(Fourth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on January 29, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13; Psalm 146:6-10; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourth Sunday 2023]
For the last five years or so, I’ve been one of the editorial
writers for the Rhode Island Catholic, our diocesan newspaper. When I read the gospel in preparation for
this Mass, I thought of one of the first editorials I wrote back in 2018. Let me read that short editorial to you now:
The most popular class in the history of Yale University is being held this semester. Nearly one quarter of the school’s population is enrolled in it. The title of the course is “Psychology and the Good Life,” and its purpose is to teach these young people how to attain a measure of happiness in their lives. Similar courses have also been held at other major universities in recent years. One Yale student was quoted as saying that enrollment in these so-called “Happiness 101” classes is “a cry for help.”
That candid comment says a lot.
Yale was founded in 1701 to train Congregational ministers. The early graduates of Yale understood that the key to attaining a measure of happiness in this world (and perfect happiness in the next) is to be found in a personal relationship with the living God, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
Obviously that is not so clear to Yale students in 2018. In no small part, this is because they’re growing up in a culture which has, for all practical purposes, rejected God. We hope that these young men and women will rediscover their educational and academic roots, which are deeply spiritual and firmly grounded in faith.
If they do, they will come to recognize the truth of St. Augustine’s words: “Oh Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
I doubt
that much has changed at Yale since 2018—although I found out this week that
you can access this course online now (if you’re interested). You might want to check it out when you’re
“surfing the net” sometime.
Which brings us to the
Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are the keys
to true and lasting happiness—the true and lasting happiness that those Yale
students—and all of us—are looking for. Each beatitude you will notice begins with the word “Blessed.” That
word in the original Greek text of Matthew’s gospel is “makarios.” Makarios can be translated by the English
word “blessed” (as it is here), but it can also be translated by the English
word “Happy.” And in some versions of the Bible it is. In those versions, the
first beatitude reads, “Happy are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
And the others begin in the same way.
The Beatitudes are the attitudes that keep
us on the road to eternal life—which is why they have the power to bring us
happiness. But we need to be clear about
it: this is not the superficial kind of happiness that depends on circumstances
(which is the kind of happiness that Patriots’ fans and Packers’ fans don’t
have right now on Championship Sunday in the NFL!). That kind of happiness comes and goes,
depending on what’s going on in your life (and whether or not your favorite
football team won its last game!). The happiness that comes from embracing and
living the Beatitudes is different.
The happiness that comes from embracing and
living the Beatitudes is a happiness—a kind of peace, really—that dwells at the
very core of your being, which means that it can exist—and persist—even in the
midst of great sorrow.
Which is very good news.
So Jesus says, “Happy will you be if you are
poor in spirit.” In other words, happy
will you be if you know you need God and then put him first in your life,
because in doing that you will be on the road to heaven—even if from time to
time you experience a few bumps in the road here on earth.
Happy will you be when you mourn: when you
mourn, first of all, for your own personal sins—because your mourning will lead
you to repentance. And happy will you be
when you mourn in the midst of the “bumps in the road” you experience, because
those sufferings will bring you closer to Christ, and when you “offer them up”
(as the nuns used to tell us to do) you'll draw down many blessings into your
own life and into the lives of others.
Happy will you be if you are meek—in other
words, if you humbly accept God's will in your life with serenity and
confidence.
Happy will you be if your first goal in this
life is to be holy, and not rich or famous.
Happy will you be if you are merciful and
forgiving. Unforgiveness will not
destroy you, and God will be merciful to you in your own life.
Happy will you be if you are single-hearted
and if you serve God for the right reasons and not for selfish motives.
Happy will you be if you work to establish
the peace that Jesus came to this earth to give: peace in your family, peace in
your place of employment, peace wherever you happen to be.
Happy will you be even in the midst of
persecution, because you'll realize that you're sharing in the Cross of Christ,
which means that in heaven you'll share more fully in the fruits of the Lord's
resurrection!
This is Jesus’ prescription for
happiness. I wonder how many of these
ideas can be found in Yale’s Happiness 101 course. Hopefully at least a few of them are there in
some form—like the one about being merciful and the one about working for
peace. But all of them are
important. They’re important because
they make it clear that we should not base our happiness on the ever-changing
circumstances of our lives (like whether or not our favorite football team
wins).
But that’s a mistake that many people
make—which is illustrated, I think, in the polling data on this issue. In recent years, when Americans have been
polled, and asked whether or not they’re happy, amazingly only 31 to 35 percent
have answered in the affirmative. Almost
70 percent have said that they are unhappy at the present time. That makes a lot of sense to me because in my
humble estimation that’s about the percentage of the population that’s dealing
with difficult circumstances at any given time.
For example, I’ll bet if I took a survey today on how many of you are dealing
with difficult circumstances in your lives right now, at least 7 out of every
10 of you would raise your hands.
So obviously it’s a mistake to try to find
lasting happiness—lasting beatitude—in the things and in the circumstances of
this earthly life. If you do that,
you’ll be crying 7 out of every 10 days!
The happiness—the beatitude—that endures
comes from Jesus Christ, and is rooted in his words to us in today’s gospel.
And so we pray this morning: Lord, may
your Beatitudes become our attitudes, and may we inspire others to make your
Beatitudes their attitudes, so that we will all experience a measure of
beatitude here on this earth, and eternal beatitude someday with you in your
heavenly kingdom. Amen.
