Tenth Week of the Year

Monday of the Tenth Week (Matthew5:1-12) Who is Jesus speaking about when He proclaims these Beatitudes? He is telling us of Himself. Everything which Jesus places before us is simply He telling us who He is before the Father and inviting us to be the same. The Beatitudes are the image Jesus sees of Himself in a spiritual mirror and wishes to gather up all in the same reflection.
The beatitudes go beyond “things to do” they are the voice of Christ beckoning us to be who we are meant to be. They are the points of identification with Him. They touch not the peripheral of our being, as so many actions, but seep into the very core of our personality and in so doing slowly change us into the image of Christ.
The beatitudes are gifts. We can not be the poor in spirit the peacmakers , the clean of heart without the working of the Spirit of God within us. There are just too many rough edges in who we are...selfishness, pride, anger, envy...the captial sins. The Spirit comes and replaces pride with fear of the Lord, the Spirit works within us and takes anger and forms it into meekness, he takes the spiritual laziness which we experience and gives us the courage to overcome the difficulties...the beatitudes in short is the Father, through the Spirit forming us as clay in His hand into the image of His son.
For the serious minded patience is necessary. We want the portrait to be finished, at times we tire of carrying the baggage of a broken humanity and wish that the work of the Spirit would be finished. Discouragement may set in...just remember that God is far from finished with you yet and He is still working. We may not feel this working, there may even be some rather strong evidence that God is on a holiday. We must listen to the hand on the clay and not become impatient with God.

Tuesday of the Tenth Week (Matthew5:13-16) What is the place of the disciple in the world? Jesus uses two very common elements, salt and light to answer the question. Salt was used to both flavor and to preserve food. These two symbolic meanings are very important. A disciple preserves the meaning of life from the deadening mildew of cynicism, the salt of a living faith adds a youthful zest to life in which dreams are constantly unfolding, where there is always a reason to get out of bed and to look forward with almost child like anticipation to the day. Salt is the gift of being able to dream which the disciple gives to the world. Light doesn’t change anything, it just permits us to see. A strange room is dark. The unknown makes us a little frightened...we turn on the light and find the room is quite comfortable. A feeling of relief comes and we start enjoying the room. It was the same before and after the light went on. Fear was done away with because of the light.
The role of the disciples is to act as an agent of doing away with the fears which can capture, enslave and finally deaden the human spirit. Our faith sheds light on the sometimes fearsome darkness of human existence and in so doing if not doing away with the” feeling” of fear does knock down the walls of feared inspired inaction. To be a light is shine on the darkness which breeds this fear so that people may walk in the freedom of love, and not slavery of fear.

Wednesday of the Tenth Week (Matthew 5:17-19) Jesus is the person of fulfillment, the one who testifies to the faithfulness of God in keeping His promises. He ties up all the strands of history, the different paths become one when we look at Him. How closely He guarded His tradition. He could not fulfill if He was not implanted in the past. He could not stop there. He had to bring out from the past, the seed, the flower. Without the seed there is no flower at least in the plan of God, but at the same time Jesus had to fill in what was missing. All the designs on the balloon were not clear, they had to filled out. This was the task of Jesus to blow up the balloon of God’s plan so that all could see it. If anything is taken from it the plan becomes difficult to decipher

Thursday of the Tenth Week (Matthew 5:20-26) Holiness is not simply the avoidance of evil and following the law, it is a submission to the will of God. The physical act of murder is one which most people avoid doing, but the anger, resentment envy or jealously which prompt this are parts of our existence. It is these feelings which tongue imparts exceeds that of an ordinary weapon. It is the tongue which so often expresses the anger which brings about “murder”...to respect life means not only the physical life but the emotional, psychological and all those which go to make life what it is. Just imagine if all the hurtful words were done away with, how much more would people be able to live.

Friday of the Tenth Week (Matthew 5: 27-32) There is so much pornography, images bombard us throughout the day, TV, magazines, adds all seem to conspire to imprint on our minds images which can lead to sin. What we see enters our mind, and memory. They create needs within us, we want the things we see. To be careful of what we look at. Not everything is worth seeing. Not everything should enter of minds.

Saturday of the Tenth Week of the Year (Matthew 5:33-37) Truth is such a precious thing. It tells us what the real world is. That is the basic definition of truth: conformity to reality. There are so many forces in the world militating against truth. The so called “spin doctors” have as their job the very manipulation of truth to suit the best interests of some group. The simple is hidden under a barrage of words aimed at confusing. The real is attacked so fiercely that we stand the danger of living in an “unreal” world. The simplicity of truth will always stand as a challenge to the world.