Jan. 18, 2007

Beatitudes:
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

The first of the Beatitudes lays the foundation for the rest, just as the first of the Ten Commandments does for the rest of the Decalogue. In fact, there is a close relationship between the first commandment and the first Beatitude, which teaches us about our fundamental attitude and comportment before God. In the first commandment, God says: “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt not have other gods besides me.” In comparison, in the first Beatitude, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Living for God alone

The poor in spirit are those who are interiorly detached from the things of this world. In other words, they have “no other gods,” no false idols, nothing that their heart desires more than a loving communion with God. Moreover, this loving communion with God is not postponed until our afterlife in heaven. It begins here and now.

Notice how the first Beatitude, unlike most of the others, uses the present tense, not the future: “…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Whoever lives with this attitude of total, trusting dependence on God already begins to share in Christ’s kingdom. In other words, we become like Jesus because we become one with Him.

This is what St. Paul is getting at when he writes (Phil 2:5-7), “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied Himself…”

Being poor like Jesus

The Beatitudes are like snapshots of Jesus, taken from different angles. Each one accentuates a certain aspect of His inexhaustible beauty. The first one showcases His paradoxical poverty. In this regard, St. Paul writes (2 Cor 8:9), “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake He became poor although He was rich, so that by His poverty you might become rich.”

The poverty of Jesus does not negate His divine richness. Rather, it accentuates the richness of His love. Nonetheless, Jesus truly experienced our poverty. His self-emptying was not merely an external façade. It was a love unto death on the Cross. By His wounds, by His suffering and death on the Cross, by this total gift of Himself in love to the Father, He redeemed the world.

The first Beatitude, then, invites us to imitate Jesus by becoming poor with Him in order to love as He loves. This poverty seems like foolishness to those whose hearts are set on this world, but in fact it opens us to friendship with Christ.

Poverty’s opposite: Pride

St. Augustine, in a series of penetrating sermons on the Beatitudes, points out that the first one is aimed at strengthening our struggle against pride. Pride is the most dangerous and widespread of all sins. It is the sin of the fallen angels. It is the primary sin of Adam and Eve. It is the sin that says to God, “my will be done,” rather than saying as Jesus taught us, “Thy will be done.”

Many of the great spiritual guides in the Church’s history have warned of the danger to holiness posed by arrogance and pride. For example, when someone asked St. Bernard of Clairvaux what were the four cardinal virtues, he said, “Humility, humility, humility and humility.”

C. S. Lewis points out that men and women were created to adore and to obey. When we follow the example of the Magi and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we grow to full maturity in Christ. But our pride makes it hard for us to remember our status as creatures and as children of God. Notice how an unhealthy portion of our popular culture, intoxicated with pride, tempts us with the term “adult.” There are so-called “adult movies” and “adult magazines,” which claim to be especially suited for “mature audiences.” In fact, they are not adult or mature. Moreover, they are directly opposed to the strong warning of Christ (Mt 18:3-4), “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Whenever we act with pride, we shrink our inner self; we diminish our spiritual vision. As Peter Kreeft writes in his book “Back to Virtue” (p. 103): “Pride has ingrown eyeballs. Humility stares outward in self-forgetful ecstasy… Humility is the marriage bond of Heaven. Pride is the frigidity of Hell.”

The Joy of having nothing but God

Being poor in spirit leads to riches that this world cannot offer. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:39).

Spiritual poverty also leads to great inner strength because our energies are not sapped by competing allegiances. This makes no sense to those whose hearts are set on this world. Recall how Jesus warned (Lk 16:13), “No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Many of the saints have given eloquent witness by their lives and words to the wisdom of the first Beatitude. Perhaps none has done so more convincingly than St. Francis of Assisi. A Franciscan proverb expresses the meaning of spiritual poverty in this way: “The joy of poverty is not to have nothing in this world; the joy of poverty is to have nothing but God.”

Copyright 2007 The Catholic Sun.