The Way of Jesus

The WORD in other words (2022) by Fr Deva Savariyappan SVD – Myanmar

Wednesday 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Sometime before she died, someone asked St. Teresa of Calcutta, “Why do you spend so much energy on the poor, the hungry, and the weeping of Calcutta?” She responded, “Jesus says the poor are the blessed ones. I take him at his word. I treat them as the royalty of God’s kingdom because they are.”

Beatitudes are defined as “the blessings that proclaim the way of Jesus.” The way of Jesus seems contrary to the view held by the world where the ‘haves’ are seen as the blessed and the have-nots, the unblessed. To follow the way of Jesus, we have to take a complete turnaround.

Blessings come to those who follow his way. The greatest of all blessings is the inheritance of the kingdom of God. Jesus promises the kingdom of heaven to the poor, not necessarily those who are economically deprived. The poor are those who possess the right attitude. Someone, therefore, suggested that we think of beatitudes as “beautiful attitudes,” good and positive attitudes a disciple of Jesus must have. The attitude of humility is the foremost. The Scripture says, “…I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at my word” (Is 66:2).

The poor are those who humble themselves before God and acknowledge their need for God. We are poor when we wholeheartedly believe that we live, and move, and have our being in God alone. The poor are blessed in the sense that they entrust themselves and their needs to God and strive to remain faithful to him amidst their daily hardships, trials, and challenges. They teach the world the virtue of humility and dependence on God for everything.

This is the way of Jesus, and to accept his way, we have to undergo “a profound change in all of our attitudes, our value system, to really come to know Jesus, to hear his message, to imitate his way of life, to follow him. That will require profound conversion” (Bishop Thomas Gumbleton). We are invited to change our lives and begin to follow the way of Jesus!