Fr Paolo Consonni MCCJ
There was an atmosphere of joy among the people with whom I celebrated the Lunar Chinese New Year’s Eve. There was good food, drinks, jokes and songs to end a long tiring year. Just before midnight, I received a text message: a friend of mine, who has been battling cancer for the last couple of years, was admitted to hospital once again. His words were heartbreaking: “I have arrived at the end of my life, these are my last days, please pray for me. I am alone because I also have Covid. If you can, remember me from time to time these days.”
My heart sank. All of a sudden, I passed from celebrating life to contemplating death. Yet, after the first moments of confusion (“How can I continue to celebrate with this sad news in my heart?”) I experienced a sort of “awakening”. I realized that the celebration of the New Year is not only about food, or drinks, or superficial chit chatting. It’ s about celebrating life as a whole, as a mystery which also includes pain and death. It’s an understanding of life’s depth. “Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness,” said the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet in a poem he wrote while in prison to encourage his beloved ones to live everyday with purpose even in the midst of difficulties. Paradoxically, because of the news that my friend is in critical condition, the celebration of the New Year felt more real, and I was motivated to live more intensely during the coming new year.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes (Lk 6:17,20-26), which at first glance, look like paradoxical statements. Luke’s wording is even more direct than that of Matthew (Ch.5): “Blessed are you who are poor, who hunger now, you who weep now, when people hate you when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil.” In Luke’s account, Jesus is not speaking about wisdom in the abstract; his words are directly addressed to the disciples who are in the “now” of those painful situations.
Pain has the power either to close a person into his own bitterness or to open one’s existence to a new level of meaning. Through the Beatitudes, Jesus offers humanity the possibility to tap into the spiritual power of suffering by enlightening the darkness of the present with the light coming from God’s future. The Beatitudes invite us to look at our immediate situation of suffering from the point of view of the end, knowing that the epilog of history will be God’s redeeming love and justice. Those who do so, and trust God, are blessed indeed, as it is said elsewhere in the Gospels: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk 1:45). “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29).
Jesus is the “icon” of the Beatitudes. In Him we see what His words mean. In His life, and especially in His passion and death, we see how the seed of pain and suffering can germinate into the reality of the Kingdom and give fruits of life eternal. His Love for the Father and for us made this transformation possible. For our part, our trusting the power of Jesus’ love can save us from the dead-end of bitterness and despair in which pain can confine us. The key to transform suffering from being a curse to become the promise of eternal happiness is to bear them “on account of the Son of Man” (v.22). When we suffer for someone and with someone, our sufferings can become an experience of love.
No wonder that Luke adds four “woes” to the account of the Beatitudes: “woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you….” Pope Francis once said that attachment to riches, vanity, and pride are a kind of faulty “navigation system” that leads one to perdition (a life without love) even if apparently everything goes well, whereas the beatitudes are the steps that bring you forward in life even if everything seems to go wrong. (Morning Meditation of 6 June 2016).
Needless to say, these days I often pray for my friend. To think of him helps me to be more anchored to the present, more willing to entrust myself to God, more clear-minded about some little choices. A paradox, one which can save me from the “woes” of a self-sufficient, unloving life.
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