserve. And to be honest, they are not always easy to understand. The Beatitudes blessings, but we might wonder how it can be a blessing to grieve or to be poor or to weep or to be hated? Our secular world certainly does not see those things as blessings. When we are thrown out our comfort zone or when we are stretched, those are often the times of great growth and enrichment. Perhaps the Beatitudes challenge those things that we assume to be at the heart of our culture and our values. Perhaps they challenge our comfort zone. Perhaps we don’t know what to make of the Beatitudes no matter how many times we ponder their meaning. Blessed are those in our society who exemplify the values of the Beatitudes.
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