Monday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time
Jesuit Churches: Saint James Berthieu, Priest and Martyr
This week, we open a new chapter in the weekday cycle of readings by turning to the Gospel according to Matthew, beginning with Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Today, we hear Jesus’s proclamation of the Beatitudes, a challenging set of characteristics (with accompanying blessings) that are best reflected—perfectly reflected, to be precise—in the person of Jesus himself. He is, above all others, the one who is poor in spirit, who mourns for the sins of the world, who is meek, who hungers and thirst for righteousness, who is meek and clean of heart, and who establishes the true peace the world cannot give. And for all of this, for his perfect righteousness, Jesus is persecuted, even to death.
Insofar as we live in Christ, insofar as we truly merit the name Christian, then we, too, will exhibit these Beatitudes in our lives. Such is the case with the great prophets like Elijah, whom we encounter in today’s first reading (and will continue to encounter later in the week); Elijah’s meekness and poverty of spirit made him perfectly obedient to the Lord, and his zeal for righteousness certainly led him to persecution. We could speak similarly of the martyrs like James (Jacques) Berthieu, a missionary in Madagascar who died for the faith.
Today, let us contemplate Jesus, the perfect image of the Beatitudes, as well as the many saints and holy ones who imitate him. And let us ask the Holy Spirit to make us more and more like our Lord, so that we might enter the kingdom of heaven.