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Today’s Gospel: Matthew 5, 1-12a – All Saints’ Day

Today is All Saint’s Day, a day Catholics celebrate because we have a basic understanding that there is a powerful spiritual communion between those of us on earth and those who have died and are now in heaven.

Not all saints are known; many are hidden and do not receive any attention from the Church. The Gospel reading, the beatitudes, reminds us that it is precisely theses little people, the nameless, faceless poor, the anawim, who are especially blessed by God.

What Jesus says about those who are blessed probably surprised and shocked those who heard it 2,000 years ago, as much as it still shocks modern man.

Jesus teaches that God blesses those who are ignored by society, the outcasts who are willing to work for what God values rather than work for money, power or success.

Jesus teaches about the value of poverty of spirit, meekness, longing for God’s righteousness, showing mercy, relying on God, and working for peace.

Others may verbally or physically abuse and persecute Christians but Jesus promises comfort, inheritance, fulfillment, mercy, and an eternal relationship with God for those who live out the beatitudes. Those who weep now will laugh. Those who are hungry now will be filled. Those who are poor now will receive the riches of God’s inheritance.

Ponder:

How is God asking you to live out the beatitudes in your daily life?

Pray:

Lord, transform our set of values from those of the world which stresses power and success to those of the Gospel, the beatitudes.

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