How blessed are you who are in need (“blessed are the poor” is another translation), the kingdom of God is yours. How blessed are you 25 who now go hungry, your hunger shall be satisfied. How blessed are you who are weeping now, you shall laugh. How Blessed are you when men hate you, when they outlaw you, and insult you, and ban your very name as infamous because of the Son of Man. On that day be glad and dance for joy, for assuredly you have a rich reward in heaven; in just the same way did their fathers treat the prophets. (Lk 6:21-23)
What these Beatitudes, these expressions of blessedness and happiness are revealing to us is a very different view of reality. The values, the preconceptions, the assumptions we have about life, what happiness consists in, what we want, what we should be looking for, all of these are thrown upside down and turned inside out by this new vision of reality that Jesus is revealing here. And St Luke has a strong commitment to social justice, as he does also to the role of women in society, this is very clear from his gospel in particular. And his passion for social justice also includes an anger at the inequalities existing in a cruel way, in an oppressive way, between the rich and the poor. So this is the gospel tone that speaks very directly to the modern contemplative Christian.
(The Art of Waiting by Laurence Freeman OSB)
