Jesus teaches that certain attitudes and actions scorned by the world are actually most pleasing to God.
Nine times our blessed Lord refers to those whose own daily living is patterned after God’s Heart as makários (Matthew 5:3-12). For sure, the translation of the ancient Greek word into English is challenging. The New American Bible used in our Sunday worship renders it as “blessed”. It is crucial to appreciate that while God looks approval on their lives of those who seek to live by His Word, it is not the knowledge of God being pleased that makes them makários (“blessed”), but their personal disposition and resolve to live a life that conforms to God’s way.
Those who practice the beatitudes are imitators of God. Jesus gives them to us as the necessary minimum for daily living and not as lofty unattainable ideas. It is by living intentionally and consciously as God’s children that we rightly are heralded by Our Lord as makários (“blessed”).
Jesus’ instruction atop the mountain is crystal clear: the task is daring to make God’s Heart our interior disposition.
